Women’s liberation hadn’t really gotten started outside of New York City or Chicago in 1968. Instead I (and other soon-to-be feminists) was involved … - Ellen DuBois

Feminism was an entirely political movement then. Those of us in gradate school who began raising these issues in fields (history, anthropology, literature, etc.) did not think of ourselves as entering or even pioneering an academic field but rather producing serious intellectual resources for our movement. At the time, it hardly seemed like a smart academic move: there were no positions, no recognition from our profession. When it came time to get jobs, those of us who found them did so because women students pressed their colleges and universities for a different kind of education and some of those institutions–mostly public ones–reluctantly gave in. That’s how I got my first job at the State University of New York at Buffalo, as part of one of two or three women’s studies programs in the country.

My first article, published in 1970 in a movement journal entitled Women: A Journal of Liberation, was focused on the first historical figures that caught my attention: Sarah and Angelica Grimke. From there, I moved on to Seneca Falls and the early women’s rights movement and Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (to whom I have remained attached ever since).

My goal here is to make it clear that the campaign for women's suffrage was part and parcel of every era of American history. It wasn't something happening over here. In the beginning, it was part of the radical changes surrounding the campaign to end slavery. In the middle, in the late 19th century, it was part of a very conservative historical period and in the early 20th century it was an important part of the progressive movement. It can't be told separate from American history.