[Women's History: Memorial: Equal Suffrage League]. (Collins, Mira J.). (Cleghorn, Sarah N.).

In Memoriam: Mira J. Collins

      [Privately Printed for Charles W. Collins], 1935. The binding is slightly rubbed, faintly tanned on spine, over-opened at the page with the albumen print photograph, else near fine. A scarce, privately printed volume (possibly unique). [WOMEN'S HISTORY: MEMORIAL: EQUAL SUFFRAGE LEAGUE]. IN MEMORIAM: MIRA J. COLLINS. November 12, 1843-May 3, 1917. Letters from Friends Expressing Sorrow and Sympathy: 1917-1935. Octavo, three-quarter white buckram (with typed label on spine), green marbled paper-covered boards, pp. [xii], [circa 140 pages of printed carbon typescript], illustrated (with five photographs). Mira J. Collins (1843-1917) was the daughter of Henry Capron of Ava, New York ("a pioneer in that part of the Empire State"). Mira Collins's obituary from The North Adams Transcript (printed in this volume), states: "...She was almost continuously associated with other women in organized groups for intellectual and social advancement. Her part in these activities was never merely doctrinaire, it was practical...she was not content to know that she herself was free. She wanted others to be free. Therefore, she was a suffragist...She believed, too, that the boasted superiority of masculine wisdom is not apparent in a social system that tolerates strikes and lockouts, panics and slums and 'red-light' districts...she was in other words a socialist as well as a suffragist...Her activities were well known to the women of this city. She was a member of the Woman's Club of North Adams [Mass. ], of the D.A.R., of the Equal Suffrage League, and of the Y.M.C.A. Auxiliary...". The book prints "Letters of Sorrow and Sympathy" from numerous men and women, including Sarah N. Cleghorn, the Equal Suffrage League, the W.C.T.U. and many others. Also reproduces a photographic frontispiece of Mira J. Collins, photographs of her family homes, including an original albumen print photograph of the original family homestead in Ava, New York. The photograph is an early (circa 1870's? ), striking image, measuring 8 1/4 by 5 3/4 inches, of a man formally dressed in top hat and suit, standing at the side of a rutted, dirt road, leaning on a shovel, while an African-American man stands in the middle of the same road, with two...