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The picture most people know of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the women鈥檚 suffrage movement in America is one painted in broad strokes and grand designs. Beyond the vision, grit, and heroism, however, the workaday details of how the movement was actually run鈥攖he backroom negotiations, convention planning, and grassroots organizing鈥攈ave been less understood.

That may soon change.

A recently discovered trove of letters, speeches, petitions, photographs, and pamphlets鈥攆orgotten for a century in attics and barns, and on porches鈥攈as opened a window onto the quotidian details of that historic movement. Originally owned by suffragist Isabella Beecher Hooker, the collection, acquired by the University late last year, includes dozens of letters from fellow movement leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Part of a notable family of reformers, Hooker was the daughter of the Reverend Lyman Beecher and a half-sister of social reformer and abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, educator Catharine Beecher, and novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe.

The documents were written and collected between 1869 and 1880. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an incredibly critical period in this movement,鈥� says Lori Birrell, a special collections librarian who organized the collection for the Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation.

With the 14th Amendment just passed, newly enshrining a host of citizenship rights, and the debate raging over granting black men the right to vote, the time was very contentious. The suffragists saw their chances of being included in the 15th Amendment quickly slipping away. Reading Anthony鈥檚 missives makes clear that she considered Hooker her confidant and friend.

Hooker, it appears, had become a central mediator among many strong personalities. At times, the leaders were fiercely atodds with each other over how best to proceed. The letters map the nuances of the internal politics of the movement.

鈥淪omething that I鈥檝e been really struck by is just how exhausting it must have been to try to keep going for this long,鈥� says Birrell. 鈥淵ou get to this period in the 1870s and they鈥檝e tried everything鈥攕tate, national, they tried voting and then got gotten arrested for it in 1872. They鈥檝e tried all of these things and they just kept at it. To read that year after year after year in these letters is simply amazing.鈥�

The story of their discovery sounds like something straight out of PBS鈥檚 Antiques Roadshow. George and Libbie Merrow were cleaning out their Bloomfield, Connecticut, home last year when they came across an open wooden crate among family detritus and some antiques.

It was 鈥渕ixed in with old magazines, old funny tools, all sorts of things,鈥� Libbie Merrow recalls. Inside the roughly two-by-one-and-a-half-foot box, they found stacks of letters, newspaper clippings, and photographs, all sprinkled liberally with mouse droppings. Dusty and probably undisturbed for decades, the small crate had survived two prior moves over a span of about 70 years, having been passed down through the Merrow family twice.

In 1895, George Merrow鈥檚 grandfather, also named George, purchased the former Beecher Hooker house at 34 Forest Street in Hartford, Connecticut. Evidently, the Hookers had left their personal papers behind in the attic when the big, elegant home they had built for themselves became too costly, forcing them to sell it. The new owners, just like their famous predecessors, stored their family鈥檚 personal and business papers in the attic.

After the elder Merrow died in 1943, the papers moved with his son Paul Gurley Merrow to his farm in Mansfield, Connecticut. When Paul died in 1973, his nephew鈥擫ibbie鈥檚 husband, George鈥攊nherited the property.

In 2010, the couple sold the last of the buildings鈥攖he big barn. As part of the deal, the new owner had given the Merrows five years to clean out its contents. Stuffed to the brim with old furniture, tools, two boats, wagons, farm equipment, books, and magazines, the barn was a hiding spot for the Beecher Hooker papers.

That is, until the five-year grace period was up and the family began to clean out in earnest. Having climbed through a broken window into a small side room of the barn in order to open the door that was stuck shut, they discovered a wooden crate with wedding invitations to the marriage of the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Hooker. Nothing clicked. Nevertheless, the Merrows decided to keep the box.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think that we attached anywhere near the significance to that collection at that time,鈥� says George Merrow. A family of 鈥減ack rats鈥� is how Libbie Merrow describes the habit of 鈥渘ever throwing away anything that could be kept.鈥�

The Merrows took the musty crate with them to their home in Bloomfield, and left it for a year under a tarp on their large porch. When the couple got ready to sell their own home in 2016, they finally brought it into their kitchen for closer inspection. At that point, they had reached out to rare book and manuscript dealers Bob Seymour and Adrienne Horowitz Kitts, with whom they had worked in the past. The dealers painstakingly dusted, researched, and organized the jumbled contents over the span of months.

鈥淚 can鈥檛 tell you how thrilling it was to hold a letter that she had held more than a hundred years before,鈥� recalls rare book dealer Kitts when she discovered the first letter signed 鈥淪usan B. Anthony.鈥�

Libbie Merrow says she was pleased when Kitts told her what she had found. 鈥淭hey called up and said: 鈥榃e have pretty exciting papers here.鈥� As they went along they realized it was more and more exciting.鈥�

Adds husband Paul: 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 jump up and down exactly, but it was pretty exciting to hear what they felt the value was.鈥�

Once they finished cataloging, the dealers offered the trove on behalf of their clients for sale to Rochester. They chose Rochester because of the University鈥檚 existing holdings of Isabella Beecher Hooker and John Hooker papers, as well its Susan B. Anthony collection, one of the largest in the country.

The University, located in a region that was a hotbed of 19th-century social reform movements, also boasts papers of what Birrell calls the鈥渟upporting cast鈥濃�攍ocal activists Isaac and Amy Post, the Porter family, and other Rochesterians who were part of micro-movements with national implications.

The purchase was made with funds from Friends of the 人妻少妇专区 Libraries, a gift from retired manuscripts librarian and former assistant director of Rare Books and Special Collections Mary Huth, and a substantial anonymous gift, augmenting the University鈥檚 existing special collections acquisition fund.

鈥淎cquisitions like this are so important,鈥� says University Vice Provost Mary Ann Mavrinac, who is also the Andrew H. and Janet Dayton Neilly Dean of Libraries. 鈥淭hey add to our already rich resources, draw researchers and provide the basis for teaching鈥攚hich students love as they are working with original manuscripts on topics that speak to them. It鈥檚 exciting to hear the voices of these intellectual women come alive.鈥�

However, unlike other Anthony letters already in the University鈥檚 holdings, the new collection is thoroughly political and rarely personal. The letters show the methods and machinations of (mostly) women bent on changing the status quo that heretofore had relegated them to steerage.

At times, they betray Anthony鈥檚 frustration over chronic funding problems, and with women who left the movement for marriage and children. At their rawest, they show her indignation at the general apathy for the cause of equality.

In a letter to Hooker, dated March 19, 1873, Anthony鈥檚 impatience is palpable. She tells Hooker of her planning for the suffragists鈥� regular May meeting in New York City. Writing stream of consciousness to her trusted friend, Anthony admonishes Hooker to show up:

鈥淏ut you must not fail to be there鈥攆or we must make the Welkin ring anew with our War cry for freedom鈥�& our constitutional right to protect it by the ballot鈥擨 hear nothing from nobody鈥擜ll I can do is to run & jump to accomplish the half I see waiting before me鈥斺��

Later in the letter, Anthony mentions her impending trial for voting illegally the previous November in Rochester鈥攚here she is now speaking to potential jurors.

鈥淚 am now fairly into my Monroe County canvass鈥攕peaking every night鈥擸ou [know] a Criminal cannot plead his own case before the Jury鈥攕o I am bound to plead it before the whole of Monroe County鈥攆rom which the twelve must be selected鈥斺��

Anthony had been so convincing in her public addresses that the prosecutor eventually decided to move the trial to Canandaigua, in neighboring Ontario County. Without delay, Anthony set out on a lecture tour through that county, too.

Nonetheless, she was found guilty and ordered to pay $100, plus the costs of the prosecution.

While Anthony never paid the fine, the publicity from the trial proved a windfall to the cause. The frequent laments of the suffragists for what was lost by excluding women from public discourse began to sound a newly auspicious note.

鈥淣ow wouldn鈥檛 it be splendid for us to be free & equal citizens鈥攚ith the power of the ballot to back our hearts, heads & hands鈥攁nd we could just go into all the movements to better the conditions of the poor, the insane, the criminal鈥擶ouldn鈥檛 we be happy mortals thus to work with power too,鈥� Anthony mused to Hooker in a letter dated April 9, 1874. 鈥淚 can hardly wait鈥擳he good fates though are working together to bring us into this freedom & that rapidly.鈥�

Alas, not rapidly enough. Anthony died 14 years before Congress ratified the 19th Amendment in 1920, granting women the national right to vote. Her home state of New York had done so three years earlier.

Ann Gordon, a research professor emerita of history at Rutgers University, traveled to Rochester this winter to see the materials. 鈥淚t鈥檚 quite an amazing collection,鈥� says the noted suffrage movement expert and author of the six-volume compilation Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (Rutgers University Press).

The collection, she says, will change prevailing scholarship on Beecher Hooker and her brief tenure in leading the suffrage movement.

鈥淭hose few years nobody has paid attention to,鈥� Gordon says. 鈥淲e may be able to see what she tried, what techniques she used, what her arguments were, what obstacles she ran into鈥攁ll those ways that one looks at a political movement and that just aren鈥檛 in the story at the moment鈥攁nd I think we can put them in now. Her work is better documented in this collection, and it will change how we assess her importance.鈥�

Jessica Lacher-Feldman, the Joseph N. Lambert and Harold B. Schleifer Director of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation, says the collection is available for research on the website of University Libraries. Later this year, the materials will be digitized.

鈥淲hile archivists and special collections librarians are entrusted to preserve historical materials for the future, we pride ourselves on providing full access to our holdings,鈥� Lacher-Feldman says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an incredible honor to preserve and to make available these important historical materials to scholars, students, alums, and community members.鈥�

Gordon says such collections are rare.

鈥淎n individual letter may surface at auction or at a dealer, but we don鈥檛 often find a collection of this size. It鈥檚 a real treat.鈥�

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