in a
history of a movement for many years unnoticed or greatly
misrepresented in the public press, and its records usually not
considered of sufficient value to be officially preserved. None,
however, has required such supreme courage and faithfulness from its
adherents and this fact makes all the more obligatory the preserving
of their names and deeds.

To collect the needful information from fifty States and Territories
and arrange it for publication has required the careful and constant
work of over two years. It has been necessary many times to appeal to
public officials, who have been most obliging, but the main dependence
has been on the women of various localities who are connected with the
suffrage associations. These women have spent weeks of time and labor,
writing letters, visiting libraries, examining records, and often
leaving their homes and going to the State capital to search the
archives. All this has been done without financial compensation, and
it is largely through their assistance that the editors have been able
to prepare this volume. To give an idea of the exacting work required
it may be stated that to obtain authentic data on one particular point
the writer of the Kansas chapter sent 198 letters to 178 city clerks.
The meager record of Florida necessitated about thirty letters of
inquiry. Several thousand were sent out by the editors of the History,
while the number exchanged within the various States is beyond
computation.

The demand is widespread that the information which this book contains
should be put into accessible shape. Miss Anthony herself and the
suffrage headquarters in New York are flooded with inquiries for
statistics as to the gains which have been made, the laws for women,
the present status of the question and arguments that can be used in
the debates which are now of frequent occurrence in Legislatures,
universities, schools and clubs in all parts of the country.
Practically everything that can be desired on these points will be
found herein. The first twenty-two chapters contain the whole argument
in favor of granting the franchise to women, as every phase of the
question is touched and every objection considered by the ablest of
speakers. It has been a special object to present here in compact form
the reasons on which is based the claim for woman suffrage. In Chapter
XXIV and those following are included the laws pertaining to women,
their educational and industrial op