To celebrate their 45th alumni reunion, June 8-10, Jon A. and Virginia M. Lindseth, both members of the class of 1956 have bestowed a major collection of material documenting the American women's suffrage movement to Cornell University Library.

The Jon A. Lindseth Collection of American Woman Suffrage chronicles the history of women's struggle for the right to vote, from the early 19th century through 1920, when the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution enfranchising American women was signed into law. The gift augments and strengthens Cornell's significant collections on 19th century American reform movements, such as abolitionism and temperance.

Highlights from the Lindseth Collection will be on display in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections on the 2B level of the Carl A. Kroch Library beginning Thursday, June 7.

A Cornell presidential councillor and trustee emeritus, Jon Lindseth is a well-known book collector and generous friend of Cornell University Library. In 1995, Lindseth began building a woman suffrage collection and, in an astonishingly short period of time, acquired many of the significant landmark publications in the field, including: Elizabeth Cady Stanton's The Woman's Bible ; important woman's right's journals such as The Revolution , and The Suffragist; and, autograph correspondence of Susan B. Anthony.

Lindseth's commitment and sophistication in his approach to collecting is seldom matched, said Katherine Reagan, the library's curator of rare books.

"Jon set out to build a collection that would compliment Cornell's holdings," Reagan said. "He specifically sought out the most important texts we lacked in our existing collections, keeping the needs and interests of Cornell students and faculty in mind."

Since the collection arrived in October, several students have used the Lindseth Collection's original documents and letters to learn more about the suffrage movement.

The Lindseth suffrage collection contains more than 500 items including rare books, periodicals, pamphlets, letters, cartoons, photographs, banners, campaign buttons, and other objects. Of special interest are ephemeral broadsides and campaign leaflets that were used to spread support for the cause at political rallies and conventions -- documents that typically have a low survival rate. As a whole, the Lindseth collection provides a fascinating account of the work of generations of American women who dedicated their lives to winning the right to vote.

Highlights of the collection include campaign literature produced by suffrage advocacy organizations such as the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage. The writings of prominent women activists are well represented, including Anthony, Stanton, Alice Stone Blackwell, Carrie Chapman Catt, Maria Weston Chapman, Margaret Fuller, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Angelina and Sarah Grimke, Julia Ward Howe, Lucretia Mott, Sylvia Pankhurst, Alice Paul, Jannette Rankin and Lucy Stone. Among the other treasures in the collection are Margaret Fuller's personal copy of Goethe's Werke (1828) and an inscribed edition of Gilman's The Yellow Wall Paper (1899).

While most of the material in the Lindseth collection documents the work of pro-suffrage forces, it also contains publications arguing against universal suffrage, such as leaflets distributed by the Woman's Anti-Suffrage Society and the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage.

Throughout the summer, selected items from the Jon A. Lindseth Collection of American Woman Suffrage will be on display in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections on level 2B of Kroch Library on campus. By the end of this year, catalog records for the items in the collection will be available online in the Cornell Library Catalog. Anyone wishing to consult the collection in the meantime should contact Katherine Reagan, curator of rare books, by phone at (607) 255-3530 or e-mail kr33@cornell.edu .