The Amy C. Ransome collection contains material related to women's suffrage from 1884-1949. There is a large amount of correspondence and printed material connected with Sarah Ware Whitney, editor of the Women's Standard in Waterloo, Iowa. In addition, there is correspondence and organizational material from the Iowa Equal Suffrage Association and other state organizations; equal rights and temperance pamphlets, ca. 1890-1900; World Woman's Party correspondence and clippings, ca. 1940; and National Suffrage Bulletins, 1897-1901.

Amy Cordoba Rock Ransome (1872-1942) was a well-known suffragist and leader in the National Woman's Party who spent much of her life promoting equal rights for women. Ransome was born in Cordoba, Argentina (the inspiration for her middle name) where her father, Miles Rock, was working at the newly-established Argentine National Observatory. She spent most of her childhood in Washington, D.C. where her parents were well established members of that city's scientific community. They encouraged their two children, ACR (as she was known to family and friends) and her brother Alfred Mayer Rock, to pursue educational opportunities and political activism. ACR attended Bryn Mawr (BA '93), the University of Heidelberg (Chemistry MA '96), and the University of Berlin ('96-7, Ph.D. studies in Chemistry cut short by international friction with Germany over the Spanish-American War). When Ransome returned to Washington, she left her chemistry career behind and shifted her studies to geology. While working as an assistant at the USGS in D.C., she met her future husband, Frederick Leslie Ransome (FLR to family and friends), whom she married in 1899. FLR was a well-known American geologist who helped found the journal Economic Geology in 1905 and was associate editor of the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences. Together, they had four children, Janet, Susan, Violet, and Alfred. Both before and after her marriage, Ransome was actively involved in politics and lobbying for progressive women's causes. When she married, she left civil service to raise her family, but she continued her political activities.

3.38 Linear feet 7 boxes

The collection contains published articles; researchers are reminded of the copyright restrictions imposed by publishers on reusing their articles and parts of books. It is the responsibility of researchers to acquire permission from publishers when reusing such materials. The copyright to unpublished materials belongs to the heirs of the writers. Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder.

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