The distribution of the book was very much on Susan's mind, for she realized that it would not be in great demand because of its cost, bulk, and subject matter. Nor could she at this time present it to libraries, as she wished, for she had already spent her savings on the illustrations. "It ought to be in every school library," she wrote Amelia Bloomer, "where every boy and girl of the nation could see and read and learn what women have done to secure equality of rights and chances for girls and women...."[347]
So much material had been collected while Volume I was in preparation that both Susan and Mrs. Stanton felt they should immediately undertake Volume II. After a summer of lecturing to help finance its publication, Susan returned to Tenafly to the monotonous work of compilation. "I am just sick to death of it," she wrote her young friend Rachel Foster. "I had rather wash or whitewash or do any possible hard work than sit here and go there digging into the dusty records of the past—that is, rather make history than write it."[348]
Yet she never entirely gave up making history, for she was always planning for the future and Rachel Foster was now her able lieutenant, relieving her of details, doing the spade work for the annual Washington conventions, and arranging for an occasional lecture engagement. Susan would not leave Tenafly for a lecture fee of less than $50.
She took this intelligent young girl to her heart as she had Anna E. Dickinson in the past. Rachel, however, had none of Anna's dramatic temperament or love of the limelight, but in her orderly businesslike way was eager to serve Susan, whom she had admired ever since as a child she had heard her speak for woman suffrage in her mother's drawing room.
While Susan was pondering the ways and means of financing another volume of the History, the light broke through in a letter from Wendell Phillips, announcing the astonishing news that she and Lucy Stone had inherited approximately $25,000 each for "the woman's cause" under the will of Eliza Eddy, the daughter of their former benefactor, Francis Jackson. Although the legacy was not paid until 1885 because of litigation, its promise lightened considerably Susan's financial burden and she knew that Volumes II and III were assured. Her gratitude to Eliza Eddy was unbounded, and better still, she read between the lines the good will of Wendell Phillips who had been Eliza Eddy's legal advisor. That he, whom she admired above all men, should after their many differences still regard her as worthy of this trust, meant as much to her as the legacy itself.
In May 1882 she had the satisfaction of seeing the second volume of the History of Woman Suffrage in print, carrying women's record through 1875. Volume III was not completed until 1885.
Women's response to their own history was a disappointment. Only a few realized its value for the future, among them Mary L. Booth, editor of Harper's Bazaar. The majority were indifferent and some even critical. When Mrs. Stanton offered the three volumes to the Vassar College library, they were refused.[349] Nevertheless, every time Susan looked at the three large volumes on her shelves, she was happy, for now she was assured that women's struggle for citizenship and freedom would live in print through the years. To libraries in the United States and Europe, she presented well over a thousand copies, grateful that the Eliza Eddy legacy now made this possible.
In 1883, Susan surprised everyone by taking a vacation in Europe. Soon after Volume II of the History had been completed, Mrs. Stanton had left for Europe with her daughter Harriot.[350] Her letters to Susan reported not only Harriot's marriage to an Englishman, William Henry Blatch, but also encouraging talks with the forward-looking women of England and France whom she hoped to interest in an international organization. Repeatedly she urged Susan to join her, to meet these women, and to rest for a while from her strenuous labors. The possibility of forming an international organization of women was a greater attraction to Susan than Europe itself, and when Rachel Foster suggested that she make the journey with her, she readily consented.
"She goes abroad a republican Queen," observed the Kansas City Journal, "uncrowned to be sure, but none the less of the blood royal, and we have faith that the noblest men and women of Europe will at once recognize and welcome her as their equal."[351]