Eighty Years and More (1815-1897): Reminiscences of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Abolitionist, single-tax proponent, suffragette and author, Kentuckian

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First edition of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s autobiography, an “account of her life as one of the leading thinkers and activists of American feminism [and] an important source for the history of the woman’s rights movement in the nineteenth century.” (Ellen Carol DuBois, 1993 ed.)

This copy was inscribed in 1900 by Louisville suffragette Susan Look Avery (1817–1915) to Mary Letchworth Coonley Hollis (1869–1912), her granddaughter.  Avery co-founded the Kentucky Woman Suffrage Association and corresponded with Carrie Chapman Catt, Alice Stone Blackwell, Harriet Taylor Upton, and Susan B. Anthony.

Born in Massachusetts, Avery was educated at Utica Female Seminary in New York where she later taught. In 1844, she married Benjamin F. Avery, owner of the Avery Plow Works. Settled in Louisville, the Averys were ardent abolitionists. During the Civil War the Avery factory served as a hospital for wounded Union soldiers.

After her husband’s death, Avery became involved in other reform agendas: temperance, pacifism, the single tax, women’s clubs, and suffragism. In October of 1881, the American Woman Suffrage Association met in Louisville. Its leader, Lucy Stone, stayed at Avery’s home. At this convention, Avery helped found the Kentucky Woman Suffrage Association.The year after the establishment of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association in 1888, Avery organized its Louisville branch, the Louisville Equal Rights Association.

Price: $750.00