Abigail Scott Duniway is one of only six women whose names are written in the halls of Oregon’s government chambers, but she is perhaps the most known for her forty decades of working for women’s suffrage and for the famous rivalry with her younger brother, Harvey Scott, editor of the Oregonian newspaper. Until I began research about her, I didn’t know that Abigail also owned and edited a newspaper, quite a feat for a woman in any century. Her suffrage work through so many years without success speaks to the continued efforts today in seeking justice and liberty for women. We remember the one hundredth anniversary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution passed in 1919 that granted women the right to vote. Abigail’s hard-fought victory epitomizes the need for a vision and the persistence to bring it to fruition. As was said generations ago, “Women’s work is never done.”
Dozens of scholars and historians, sociologists, and genealogists found Abigail’s life and work of utmost importance. I am deeply indebted to them and to descendants whom I was able to confer with. The intricacies of the suffrage fight between National and American suffrage organizations, the vitriol of temperance and prohibition workers, and Oregon’s own path toward the vote are not detailed in this novel. But references will direct those who want more about those battles. The Library of Congress hosts a website of the National American Woman Suffrage Association collection. It includes a timeline One Hundred Years toward Suffrage: An Overview compiled by E. Susan Barber.
My interest was in Abigail the woman, wife, mother, sister, friend, novelist, newspaperwoman, overcomer, in addition to her decades as a champion of women’s rights.
She was a complex woman. Despite the laws working against women, Abigail became one of those rare beings, a woman who was the editor/owner of the New Northwest. Her brother Harvey Scott edited and was later co-owner of the Oregonian, a competitive paper with the potential to support or denigrate suffrage. While their feud is legendary and written about, I was interested in other relationships, too, including parents and other siblings including sister Kate, who also worked as an editor for both papers and the Duniways’ son-in-law’s paper. Abigail’s husband, Ben, has been portrayed through letters Abigail wrote in later life to her sons, as being less involved in his wife’s advocacy. But he did go to the mines with Harvey, had the terrible accident, cosigned the notes. He held the customs job for fifteen years following his injury, and that provided financial security. They did move from Albany and later to Portland and began the paper about the same time. He invented the washing machine and trained horses, and their six children suggest they were a team until Ben’s later years with his deteriorating health condition. Abigail’s superior intellect; her unceasing drive on behalf of women; her extraordinary production of twenty-two novels, poems, song lyrics, and essays; her giving over fifteen hundred speeches at a time when women were not encouraged to be public; and her being one of the elite women who owned and operated a newspaper in America who still kept her dignity and national reputation—those were avenues I wanted to explore in this novel.
This novel is based on facts. There were so many facts to sort! Abigail did teach in little Cincinnati, Oregon, and Needy, near the communal society of Aurora; she ran Hope School and the Union School, named so all would know that the Duniways supported the North in the Civil War. They sold Hardscrabble after the disasters, bought and lost Sunny Hillside Farm, moved to Lafayette and later to Albany. Abigail opened her millinery and successfully negotiated with Jacob Mayer to help her advance her business. She took in boarders to help finance her efforts and contribute to the family’s support. In 1870, Abigail went to California to give a speech at the women’s suffrage meeting there and likely would have met the California president at the time, Sarah Montgomery Wallis of my One More River to Cross. She was offered the Pioneer editing role and $800 for her tour, and Ben sent the telegram ordering her to come home when, like a good wife of the time, she had asked his permission. I speculated that he had news of his own job at the customhouse to share with her, but he may well have told her no for other reasons. Nevertheless, it was after that that the family moved to Portland and Abigail borrowed $3000—we don’t know from where. And she did indeed start a newspaper, the first edition being May 5, 1871. Copies of the New Northwest are available online. The entire family was involved in the Duniway Publishing Company for sixteen years. The sale came the year after their only daughter’s death.
Clara Belle’s elopement and move to what Abigail called “the swamps of Washougal” did happen. Today, it’s a very fine community where my granddaughter and her family live.
Schools are named for Abigail, parks and other public entities honor her passion and persistence, despite the fact that Oregon had six campaigns to win women the right to vote—more than any other state. Perhaps it was Abigail’s clarity of purpose and her ability to overcome the setbacks during forty years that makes her so remarkable. Her powerful brother opposed all her public efforts, though the occasional support he gave her by buying steamship tickets or sponsoring Abigail Scott Duniway Day is documented and adds to the complexity of their relationship. He did indeed write an editorial of support in late 1883. But before the 1884 vote, he left town and was neutral in that election. The 1883 editorial was the only time he supported women’s suffrage, and he wrote scathing opposing editorials ever after. The fact is that Oregon did not pass women’s suffrage until after the death of Harvey Scott. Oregon was the seventh state in the nation to approve the woman’s vote, eight years before the national amendment. Surrounding states passed suffrage before Oregon. Washington in 1883, repealed in 1887 and renewed in 1888 and also repealed. It was finally passed in 1910. Idaho in 1896. California in 1910. Abigail wasn’t able to travel much to support the 1912 effort that did pass. Her health had continued to deteriorate, but she hung banners proclaiming “Votes for Women” and dispatched messages of encouragement to suffrage supporters.
In 2016, an Oregon commission met to choose possible new statues for the National Statuary Hall in Washington, DC. Abigail was chosen as the first woman for such an honor, which has not yet been carried out. She was also the first woman nominated from Oregon for the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
Most of the incidents in this story are based on actual events. The status of women—having no say in business dealings but being responsible for a father’s or husband’s bad debts; lack of control over their own earnings; the inability to offer opinions at public discussion without scandal; the agony of unwanted divorces and custody battles favoring the father regardless of his capacity to care for the children; and more—these were all part of the struggle women faced in pioneering territories of the West that often left women destitute and without influence over much of their lives.
Abigail’s father’s scandal in the early chapter did occur and strained the siblings. Ben and his injury and his affable character are all documented. The tornado and fires; Ben’s fine singing voice and being a househusband, going to the Idaho mines, receiving the customs job from Harvey; Abigail’s millinery success; the boarders; Abigail’s property speculations; the 1861–62 flood’s impact on the Duniways; the deaths; and even some of the strains recorded in letters kept are a part of the true aspects of this story.
Susan B. Anthony did come to Oregon, and the two women toured the Northwest, camped out at the Oregon State Fair along with several of the Duniways including Ben. Abigail was present at the Centennial celebration in Pennsylvania when Susan B. (whom she sometimes referred to as Aunt Susan) presented the women’s proclamation to President Ulysses S. Grant. (The vice president had been scheduled to receive it, but that office was vacant the entire year of 1876. That’s another story!) The Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution used the same wording proclaiming women nationally now had the right to vote. Oregon was the twenty-fifth state to ratify this amendment in January of 1920, but by then, Oregon women had been voting for six years.
Abigail did live to register to vote in Multnomah County, Oregon. She also served on a jury and wrote her autobiography before dying a few weeks before her eighty-first birthday. An infection in her toe that would not heal ended this extraordinary woman’s life, a woman who traveled far and wide on behalf of raising the quality of life for all women and, she believed, for men as well.
But fiction is the realm of emotion in addition to history, and exploring how Abigail felt about her life and effort is what intrigued me.
I did not dwell on the intense debates between the suffrage groups and the temperance and prohibition forces, nor Abigail’s arguments with certain religious forces (because she did not support prohibition, believing people needed freedom to make their own choices in all things). I was interested more in the personal relationships and how Abigail’s family dealt with her national persona at a time when women were not public beings and risked scorn for using their voices. An 1829 trial of another outspoken woman/writer/newspaper editor, Anne Royall, in Washington, DC, for being a “common scold,” might well have been Abigail’s fate but for her image as a faithful wife and mother (The Trials of a Scold, The Incredible True Story of Writer Anne Royall, by Jeff Biggers [Thomas Dunne Books]). What did Abigail’s passion for women’s liberty cost her?
Only three characters are “fully imagined”: one is Mr. Bunter (though there was a rejected suitor who found ways to complain about strong-minded women through the local press, and that person may have been the sender of the valentine that upset Abigail so); Shirley Ellis and Eloi Vasquez are also imagined characters. Shirley became a composite for the many friends Abigail would have had. As part of an auction in a First Presbyterian Church Bend fundraiser, Jan Tetzlaff bought the right to name a character in one of my books. Shirley Ellis was Jan’s dear friend who died too young, and a part of her compassion and care for others I hope lives on in my Shirley. Eloi Vasquez is another character honoring a friend of Rory Johnston who bought the right to name a character by helping an Oregon literacy program called SMART (Start Making a Reader Today). Mr. Johnston chose his deceased friend Eloi Vasquez, a good, kind Californian, whose name and memory fit perfectly as a wise attorney and second husband of Shirley.
It could take an entire book to acknowledge those many souls who assisted me in sharing this story—some do not even know. I was heavily dependent on Rebel for Rights: Abigail Scott Duniway, a premier biography of Abigail written by Ruth Barnes Moynihan. The book’s pages are thumbed and marked, and I am grateful for her scholarly and engaging work. A second book, equally marked up, is Yours for Liberty: Selections from Abigail Scott Duniway’s Suffrage Newspaper, edited by Jean M. Ward and Elaine A. Maveety. This research, in addition to online access to copies of the New Northwest, proved invaluable. Another significant online source, “She Flies with Her Own Wings” (http://asduniway.org/) is a site of many of Abigail’s speeches (including the Columbia Exposition speech) with introductions to each by USC professor Randall A. Lake. Dr. Lake graciously corresponded with me about her public speaking life and directed me to his chapter about her in Women Public Speakers in the United States, 1800–1925: A Bio-Critical Sourcebook, edited by Karlyn Kohrs Campbell (Greenwood Press). Librarians at the Knight Library at the University of Oregon and at the Oregon Historical Society offered exceptional help, and I’m grateful. An article by Judge Susan P. Graber, United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, titled “The Long Oregon Trail to Women’s Suffrage,” proved invaluable. In 2019, I was honored to be a part of a panel celebrating Pioneer Courthouse in Portland, where Judge Graber and professor and historian Tracy J. Prince and I spoke about the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. The courthouse was the site of the customs office, though it was built after Harvey Scott would have served in that role.
When publisher, writer, and editor Steve Forrester of EO Media invited me to write a chapter for a book he is publishing called Eminent Oregonians (forthcoming), he couldn’t have known that I had already considered Abigail for my next novel. His interest as I worked on that chapter helped frame questions to answer for this novel, and I’m grateful. He also provided me with a book by Debra Shein, Abigail Scott Duniway, Western Writers Series #151, whose survey, analysis, and insights of Abigail’s novel writing gave support for characterizing her fictional efforts. I am also grateful to Marianne Keddington-Lang, whose editorial queries for that chapter expanded my understanding of Abigail’s journey. Abigail’s own writings were also accessed. She was prolific and active into her eighties. A writer friend once told me that writing was a good profession because one could do it into one’s old age, as Abigail showed.
Once again, my research friend CarolAnne Tsai located resources I might never have discovered. I am deeply indebted to her for reading early drafts as well. Robert and Kate Speckham, descendants of Abigail’s youngest sister, Sarah Maria Kelty, spent a morning sharing their extensive collection of photographs, ephemera, and documents, including a copy of John Tucker Scott’s tear-stained letter sending Sarah Maria to live with her older sister Fanny because of the consternation with his second-marriage circumstances. Bob’s contributions to Find a Grave websites introduced me to him, and his willingness to share family documents and stories tenderly kept is deeply appreciated. He also had an extra copy of the 1997 Oregon Historical Quarterly special issue about the famed rivalry between Abigail and Harvey, written by Lee Nash, then a professor of history at George Fox University in Oregon. It referenced the one editorial written by Harvey in support of suffrage that he later retracted—to Abigail’s great disappointment. Janet Meranda again lent her copyediting expertise to assist me. I am grateful for that and for her information about the DAR chapter named for Abigail.
I’m grateful to two special endorsers, Francine Rivers and Susan Butruille, both writers and students of suffrage history. Susan pointed out important corrections in the manuscript for which I’m very grateful and clarified the importance of referring to these hardworking women as suffragists and not the dismissive term suffragette. Abigail was definitely a suffragist.
I lifted the phrase “holy cow chips” from a writer colleague Randi Samuelson-Brown, who used the exclamation while we sat around a table in San Antonio talking about stories. I told her if I ever used that cheerful phrase, I’d mention her name with gratitude. I gave it to Abigail to use, and it seems fitting.
The Bend chapter of the American Association of University Women introduced me to Reflecting Freedom: How Fashion Mirrored the Struggle for Women’s Rights by Eileen Gose and Kathy DeHerrera (self-published) that posed ways Abigail and her millinery work might have both informed and advanced her interest in women’s liberty. Other authors’ works that assisted me were Oregonian Sheri King, Oregon’s Abigail and Her Lafayette Debut; Covered Wagon Women Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, 1852 (edited and compiled by Kenneth L. Holmes & David C. Duniway) and an edition with an introduction by professor Glenda Riley. Abigail’s own Path Breaking: An Autobiographical History of the Equal Suffrage Movement in Pacific Coast States (Shocken Paper Back Series); Abigail Scott Duniway and Susan B. Anthony in Oregon: Hesitate No Longer by Jennifer Chambers (History Press); Elinor Richey, author of “Abigail Scott Duniway: Up from Hardscrabble,” in Eminent Women of the West (Howell-North).
To my Revell team, a humble thank-you. Editors Andrea Doering and Barb Barnes, their cadre of copyeditors extraordinaire, terrific publicist Karen Steele, marketing guru Michele Misiak and her team of cover designers, and the sales staff . . . every one of you. It couldn’t be a book without you.
My agent of nearly thirty years, Joyce Hart of Hartline Literary Agency has been a gift beyond description. I am grateful for her prayers, wisdom, and good humor. Thank you is hardly enough.
Friends and family both near and far gave sustenance and encouragement. My brother and sister-in-law; Jerry’s children Matt and Melissa Kirkpatrick and Kathleen and Joe Larsen sustained us through Jerry’s ongoing treatment so I could concentrate on Abigail. Webmaster Paul Schumacher (I’ve spelled his name correctly this time!) and my prayer team of Judy Schumacher, Gabby Sprenger, Carol Tedder, Susan Parrish, Loris Webb, Judy Card, and significant others who held us in their prayers and hearts, including Mike and Marea Stone, Sue Kopp, Sandy Maynard, Kay and Don Krall, Dennis and Sherrie Gant, Laurie Vanderbeek, Karen and Tim Zacharias, Ken and Nancy Tedder, Jack and Carol Tedder, Maggie Hanson, Deb and Jim Barnes, Sarah Douglas, and other family and friends who brought special love during the writing of this book while we faced the death of a dear nephew and Jerry’s diagnosis and treatments. You know who you are. I thank God for you. Thank you as well to the prayer team at First Presbyterian Bend and the ministerial staff.
Champion of support is my husband of forty-four years, Jerry, who at ninety (when this book is released) and with thirteen compressed vertebrae, and beating three cancers, and now fighting another, nevertheless in this book helped me understand what Ben might have endured physically as well as the challenge of living with what Mr. Bunter would call a “strong-minded woman.” He offers what every writer seeks: kindness, no matter the place in the writing process, where failure seems inevitable; encouragement to get up and write again. That is what love looks like. I’m humbled and grateful.
And to readers: Madeleine L’Engle once wrote that when we create, we co-create. We co-create with Spirit and with readers. Thank you all for your co-creation, taking these stories and making them your own. You have made my literary life. Thank you.
Jane at jkbooks.com