Abigail Scott Duniway - Infinite Women

Born: 22 October 1834, United States
Died: 11 October 1915
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA

The following is excerpted from A Woman of the Century, edited by Frances E. Willard and Mary A Livermore, published in 1893 by Charles Wells Moulton.

DUNIWAY, Mrs. Abigail Scott, editor, born in Pleasant Grove, Tazewell county. III., 22nd October, 1834. There she grew to girlhood. Her father removed to Oregon in 1852. Of a family noted for sturdy independence in word and deed, it is not strange that these inherent qualities, united with keen mental powers, have made her one of the most widely known women on the Pacific slope. She began her public career many years ago through necessity, an invalid husband and a large family leaving her no alternative. Nobly has she fulfilled the double trust of wife and mother. While Mrs. Duniway has been engaged in every sort of reputable literary toil, her life-work has been in the direction of the enfranchisement of women. While advocating woman suffrage she has undoubtedly traveled more miles by stage, rail, river and wagon, made more public speeches, endured more hardships, persecution and ridicule, and scored more victories than any of her distinguished contemporaries of the East and middle West. The enfranchisement of the women of Washington Territory was the result of her efforts, and, had they listened to her counsel and kept aloof from the Prohibition fight of 1886, they would not have lost afterwards, when the Territory became a State, the heritage of the ballot which she had secured for them at the cost of the best years of her life. As an extemporaneous speaker she is logical, sarcastic, witty, poetic and often eloquent. As a writer she is forceful and argumentative. Mrs. Duniway now fills the editorial Chair of the “Pacific Empire,” a new literary and progressive monthly magazine published in Portland, Ore., where she resides in a spacious home, the product of her own genius and industry.