Subtitle: Volume II: Against an Aristocracy of Sex, 1866 to 1873
Edited by: Ann D. Gordon
Subject: Women's Studies/History
Cloth ISBN 0-8135-2318-4
Pages: 728 pp., 18 b&w illus
Description: The second volume in the six-volume series documenting the accomplishments of the two most famous American suffragists. Featured in Ken Burns's new documentary Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

"In this rich and important collection, Ann Gordon applies a scholar's integrity, a woman's sensitivity and a personal curiosity to the works that define these cherished foremothers. Thanks to her extraordinary work, we now have a full and accessible record for future readers and writers of our history."-Lynn Sherr, ABC News and author of Failure is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words

"This volume, masterfully edited by Ann D. Gordon, lays bare some of the most dramatic-and most painful-years in the struggle for woman rights. It also brings to vivid life two of the most important Americans of the nineteenth century. No one seriously interested in our common history should be without it."-Geoffrey C. Ward author of Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

"Meticulously edited, these are among the most significant surviving documents for our understanding of the changing world of the nineteenth century."-Anne Firor Scott, author of Natural Allies: Women's Associations in American History

"A captivating and enchanting book, beautifully edited, full of rich, brilliantly chosen selections."-Christine Stansell, Princeton University

"The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony is an extraordinary scholarly achievement. It has restored these unparalleled historical figures to their deserved national reputations. Now, all can appreciate the richness and profundity of their historical contributions."-Ellen Carol Dubois, UCLA

" . . . Remember we speak not for ourselves alone, but for all womankind, in poverty, ignorance and hopeless dependence, for the women of this oppressed race too, who, in slavery, have known a depth of misery and degradation that no man can ever appreciate."-Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Revolution, 28 January 1869

Against an Aristocracy of Sex, 1866-1873 is the second of six volumes of the Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. The entire collection documents the friendship and accomplishments of two of America's most important social and political reformers. Though neither Stanton nor Anthony lived to see passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, each of them devoted fifty-five years to the cause of women's suffrage.

The second volume picks up the story of Stanton and Anthony at the end of 1866, when they launched their drive to make universal suffrage the priority of Reconstruction. Through letters, speeches, articles, and diaries, this volume recounts their years as editor and publisher of the weekly paper the Revolution, their extensive travels, and their lobbying with Congress. It touches on the bitter division that occurred among suffragists over such controversial topics as marriage and divorce, and a national debate over the citizenship of women under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. By the summer of 1873, when this volume ends, Anthony stood convicted of the federal crime of illegal voting. An irate Stanton warned, "I felt afresh the mockery of this boasted chivalry of man towards woman."

Ann Gordon is an associate research professor at Rutgers University. She is the editor of this six-volume series.

Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission