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Anna Shaw, 1847-1919
Dr. Anna Shaw triumphantly presided over a spirited gathering of elated suffragettes as "Madam Chairman" of the National American Woman Suffrage Association's forty-fourth annual convention. After a long struggle, women had gained the vote in several states. McLure's Magazine sent noted illustrator Wallace Morgan to Philadelphia to document the historic event's leaders -- including Shaw -- who announced to her audience, "This, indeed, is the woman's century, and the dawn of the real day of womanhood has just begun." Morgan's drawings accompanied veteran journalist Wallace Irwin and suffragette Inez Milholland's article, "Two Million Women Vote." A stalwart suffrage leader and a determined feminist pioneer, Shaw held her gavel and took questions from the crowd with a serious expression punctuated by "black commanding brows." She was indeed a formidable presence. Shaw was the first woman ordained in the Methodist Protestant Church, in 1880; six years later she earned an M.D. from Boston University.
Wallace Morgan, 1912 |