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47 Letterto susan b.anthony: a Life of activism January 9, 1877 London, England Ernestine L. Rose wrote from London, a few days before her sixty-seventh birthday, in reply to a request from Susan B. Anthony for a summary of her participation in the women’s rights movement in the United States. Anthony’s request apparently came as part of her research for what was to become the six-volume History of Woman Suffrage (1881–1888), which she coauthored with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslin Gage. Despite Rose’s disclaimer that she lacked documentation, she manages to list, from memory, the many towns and states in which she had lectured. She also mentions that between 1850 and 1869 she had spoken at every national, and numerous state and local, women’s rights convention; and had addressed the U.S. Congress and many state legislatures, including eleven appearances before the New York State Legislature often in the course of bringing petitions and advocating for passage of Married Women’s Property Laws. Rose’s letter is published in the first volume of the History of Woman Suffrage. The editors supplemented Rose’s words with some appreciative commentary of their own, and added another short biography of Rose by L. E. Barnard. n London, January 9, 1877 My Dear Miss Anthony: — Sincerely do I thank you for your kind letter. Believe me it would give me great pleasure to comply with your request, to tell you all about myself and my past labors; but I suffer so much from neuralgia in my head and general debility, that I could not undertake the task, especially as I have nothing to refer to. I have never spoken from notes; and as I did not intend to publish anything about myself, for I had no other ambition except to work for the cause of humanity, irrespective of sex, sect, country, or color, and did not expect that a Susan B. Anthony would wish to do it for me, I made no memorandum of places, dates or names; and thirty or forty years ago, the press was not sufficiently educated in the rights of women, even to notice, much less to report speeches as it does now; and therefore I have not anything to assist me or you. All that I can tell you is, that I used my humble powers to the uttermost , and raised my voice in behalf of Human Rights in general, and the elevation and Rights of Woman in particular, nearly all my life. And so little have I spared myself, or studied my comfort in summer or winter, 48 ernestIne l.rose rain or shine, day or night, when I had an opportunity to work for the cause to which I had devoted myself, that I can hardly wonder at my present state of health. Yet in spite of hardships, for it was not as easy to travel at that time as now, and the expense, as I never made a charge or took up a collection, I look back to that time when a stranger and alone, I went from place to place, in high-ways and by-ways, did the work and paid my bills with great pleasure and satisfaction; for the cause gained ground and in spite of my heresies I had always good audiences, attentive listeners, and was well received wherever I went. But I can mention from memory the chief places where I have spoken . In the winter of 1836 and ’37 I spoke in New York and for some years after I lectured in almost every city in the State; Hudson and Poughkeepsie, Albany, Schenectady, Saratoga, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Elmira, and other places. In New Jersey, in Newark and Burlington ; in 1837, in Philadelphia, Bristol, Chester, Pittsburg, and other places in Pennsylvania, and at Wilmington in Delaware; in 1842, in Boston, Charlestown, Beverly, Florence, Springfield, and other points in Massachusetts and in Hartford, Connecticut; in 1844 in Cincinnati, Dayton, Zanesville, Springfield, Cleveland, Toledo, and several settlements in the backwoods of Ohio and also in Richmond, Indiana; in 1845 and ’46, I lectured three times in the Legislative Hall in Detroit, and at Ann Arbor and other places in Michigan; and in 1847 and ‘48, I spoke in Charleston and Columbia in South Carolina. In 1850, I attended the first National Woman’s Rights Convention in Worcester, and nearly all the National and State Conventions since until I went to Europe in 1869. Returning...

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