The Story of a Pioneer

This autobiography follows the life of Anna Shaw (1847-1919) from her birth in Newcastle-on-Tyne, England through her presidency of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Shaw immigrated with her genteel but financially pressed family to America in 1851. They settled first in New Bedford and then in Lawrence, Massachusetts, finally migrating in 1859 to a pioneer farmstead in northern Michigan, where Anna performed much of the subsistence labor during her father's long absences. The first part of her narrative emphasizes her efforts to gain an education and take up a ministerial career. After two years at Albion College, she attended Boston Theological School (1876-1878) and accepted a pastorate in East Dennis, Cape Cod, after graduation; later she also took temporary charge of the Congregational Church in Dennis. After her ordination had been blocked by members of the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church opposed to ordaining women, Shaw was ordained by the 1880 Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church in Tarrytown, N.Y.