"WOMEN… BEGAN TO ASK THEMSELVES WHY THOUSANDS OF IGNORANT MEN SHOULD BE MADE VOTERS, AND THEY, OR THEIR SEX, STILL KEPT IN BONDAGE": HARRIET ROBINSON'S MASSACHUSETTS IN THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT, 1883, IN ORIGINAL CLOTH

ROBINSON, Harriet H. Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement. A General, Political, Legal and Legislative History from 1774, to 1881. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1883. Octavo, original black- and gilt-stamped gold cloth, patterned endpapers. $1100.

Second edition of this well-regarded history of women's suffrage in Massachusetts, in original cloth.

"In 1881 Harriet Hanson Robinson became one of the founders of the Massachusetts chapter of the National Woman Suffrage Association, becoming the recording secretary with her daughter Hattie as President (to Harriet's dismay; she had hoped to fill the position). It was during this time that Robinson would write her acclaimed book Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement (1881), a largely personal account of the struggle for woman suffrage which largely ignored any of Lucy Stone's contributions. [Stone had failed to mention Robinson's name in her review of an 1878 suffrage event, even though Robinson had paid Stone's $200 travel expenses—approximately $5000 today.] Still holding a grudge, Harriet would leave the NWSA of Massachusetts when in 1890 it merged with the local AWSA branch to create the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association. Robinson entered the suffrage movement at a contentious time and was ultimately caught up in the politics of the time, vacillating between the two major organizations fighting for the vote. Though an efficient and passionate organizer and planner, Harriet left her mark on history with her pen. She wrote an influential history of the woman suffrage movement in Massachusetts, and called upon her early experiences in the mills of Lowell to show the determination of women to get what they are owed. For Robinson and her compatriots, the right to vote and equal citizenship were long overdue" (Lowell, National Park Service). The first edition was published in 1881; this second edition contains 13 pages not present in the first edition. With three items of ephemera laid in originally belonging to suffrage activist Harriet A. Plimpton of Boston: 1) a Massachusetts Suffrage Association membership ticket for 1898, signed by Plimpton; 2) a membership card for the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government, also signed by Plimpton with an autograph marginal notation ("It would be impossible for me to day any action work"); and 3) a four-page pamphlet entitled "The Boston Political Class, Thirteenth Season 1897-98."

Interior generally quite nice, light soiling to original cloth, gilt bright. A near-fine copy.