e your picture
and that of Ernestine L. Rose if it takes the last drop in the
bucket."[4] Because of the unpopularity of the subject the large firms
would not consider the publication of this work, which it was now found
would fill two huge volumes, but arrangements were concluded finally
with Fowler & Wells. In their great anxiety to get their work before the
public while they yet lived to see it properly done, each chapter was
hurried to the publishers the moment it was completed and immediately
stereotyped and printed, which made revising, condensing and
re-arranging impossible.

The first volume was issued in May, 1881, a royal octavo of 900 pages,
bringing the record down to the beginning of the Civil War. It is not an
exaggeration to say that no history during the century had been more
favorably received by the press. The New York dailies contained from one
to two or more columns of most complimentary reviews. The National
Citizen and Ballot-Box gave up almost an entire edition to notices of
the History taken from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and other
papers, with not a disparaging criticism. Most of them echoed the
sentiment of the New York Sun: "We have long needed an authentic and
exhaustive account of the movement for the enfranchisement of women;"
and of the Chicago News: "The appearance of this book, long expected by
the friends, is not only an important literary occurrence, but it is a
remarkable event in the history of civilization." The personal
commendations from such men as President Andrew D. White, of Cornell
University, Hon. C. B. Waite, of Chicago, Rev. William Henry Channing,
and from scores of eminent women, would in themselves require several
chapters.

Nobody realized so well as the authors the imperfections of the work,
but when one considered that it had to be gathered piecemeal from old
letters, personal recollections, imperfect newspaper reports, mere
scraps of material which never had been put into shape as to time and
place, the result was remarkable. They were indeed correct in their
assertion that no one but the actual participants ever could have
described the early history of this movement to secure equal rights for
women. "We have furnished the bricks and mortar," they said, "for some
future architect to rear a beautiful edifice." These "bricks and mortar"
were supplied almost wholly by Miss Anthony, who, from the beginning,
had carefully preserved every letter, newspape