Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton Photography

In general, suffrage activists tried to avoid the “cult of leadership” that formed about the officers of British groups, such as Emmeline Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union, preferring to focus on issues rather than personalities. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, however, can be regarded as exceptions to this informal policy, particularly in their later years. There were a number of different poses of the two, sometimes separate, sometimes together, that were either given away or sold as fundraisers.

The carte de visite, which was brought over here from France in 1859, consisted of a small albumen print that was attached to a 2 ½” x 4” cardboard mount. Andre Eugene Disderi had patented a process in 1854 that allowed for production of 8 negatives for every photograph taken, making the process of duplication less expensive and quicker to accomplish. The process led to the production of many souvenir photographs, of which Anthony and Stanton were popular subjects. The cartes were gradually replaced in the 1870’s by cabinet photos, a larger form that typically measured 4 ½” x 6 /1/2” and was mounted on thicker cardboard. Again, Anthony and Stanton were popular subjects, and often the same image of either or both could be found on a carrte as well as on a cabinet photo.