es, and they offered
this as a premium to every one who should send $5 toward the
contemplated headquarters.[87] Fifty-two women responded at once, and
with this $260 they ventured to rent fine, large parlors in a desirable
part of Philadelphia and fit them up in an attractive manner. By the
laws of Pennsylvania a married woman could not make a contract and Miss
Anthony, being the only femme sole, was obliged to assume the financial
responsibility. She and Mrs. Gage took charge of the headquarters May
25, and issued the following announcement:

The National Woman Suffrage Association has established its
Centennial headquarters in Philadelphia at No. 1431 Chestnut
street. The parlors, in charge of the officers of the association,
are devoted to the special work of the year, pertaining to the
centennial celebration and the political party conventions; also to
calls, receptions, etc. On the table a Centennial autograph book
receives the names of visitors....

On July 4th, while the men of this nation and the world are
rejoicing that "all men are free and equal" in the United States, a
declaration of rights for women will be issued from these
headquarters, and a protest against calling this Centennial a
celebration of the independence of the people, while one-half are
still political slaves. Let the women of the whole land, on that
day, in meetings, in parlors, in kitchens, wherever they may be,
unite with us in this declaration and protest; and immediately
thereafter send full reports for record in our centennial book,
that the world may see that the women of 1876 know and feel their
political degradation no less than did the men of 1776.

In commemoration of the twenty-eighth anniversary of the first
woman's rights convention, the National Suffrage Association will
hold in Philadelphia, July 19 and 20, of the present year, a grand
mass convention, in which eminent reformers from the new and the
old world will take part.

From these headquarters eloquent letters were written to the national
political conventions and sent by delegations of prominent women,
asking for a woman suffrage plank. The Democrats ignored the question
in their platform; the Republicans adopted the following: "The
Republican party recognizes with approval the substantial advance
recently made toward the establishment of equal rights for women by the
many i