HISTORY OF IOWA SUFFRAGE WORK.
Mrs. Bloomer furnished the main portion of the chapter on Iowa in the third volume of the History of Woman Suffrage, published by Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony in 1887. In short, the advocacy of woman’s enfranchisement was her life-work from 1851 down to the end of her days. She was in constant written communication with many of its leading advocates not only in Iowa but all over the country. They visited her often in her home, and she was subjected to frequent interviews from newspaper reporters. A volume could be filled with their writings called out by conversations with her. She always treated them with kindness and courtesy, and received many kind notices from the press. She always had a cheerful and pleasant greeting for her many visitors.
Mrs. Bloomer was spared to witness the triumph of many of the reforms she had earnestly advocated. The temperance principle in which her heart was so much absorbed made great progress during her lifetime, and the prohibitive features she so earnestly advocated were engrafted on the laws of her adopted state. She was not spared to see woman accorded a right to the ballot in all the states, but she was cheered by the wonderful progress in that direction that took place all over the world. In Wyoming and Utah women had voted for several years, and only a few weeks before her departure she learned with infinite satisfaction from Mrs. Jennie A. Irvine, a favorite niece residing in Colorado, that the right of suffrage had been granted to women in that state. While therefore she was never herself permitted to exercise that inestimable right, yet she died in the full conviction that only a few years would elapse before it would be accorded to women in all the free countries in the world.