"In the Stacks"

How we rediscovered and recognized the significance of the Elizabeth Smith Miller scrapbooks.

By Jacqueline Coleburn '79
Rare Book Librarian, Library of Congress

"Every club should have a scrapbook," Anne Fitzhugh Miller, president of the Geneva Political Equality Club (GPEC), told the New York State Woman Suffrage Convention in Geneva in 1907.

Ninety years later, I couldn t agree more! The eight scrapbooks compiled by Anne and her mother, Elizabeth Smith Miller, covering the activities of the GPEC and the suffrage movement from 1897 to 1911, are informative and highly personal.

As a William Smith freshman in 1975, I lived in Miller House, named for Elizabeth Smith Miller. I had a vague understanding of and appreciation for the Millers and their efforts for political equality for women. During four years at the College, each year's Founder's Day events, and specifically Carol George's "Women in American History" class, my appreciation for the history of women and Geneva'splace in the history of the suffrage movement grew.

Today, as a rare book librarian at the Library of Congress, I have many opportunities to investigate and enjoy its vast collections. You can imagine how thrilled I was to discover recently that, as part of its National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, the Library held the Millers scrapbook record of their activities in the movement. (The collection had been given to the Library in 1938, but, as with many of the Library's special collections, there was only manual, on-site access until the 1990s. Thanks to the monumental arrearage-reduction effort, bibliographic records for the scrapbooks and other treasures including Susan B. Anthony's library are now available on line.)

The eight scrapbooks, which inform so much of the preceding article, not only track the progress of the movement, but offer a perspective of what was important to these two women who were so active in the cause of votes for women. They include a broadside demanding, "Woman suffrage in Geneva!," dated 1897, and Anne's handwritten notes for lectures on suffrage, and testimony before legislatures.

There is correspondence to and from statesmen and politicians, including President Theodore Roosevelt. Anne challenged the president in February 1909 for saying, "Personally I believe in woman's suffrage, bt I am not an enthusiastic advocate of it because I do not regard it as a very important matter."

The Millers also included artifacts from the movement, such as the ribbons and buttons they wore at conventions. In the scrapbook covering the late 1890s I found a prayer transcribed under the letterhead, "President's Office, Hobart College," asking to "hasten the time when male and female . . . shall be coequal." Seeing artifacts such as that suggested to me the Colleges might share an interest in the scrapbooks. I contacted them. This article in The Pulteney St. Survey is one result.

This article originally appeared in the Summer '97 issue of The Pulteney St. Survey. To request a copy, e-mail Dana Cooke at cooke@hws.edu.

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