Stanton, Anthony, and Gage published the first volume of History of Woman Suffrage, the movement's standard documentary history.
On November 1, 1881, the first volume of History of Woman Suffrage was published, co-authored by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage. This monumental work would eventually span six volumes, the later ones completed after Stanton's death by other editors including Ida Husted Harper, documenting the American suffrage movement from its origins through the achievement of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.
Stanton contributed extensively to the early volumes, drawing on her firsthand experience as a founder and leader of the movement dating back to Seneca Falls in 1848. The work compiled convention proceedings, speeches, correspondence, and biographical sketches of movement leaders, creating an invaluable primary source record that continues to be used by historians today.
The project reflected Stanton's conviction that women needed to document and control the narrative of their own history, rather than leaving that history to be written—or omitted—by others. At a time when women's contributions to public life were routinely minimized or ignored in mainstream historical accounts, this self-authored history ensured that the suffrage movement's achievements and struggles would be preserved for future generations.
History of Woman Suffrage remains an essential primary source for scholars of American women's history and the suffrage movement, cementing Stanton's legacy not only as an activist but as a historian of her own cause.