Abigail Scott Duniway Oregon Equal Suffrage Association Silk Banner

Description:

Abigail Scott Duniway Oregon Equal Suffrage Association Silk Banner, Portland, Oregon, 1912, the deep yellow banner inscribed in watercolor script "Progress!!!/Oregon/Next/Abagail [sic]Scott Duniway/1872 O.E.S.A. 1912," with gold braid border and gold fringe bottom, the back with silk United States flag with six stars in the canton, gold braid hanging cord, ht. 32, wd. 19 in.

Provenance: The consignor's grandmother, Margaret Beulah Morgan Rigby (1900-1987),and great-grandmother, Margaret Ann Mitchell Morgan (1873-1958),moved from Kansas to Portland, Oregon, in 1903. Both women were unusual for their era in that they held full-time jobs while also being wives and mothers. They were also very involved in the suffrage movement attending women's rallies and marches, as well as volunteering at local voting booths and helping various fraternal organizations. The consignor recalls stories told to her by her grandmother, Margaret Beulah Morgan Rigby, of the women's rallies and marches she attended while in grade school and how impressed she was by the strong women of the movement.

Note: Abigail Scott Duniway (1834-1915) was an American pioneer, suffragist, and writer. She moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1871 and began publishing the New Northwest newspaper dedicated to women's rights and suffrage. In the same year she managed a speaking tour in the Northwest for Susan B. Anthony. In 1873 Duniway led the effort to organize the Oregon Equal Suffrage Association and served as its president. Over the next decade she extensively traveled and lectured on the subject of women's rights and was instrumental in the adoption of women's suffrage in the Washington Territory in 1883 and in Idaho in 1896. When Oregon finally granted women the right to vote in November 1912, Duniway was given major credit for the achievement due to her decades of groundwork and dedication to women's rights. In honor of her efforts, she helped draft the proclamation and co-signed it with Oregon's Governor, Oswald West. Immediately afterwards she became the first registered woman voter in Oregon.

The flag on the back of the banner is a suffrage flag with six stars in the canton. West coast suffragists made flags with a star for each state that had granted women the right to vote. The six stars on this flag represent Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, and California. Oregon became the seventh Western state to grant women's suffrage in 1912 and this flag was created in the efforts leading up to that moment.
Estimate $8,000-12,000


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