Collection consists primarily of letters gathered by Ida Husted Harper relating to the women's suffrage movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of which are to Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; also present are letters to Harper.

Ida Husted Harper (1851-1931), a journalist, writer, and suffragist, was born in Fairfield, Indiana. In 1871, she married Thomas Winans Harper, who she divorced in 1890. Harper began her journalism career in Indiana, writing for the Terre Haute Saturday Evening Mail, including a column on women's issues. She met the suffragist Susan B. Anthony in 1878 and was elected secretary of the Indiana chapter of National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in 1887. In 1890, Harper served briefly as the managing editor of the Terre Haute Daily News; she also wrote columns and articles for the Indianapolis News and the Locomotive Firemen's Magazine, a labor publication. In the 1890s, Harper moved to California, enrolled at Stanford University, and became more active in the cause of women's suffrage and in the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), which formed in 1890. In 1897, she was hired by Susan B. Anthony to write her biography, which was published in three volumes in 1898 and 1908. Harper also assisted Anthony with the fourth volume of the History of Woman Suffrage (1902) and edited the fifth and sixth volumes of the series (1922). In 1899, she began traveling regularly to Europe to attend meetings of the International Council on Women and the International Suffrage Alliance. Harper also wrote women's columns for the New York Sunday Sun and Harper's Bazaar and contributed to numerous other publications. In 1910, she began serving as chair of NAWSA's National Press Bureau. She was named head of the Leslie Bureau of Suffrage Education in Washington, D.C. in 1916 and was later involved with the American Association of University Women. Ida Husted Harper died in New York City at age 80.

5 Linear Feet (4 boxes)

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