National American Woman Suffrage Association - Merger

Merger

In October 1887, at the annual AWSA convention, Stone proposed the formation of a committee to meet with a similar committee of NWSA delegates to discuss union. Stone stated that the differences between the two organizations "have since been largely removed by the adoption of common principles and methods." Anthony agreed to the meeting, and on December 21, 1887 a foursome consisting of Stone, Anthony, Alice Stone Blackwell and Rachel Foster joined in Boston to discuss a merger. Stone insisted that, in the spirit of good will and as a demonstration of neutrality between the previously antagonistic organizations, none of the three principals, Stone, Stanton or Anthony, would seek to serve as president. Anthony acceded to this condition. After the meeting, Stone wrote to Antoinette Brown Blackwell, longtime friend to both Stone and Anthony, that Anthony "so much wished to be President herself! To bring her to the top at last would be such a vindication, she cannot bear to forego it."

Stone and Anthony selected prominent women's rights activists to form the two committees: representing the NWSA would be May Wright Sewall, Rachel Foster, Clara Colby, Olympia Brown, Laura Johns and Harriet Shattuck; the AWSA group was to be Alice Stone Blackwell, William Dudley Foulke, Julia Ward Howe, Hannah Tracy Cutler, Mary Thomas, Margaret Campbell, and Anna Howard Shaw. Over the next two years, Alice Stone Blackwell shuttled between the AWSA and NWSA conventions to carry proposals and counter proposals between the two committees. Negotiations were necessarily drawn out over many months because each association was required to approve the merger at its annual meeting. In early 1888, Rachel Foster, the leader of the NWSA committee, helped Anthony and Stanton organize a 40-year celebration of the Seneca Falls Convention, with delegates invited from a number of countries. The arrival of women from around the globe gave Foster the opportunity to form the International Council of Women. That fall, she married to become Rachel Foster Avery.

In 1889, Anthony began campaigning for Stanton to become president of the merged group, though she had previously agreed otherwise. Anthony wrote to each woman in the NWSA membership to "be on hand at our next annual Washington convention to stand firm as a rock for perfect freedom in the union and for Mrs. Stanton as President of it." Stanton, however, was not pleased with the direction of the merger—she resisted the elimination of other issues in favor of the concentration of energy solely upon suffrage. Of Stone and Anthony, Stanton wrote: "Lucy and Susan alike see suffrage only. They do not see woman's religious and social bondage."

Finally, in February, 1890 the newly-unified National American Woman Suffrage Association held its first convention in Washington, D.C., combining the AWSA and NWSA memberships. Stone, 72 years old, was too weak with heart problems and respiratory illness to attend its first convention, but was unanimously elected chair of the executive committee. After Anthony asked the assembled delegates not to "vote for any human being but Mrs. Stanton", Stanton was elected president, and Anthony vice president. Both women understood that Stanton's presidency would be largely honorary; Stanton sailed for a two-year tour of England shortly after being elected. The role of acting president settled upon Anthony's shoulders.

Matilda Joslyn Gage, Olympia Brown and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were each alienated by the merger; together, their interests were too radical for the new NAWSA. Stanton turned toward work on The Woman's Bible with Gage, Brown and a Revising Committee of two dozen other women. With Stanton, the committee wished to correct the historical bias that men had introduced into the Bible. This effort led to conflict with the NAWSA; in 1896, Rachel Foster Avery and a slim majority of younger NAWSA members voted to distance the organization from The Woman's Bible and from Stanton. The NAWSA membership wished to focus on one single issue: the drive to gain for women the right to vote.