Who wrote Matilda Joslyn Gage out of history and how did they do it?
• The increasingly conservative National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) wanted to distance itself from Gage and her radical beliefs about the church. The NAWSA feared alienating conservative Christian women who wanted the vote in order to create a Christian nation, a move totally opposed by Gage. Leaving the NAWSA, Gage formed the Woman’s National Liberal Union, an organization dedicated to maintaining the separation of church and state. • Susan B. Anthony was more famous, and she lived longer than the other two members of the suffrage triumvirate, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Toward the end of Anthony’s life, she was perceived as the foremother of the suffrage movement. Anthony’s biography, Stanton’s autobiography, later volumes of The History of Woman Suffrage (written by Anthony and her protégé), and other secondary sources all combined to become the prevailing version of women’s history, quoted extensively by writers and historians during the years t
