Editing Susan B. Anthony (section)

====''History of Woman Suffrage''====
[[File:Life Magazine 1913-02-20 ppmsca.02943.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Cover of ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazine in 1913. Titled "Ancient History", it shows an Anthony-like figure in classical dress leading a protest for women's rights]]
Anthony and Stanton initiated the project of writing a history of the women's suffrage movement in 1876. Anthony had for years saved letters, newspaper clippings, and other materials of historical value to the women's movement. In 1876, she moved into the Stanton household in New Jersey along with several trunks and boxes of these materials to begin working with Stanton on the ''[[History of Woman Suffrage]]''.<ref>Harper (1898–1908), Vol. 1, [https://archive.org/stream/lifeandworksusa00unkngoog#page/n553/mode/2up p. 480.]</ref>

Anthony hated this type of work. In her letters, she said the project "makes me feel growly all the time ... No warhorse ever panted for the rush of battle more than I for outside work. I love to make history but hate to write it."<ref>Harper (1898–1908), Vol. 2, [https://archive.org/stream/lifeandworksusa01harpgoog#page/n123/mode/2up p. 602.]</ref>
The work absorbed much of her time for several years although she continued to work on other women's suffrage activities. She acted as her own publisher, which presented several problems, including finding space for the inventory. She was forced to limit the number of books she was storing in the attic of her sister's house because the weight was threatening to collapse the structure.<ref>Harper (1898–1908), Vol. 3, [https://archive.org/stream/lifeandworksusa02harpgoog#page/n209/mode/2up p. 1277].</ref>

Originally envisioned as a modest publication that could be produced quickly,<ref>Harper (1898–1908), Vol. 1, footnote on [https://archive.org/details/lifeandworksusa00unkngoog/page/480/mode/2up?view=theater p. 481].</ref> the history evolved into a six-volume work of more than 5700 pages written over a period of 41 years. The first three volumes, which cover the movement up to 1885, were published between 1881 and 1886 and were produced by Stanton, Anthony and [[Matilda Joslyn Gage]]. Anthony handled the production details and the extensive correspondence with contributors. Anthony published Volume 4, which covers the period from 1883 to 1900, in 1902, after Stanton's death, with the help of [[Ida Husted Harper]], Anthony's designated biographer. The last two volumes, which bring the history up to 1920, were completed in 1922 by Harper after Anthony's death.

The ''History of Woman Suffrage'' preserves an enormous amount of material that might have been lost forever. Written by leaders of one wing of the divided women's movement (Lucy Stone, their main rival, refused to have anything to do with the project), it does not, however, give a balanced view of events where their rivals are concerned. It overstates the role of Anthony and Stanton, and it understates or ignores the roles of Stone and other activists who did not fit into the historical narrative that Anthony and Stanton developed. Because it was for years the main source of documentation about the suffrage movement, historians have had to uncover other sources to provide a more balanced view.<ref>Cullen-DuPont (2000) [https://books.google.com/books?id=oIro7MtiFuYC&pg=PA115 p. 115] ''History of Woman Suffrage''.</ref><ref>Tetrault (2014), [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZYZgAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA125 pp. 125–140]. Tetrault says she describes the Seneca Falls story as a "myth" not to indicate that it is false but in the technical sense of "a venerated and celebrated story used to give meaning to the world." See Tetrault (2014), [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZYZgAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 p. 5].</ref>