PBA Galleries

Collected by California suffrage activist, Mary E. Donnelly, 90 pages, 3” x 4.5,” soft dark-brown morocco, gilt-edged pages, with autograph sentiments signed by several prominent suffragettes. Includes: Susan B. Anthony, Anna H. Shaw (National American Woman Suffrage Ass. President), Emma B. Sweet, Carrie Chapman Catt, John Swett (Superintendent of Public Instruction in the Cal. School sytem),Elizabeth Sargent M.D., and others. Susan B. Anthony writes: “Dear Miss Donnelly, with the love and admiration of her older sister & coworker in the California Woman Suffrage amendment campaign of 1896, Susan B. Anthony…San Francisco, Cal. – Nov. 2, 1986.” Carrie Chapman Catt writes: “If sweetness and goodness and earnestness and hard work are the requisites of success in our cause, then dear Miss Donnelly will be a voter ere long. Carrie Chapman Catt.”

An extraordinary record from what was to be one of the last and most important referenda of the populist era on woman suffrage in California. Out of all the counties in California, two killed the suffrage attempt of 1896 – San Francisco and Alameda.