Archives West Finding Aid

Abigail Jane Scott (1834-1915) was born in Tazewell County, Illinois. Her family crossed the plains to Oregon when Abigail was seventeen years old, and she kept the family journal of their journey. Her mother and youngest brother, Willie, died en route to Oregon. Abigail's journal served as the basis of her 1859 novel Captain Gray's Company, the first commercially printed novel in Oregon.

Duniway (then Scott) became a teacher in the small town of Cincinnati (now Eola), Oregon, while her family ran an inn in Lafayette. There, she met Benjamin Charles Duniway and married him August 2, 1853.

Duniway's thoughts and writings began to turn to suffrage in the 1860s. In 1871, she moved her family to Portland and, in May of that year, launched her weekly newspaper, The New North West. She also began to lecture throughout the Northwest along with nationally-renown suffragist Susan B. Anthony. Duniway sold her newspaper in 1886.

Abigail Duniway was an indefatigable supporter of women's suffrage. She encountered personal set-backs such as poor health, money problems, and opposition from her brother Harvey Scott, who edited a local paper, The Portland Oregonian. She persisted despite political opposition in the form of local resistance, the consistent failure of women's suffrage referendums on state ballots, and divisions with Eastern suffrage organizations. This persistence paid off in 1912 when Oregon became the seventh state in the Union to pass a women's suffrage amendment. Governor Oswald West asked Duniway to write the proclamation for his signature. Duniway had the honor of being the first woman to register to vote in Multnomah County. During this period she also authored numerous novels. Abigail Jane Scott Duniway died on October 11, 1915.

[Source: Moynihan, Ruth Barnes. Rebel for Rights: Abigail Scott Duniway (Yale University Press, 1983). Coll 232B, Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon.]