Abigail Scott Duniway

“ As I had been blessed with a more than usually harmonious marriage, and enjoyed the natural ability to express my ideas on paper in a somewhat marked degree, it devolved upon me to voice the opinions of many women who were too timid, or were not allowed by their husbands to speak for themselves. ”

“ It is needless to add that my philanthropic friend lost his money and became a forceful advocate of equal rights for women.
Another and later case was that of a woman in another county, whom I had long supplied with millinery and notions, on sixty days' credit, to support a little shop, in which she managed to earn an honorable livelihood for her growing family. Her husband, a well-meaning but irresponsible fellow, noted chiefly for poverty and children, was only one of the "unlucky" heads of families everybody knows, whose wife must make the living—if there is any. ”

“ Public sentiment now encourages the employment of women as court stenographers, as clerks in both houses of the Legislature, on Legislative committees, and in various other subordinate offices. They may serve as notaries public, and no profession or occupation is legally forbidden to them. All the large non-sectarian institutions of learning are open alike to both sexes.
If either the husband or wife die intestate and there are no descendants living, all of the real and personal property goes to the survivor. ”

“ From Albany, Oregon, Miss Anthony took stage for Sacramento, lecturing often en route and everywhere making converts.
A quarter of a century later she returned to Portland, crowned with age and riches and fame. She was the bright particular star at the first Oregon congress of women in 1896, and was the honored guest of all sorts of public and private functions and organizations of women. Society opened its doors to her and her co-workers, and open-handed hospitality greeted them at every turn. ”

“ If there are children living, the widow receives one-half of the husband's real estate and one-half of his personal property; but the widower takes a life interest in all of the wife's real estate, whether there are children or not, and all of the personal property absolutely, if there are no living descendants—half if there be any. ”

“ The women of Oregon are hopefully awaiting a third effort to secure their own full and complete enfranchisement, for which their friends, the best and foremost men of the state, are preparing to submit a vote at the June election of 1906. ”

“ Women were relatively scarce, especially on the ranches; and bronzed and rugged bachelors, from far and near, sought frequent relief from their o"vn household labors by mobilizing themselves at the border cabins, where mothers of young children wrestled, as best they could, with the crude surroundings of their scant environments, to provide for the daily needs of their own rapidly increasing families and the added requirements of a free hotel. ”

“ This law enabled women needing its provisions to register themselves as "sole traders" in the office of their county clerk, thus protecting their personal earnings, outside of the mutual living expenses of the family, from dissipation by the husband's creditors.
A law enabling women to vote for school trustees and for funds and appropriations for public school purposes, "if they have property in the district on which they or their husbands pay a tax," was enacted in 1878. ”

“ For the foregoing reasons, and many others for which the limits of this chapter have no space, I was at last aroused to the necessity of demanding the ballot for woman; and, although at this writing the final victory remains to be won, so many concessions have been made, all trending in one direction, toward the objective goal, that it would be indeed an obtuse man or woman who would doubt our ultimate and complete success. ”

“ With the border woman's mental vision continually expanding under the inspirations afforded by the virgin opportunities with which the new country was teeming, she found herself handicapped by a chronic condition of financial nonentity, to which no amount of laudation by the said bachelors could reconcile her reasoning faculties. ”

“ From Walla Walla we journeyed by river and stage coach to Olympia, where we addressed a joint session of the territorial legislature. Miss Anthony remarking at the beginning of her speech that, although women had before addressed similar assemblies, this was the first time to her knowledge that they had done so by official invitation. ”

“ Many kept up their knowledge of reading and writing so well indeed that they took notes and also made copies of the treaties and the speeches at this council at Walla Walla eight years after the close of the mission. In 1843, under Dr. White, these Indians organized a simple form of government, elected chiefs and adopted a few laws. ”