trying to form a stock company.  A large amount was subscribed but not enough, and all was returned by Mrs. Sargent, then national treasurer.  Sarah L. Williams, editor of the woman’s department of the Toledo Blade, started a bright suffrage paper called the Ballot-Box and edited it for several years.  Miss Anthony assisted her in every possible way, and spoiled the effect of many a fine speech by asking at its close for subscribers to this paper.  In 1878, ’79 and ’80 she secured 2,500 names.  In 1878 Mrs. Williams turned her paper over to Matilda Joslyn Gage, who added National Citizen to the title.  Miss Anthony’s and Mrs. Stanton’s names were placed at the head as corresponding editors, and the paper was ably conducted by Mrs. Gage, but it had not the financial backing necessary to success; when Miss Anthony ceased lecturing, new subscribers no longer came and, after much tribulation, it finally suspended in 1881.

While Miss Anthony continued for many years to cherish this idea of a distinctively woman’s paper, the daily press grew more and more liberal, devoting larger space to the interests of women every year, and she became of the opinion that possibly the most effective work might be accomplished through this medium.  She held, however, that there should be one woman upon each paper whose special business it should be to look after this department, and who should be permitted to discuss not only the “woman question” but all others from a woman’s standpoint.  As newspapers are now managed, the readers have only man’s views of all the vital issues attracting public attention.  Woman occupies a subordinate position and must write on all subjects in a spirit which will be acceptable to the masculine head of the paper; so the public gets in reality his thought and not hers.  She had come to see, also, that the newspaper work should be a leading and distinctive feature of the National Association to a far greater extent than hitherto had been attempted, and which, until of late years, had not been possible.  No man or woman ever had a higher opinion of the influence of the press, which she considered the most powerful agency in the world for good or for evil.

In the summer of 1879, Miss Anthony received from her friend, A. Bronson Alcott, a complimentary ticket for three seasons of lectures at the Concord School of Philosophy; but the living questions of the day were too pressing for her to withdraw to this classic and sequestered retreat, outside the busy and practical world.

[Autograph:  A. Bronson Alcott]

During the decade from 1870 to 1880, there was a large accession of valuable workers to the cause of woman suffrage and many new friends came into Miss Anthony’s life.  Among these were May Wright Sewall; the sisters, Julia and Rachel Foster; Clara B. Colby; Zerelda G. Wallace; Frances E. Willard; J. Ellen Foster; the wife and three talented daughters of Cassius M. Clay, Mary B., Laura and Sallie Clay Bennett; M. Louise Thomas; Elizabeth Boynton Harbert and others, who became her devoted adherents and fellow-workers, and whose homes and hospitality she enjoyed during all the years which followed.