As readers of this blog know, I have included Abigail Scott Duniway, a historical Oregon pioneer, as a character in my last two novels, and I intend to include her in my next novel. She moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1871, in order to start a newspaper, The New Northwest, which she published until 1887.
Recently, as I’ve started thinking about the plot of the next book in my series, I have been perusing issues of The New Northwest, which can be found online. I knew of Abigail Duniway’s advocacy for women’s suffrage, but I had not realized how much she used the newspaper as a platform to promote her position.
Newspapers in the 19th century did not purport to be neutral. There were papers known to be Republican and those known to support Democrats. Mrs. Duniway said in the first issue of The New Northwest that
“The New Northwest is not a Woman’s Rights, but a Human Rights organ, devoted to whatever policy may be necessary to secure the greatest good to the greatest number. It knows no sex, no politics, no religion, no party, no color, no creed. Its foundation is fastened upon the rock of Eternal Liberty, Universal Emancipation and Untrammeled Progression.”
She used space in her paper to promote it as “A Journal for the People, Devoted to the Interest of Humanity.”
Despite her stated focus on “human rights” generally, the paper contained a lot of articles specifically about women’s rights—about suffrage, equal pay, women’s property rights, and fair treatment of women under the law generally. The New Northwest became a platform for Mrs. Duniway’s vision of social change, a progressive newspaper that addressed the concerns and challenges faced by women in the region. Women’s suffrage was one of the central themes of the publication throughout its sixteen years in existence.
The New Northwest covered the women’s suffrage movement at the local, national, and international levels. Articles described various meetings and speeches in Oregon, in other Western states, and throughout the U.S.
The paper presented readers with Mrs. Duniway’s arguments in favor of granting women the right to vote. Mrs. Duniway and other contributing writers wrote regular articles and editorials dissecting the prevailing arguments against women’s suffrage. And they highlighted the necessity of political enfranchisement to empower women in their families and in society. The paper debunked the prevailing stereotype of women’s inability to understand politics and made the case for their intellectual capabilities and inherent right to participate in the democratic process.
Despite the focus on women’s suffrage, The New Northwest still described women’s role as primarily being in the home. It contained articles about fashion and other “stereotypical” topics of interest for women. Thus, its depiction women in the 19th century seems dated in the 21st century.
However “progressive” the paper was for the 1870s and 1880s, Mrs. Duniway and her colleagues did not foresee women’s role in commerce and politics today. Still, The New Northwest played a pivotal role in obtaining the vote for women, though the 19th Amendment was not passed until after Mrs. Duniway’s death.
The existence of online copies of the paper is an invaluable resource for authors such as me who write historical fiction about the region and era. Readers are likely to see more posts taking material from The New Northwest as I write my next book.
What books or other writings have struck you as being instructive about the past, yet dated from today’s perspective?
