Mrs. Millicent
Garrett Fawcett, leader of the movement there for half a century. The
accounts of the gaining of woman suffrage in other countries come from
the highest authorities. Their contest was short compared to that in
the two oldest countries on the globe with a constitutional form of
government--the United States and Great Britain--and in the former it
began nearly twenty years earlier than in the latter. The effort of
women in the "greatest republic on earth" to obtain a voice in its
government began in 1848 and ended in complete victory in 1920. In
Great Britain it is not yet entirely accomplished, although in all her
colonies except South Africa women vote on the same terms as men.

Doubtless other histories of this world wide movement will be written
but at present the student will find himself largely confined to these
six volumes. This is especially true of the United States and many of
the documents of the earliest period would have been lost for all time
if they had not been preserved in the first three volumes. These also
contain much information which does not exist elsewhere regarding the
struggle of women for other rights besides that of the franchise. That
the materials were collected and cared for until they could be
utilized was due to Miss Susan B. Anthony's appreciation of their
value. The story of the trials and tribulations of preparing those
volumes during ten years is told in Volume II, page 612, and in the
Preface of Volume IV. They were written and edited principally by Miss
Anthony and Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and covered the history from
the beginning of the century to 1884. The writers expected when they
began in 1877 to bring out one small volume, perhaps only a large
pamphlet. When these three huge volumes were finished they still had
enough material for a fourth, which never was used.

Miss Anthony continued her habit of preserving the records and in
1900, when at the age of 80 she resigned the presidency of the
National American Woman Suffrage Association, she immediately
commenced preparations for another volume of the History. She called
to her assistance Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, who had recently finished
her Biography, and in her home in Rochester, N. Y., they spent the
next two years on the book, Mrs. Stanton, who was 85 years old, taking
the keenest interest in the work.[1] When the manuscript was completed
hundreds of pages had to be eliminated in order to bring it within