Anna Howard Shaw

Born in England, Anna Howard Shaw moved with her family to Michigan when she was four. She was the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) from 1904 to 1915. In an era when few women were allowed to become ministers or doctors, Anna Howard Shaw became both. She was ordained as a Methodist minister in 1880, and six years later she earned her M.D. from Boston University.

Her autobiography, The Story of a Pioneer, describes her life’s work, with particular emphasis placed upon her role in the fight for women’s suffrage. Part of her job as president of NAWSA was to go on lengthy speaking tours, in an attempt to convince various states to grant women the right to vote. As she explains in the following excerpt, this process took a long time. In...