Historian and activist Anne Firor Scott, who helped pioneer and advance the field of women’s history, passed away on February 5. Susan Ware, whose forthcoming book Why They Marched: Untold Stories of the Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote is dedicated to Anne, honors her dear friend and colleague and the impact her scholarship and activism had on the historical profession.
When historian Anne Firor Scott turned eighty in 2001, the Schlesinger Library held a symposium to celebrate the event and asked me to introduce our honored guest. When I was searching for a way to convey her remarkable career and accomplishments to assembled scholars and friends who were already well aware of them, I did some simple math and realized that Anne had been born nine months after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, thus providing the theme of my remarks. Alas, my math was a bit too simple, as Eva Moseley, the library’s meticulous curator of manuscripts pointed out afterwards. The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified on August 26, 1920, and Anne was born on April 21, 1921. That’s eight months, not nine. But I still loved the juxtaposition of the milestone in American women’s history with the birth of a historian whose work fundamentally shaped the field.
When I decided to dedicate Why They Marched: Untold Stories of the Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote to Anne, I used that historical coincidence to frame the wording: “To Anne Firor Scott, born eight months after the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment and an inspiration to women’s historians ever since.” The dedication acknowledges our long friendship, Anne’s pioneering role in the field of women’s history, and her place in suffrage history. I readily admit that the math doesn’t quite work out, but I still fancy the idea she might have been conceived on the very night that the Nineteenth Amendment formally became part of the U.S. Constitution.
Last summer I reached out to Anne through her children to tell her of my idea for the dedication. By now I so associated her life with the upcoming suffrage centennial that it seemed she might live until 2020, even though she had been in declining health for several years. It was not to be. On February 5, 2019, she died peacefully at the age of ninety-seven.
Like so many other good things in my life, my friendship with Anne Firor Scott was intimately connected with the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe. I can’t remember when I first met her, but I am certain it was through Barbara Miller Solomon, one of my mentors at Harvard (Frank Friedel was the other) who helped me navigate the often chilly reception that my chosen field of women’s history received in the Harvard history department of the 1970s. Anne, who had received her Ph.D. from Radcliffe in 1958, was a longtime member of the advisory board of the Schlesinger Library and would journey to Cambridge for its twice-yearly meetings, where she always stayed in what she called Barbara’s Brattle Street “attic.” When Barbara died, I inherited her houseguest. Anne happened to be in town the night of November 7, 2000, and always keenly engaged in current affairs, stayed up late watching the Bush–Gore election returns. When we convened at breakfast, there was still no winner. Little did we know that it would be five weeks before the election was decided.
Book dedications are often personal and quirky, as they should be. In my case, I feel especially privileged to acknowledge a scholar who not only was a dear friend but who also had such a key impact on the field of women’s history generally, and suffrage history particularly. Even before there was a field of Southern women’s history, Anne Firor Scott embarked on the research that became her first book, The Southern Lady: From Pedestal to Politics, 1830–1930 (1970). While later scholarship has deepened and complicated the story, The Southern Lady remains a foundational text.
By the time the field of women’s history picked up momentum, Anne was already happily ensconced at Duke University, which was her professional home for practically her entire career. I can’t decide if she would have been tickled or embarrassed to hear that flags were flown at half-staff on the Duke campus when the news of her passing was announced. Probably a bit of both.
Anne Firor Scott never published a book with Harvard University Press, although her daughter Rebecca Scott has. But I still consider her an HUP author for her role in the three-volume biographical dictionary Notable American Women, which was originally sponsored by Radcliffe College in the 1950s and published by Harvard University Press in 1971, 1980, and 2004. I served as the editor of the final volume, which covered 483 women who died between January 1, 1976, and December 31, 1999. Anne contributed the essay on League of Women Voters president Anna Lord Strauss, which gave her the distinction of being the only author to write entries for all three volumes, a matter of great pride to us both.
When I contemplate the upcoming suffrage centennial and the question of why suffrage mattered, I think of an observation Anne Scott once made about how winning the vote was part of larger changes in women’s lives: “Suffrage was a tributary flowing into the rich and turbulent river of American social development. That river is enriched by the waters of each tributary, but with the passage of time it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish the special contribution of any one of the tributaries.” I can’t point to specific pages in Why They Marched where the impact of Anne’s scholarship is visible but it is clearly there. So, too, is the personal encouragement she gave me over our decades of friendship. With my dedication I am honored to acknowledge that debt.
