HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE. Volumes I - III, Each INSCRIBED to Noted African-American Educator John Smallwood

Rochester [NY]/London/Paris: Susan B. Anthony, 1887. First Edition. Hardcover. Slight occasional foxing, mostly to frontispiece portraits; otherwise very clean. A Fine set of these important volumes with a superb association linking the causes of women and African Americans in gaining their rights. The first three volumes of what eventually would be complete in six volumes, in publisher's sheep, neatly and professionally rebacked with new sympathetic spines retaining four of the six original contrasting black and burgundy morocco spine labels with two new similar labels applied. Illustrated with copperplate and photogravure engravings. INSCRIBED and (truncated) SIGNED by Anthony on the front free endpaper of each volume. The first volume: "John J. Smallwood/Industrial & Collegiate Institute/Claremont--Virginia/with the best wishes of/Susan B. Anthony/Rochester/N. Y./Jan.15, 1896." The second volume: "Rev. John J. Smallwood/for the/Library of/Industrial & Collegiate Institute/VA/With the hope that the students/may all believe & practice the/great principle of 'Equal rights/for all'--from/Susan B. Anthony/Rochester/N. Y./Jan.15, 1896." The third volume: "To Rev John J. Smallwood/for the Library-- of the/Industrial & Collegiate Institute/With the hope that the/students will read and/make themselves intelligent/as to the great work of a/few women for the freedom/and enfranchisement of all/women-- and with best wishes of/Susan B. Anthony/Rochester/N. Y./Jan.15, 1896."

Dr. John Jefferson Smallwood, grandson of Nat Turner, was born enslaved in Rich Square, North Carolina in 1863. A familiar sight on the lecture circuit , he was known as one of the most eloquent African-American orators in America and England. Smallwood established the Temperance, Industrial, and Collegiate Institute in Claremont on 12 October 1892 with the intent to instill "Temperance and Morality, Industry, and Economy, Intelligence, and Race Pride" in American Blacks. He began with fewer than ten students. The school's campus covered more than 65 acres along the James River and served boys and girls from Virginia as well as other states, closing in 1928. Smallwood died on 29 September 1912 after a brief illness at the age of 49. (Inventory #: 021991)