Exhibition Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797). *A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects*. Boston: Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, 1792. Susan B. Anthony Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (001.00.00)

“Mrs. Wollstonecraft.” Engraved by Ridley from a painting by Opie. For proprietors of the *Monthly Mirror* by T. Ballamy, King St. Covent Garden, February 1796. NAWSA Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (002.00.00)

British Inspiration for American Women Seeking Equal Rights

British writer Mary Wollstonecraft, an advocate for equal education for women, was an inspiration to early suffragists, especially Susan B. Anthony who hung Wollstonecraft’s picture in her home and serialized her 1792 feminist classic, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in her 1870s suffrage newspaper. Writing in her copy of Wollstonecraft’s influential treatise, Anthony declared herself “a great admirer of this earliest work for woman’s right to Equality of rights.”