kind, and while it was suggested on every side that women must have a voice in the management of the World's Fair in 1893, it remained for Susan B. Anthony to take the initiatory step which led to the creation of the Board of Lady Managers. She had invitations sent to women of official and social position to meet in the Riggs House parlors to consider this matter, in December, 1889. At this meeting Mrs. Conger, wife of Senator Omar D. Conger of Michigan, was made chairman, and Mrs. Harriet Taylor Upton, secretary. Miss Anthony was not present, fearing lest her well-known radical views might hinder the progress of affairs in the direction she wished them to take, but she restlessly walked about her room in the hotel anxiously awaiting the result.
Several meetings followed this and a committee was appointed to wait upon Congress, asking that the commission should consist of both men and women. Meanwhile the World's Fair Bill had been brought before the House and Miss Anthony soon saw that there would not be time for this committee to act. She therefore prepared petitions, sent them to women in official life and asked them to obtain signatures of official people.[1] On the strength of these petitions there was added to the bill, in March, 1890, an amendment providing for the appointment of women on the Board.
Miss Anthony's self-effacement was perhaps the wisest thing under the circumstances, for the Board, as appointed, being unconnected with woman suffrage, proved an immense source of education to the conservative women of the whole world—an education not needed by the radical women of our own ranks. I think the time has surely come when the truth of this history should be known to all.The election of officers resulted in Miss Anthony's receiving for president 139 out of 140 possible votes; Miss Shaw for vice-president-at-large, 130; Rachel Foster Avery for corresponding secretary, unanimous; Alice Stone Blackwell for recording secretary, 136; Harriet Taylor Upton for treasurer, unanimous.
During the convention the death of Miss Anna Ella Carroll was announced. A resolution of sympathy with her sister was adopted and a collection was taken up, as had been done for Miss
- ↑ Miss Anthony herself also went among prominent persons of her own acquaintance obtaining signatures. In a few days 111 names were secured of the wives and daughters of Judges of the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, Senators, Representatives, Army and Navy officers—as influential a list as the national capital could offer. These names may be found in the published minutes of this convention of 1894, p. 135. At the time Miss Anthony secured this petition no organization of women had considered the question and, if she had not been on the ground and taken immediate action, there is every reason to believe that the bill would have passed Congress without any provision for a board of women. For a further account qf this matter, and for a description of this great Congress of Women, see Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Chap. XII; also chapter on Illinois in this volume of the History.
