Abigail Scott Duniway was a crusader for Women’s Suffrage. Born in Illinois, Duniway traveled to Oregon with her family in 1852. She described the arduous journey in her first book “Captain Gray’s Company or Crossing the Plains and Living in Oregon”. She was nearly completely self-taught and read newspapers avidly. She became influenced by the women’s rights movement by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. While in Oregon, Duniway became a schoolteacher.
She established her own newspaper in 1870 called New Northwest. When the national Women’s Suffrage Association convened in Washington D.C. in 1886, Duniway was recognized as the leading women’s advocate in the West. She worked for years to achieve women’s property rights and it wasn’t until 1912 that Oregon granted women the right to vote.
At 78, she became the first registered women voter in her county. Her autobiography is called “Path Breaking” (1914). Sadly, she died five years before an amendment to the constitution was signed granting women voting rights