Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association records

The CWSA collection not only contains records of meetings, correspondence, photographs and pamphlets, but also numerous scrapbooks that include relevant newspaper clippings. This material dates from the association's inception on October 28, 1869, to its dissolution on June 3, 1921. Organized first by subject, the materials in the collection are arranged in chronological order.

The records of the meetings chronicle the business of each meeting from 1869 to 1914. Frances Ellen Burr, recording secretary of the association for forty-one years, kept handwritten records until 1910. The vitality and determination of the group, registering 138 members on October 28, 1869, and swelling to 21,000 by 1914, is evident in the many scrapbooks of mounted newspaper clippings. Frances Ellen Burr was responsible for putting together most of these scrapbooks. While association records in this collection actually begin in 1869, Miss Burr's newspaper clippings documenting the early suffrage movement are dated as early as 1849. Newspaper clippings in scrapbooks that are in an extremely fragile state have been photocopied and placed in folders.

Membership and attendance registers are included in the collection and date from 1869 to 1920. This collection also contains a number of photographs of members - groups and executive board members, parades, demonstrations, campaigns and local political press photos. Publications such as pamphlets, leaflets and campaign literature date from 1870 to 1920.

The material in the oversized container (photographs, broadsides and political cartoons) appeared in an exhibition in the Museum of Connecticut History in June 1995. For the exhibit, the staff utilized acid-free mounting.