Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890-1920
Biography of Helen James, 1862-1907
By Elizabeth Cunningham, student, Rosemont College
Helen Louise Mosher James was born in New York on April 29, 1862, to Hannah Anthony Mosher and Eugene Mosher. Helen married Alvan T. James on July 30, 1889, and they had one daughter, Helen Miriam James. Helen James died on December 23, 1907 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
James was the niece of Susan B. Anthony, the only daughter of Anthony's sister Hannah. James and Anthony spent much time together, and Anthony visited James at her home. James and her husband attended the Twenty-Fifth Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Washington, D.C., in 1893, where they recorded the minutes of the meetings and donated money. James was elected the recording secretary of the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association in 1902. In 1905, James attended the 37th annual session for the Pennsylvania advocates of Equal Suffrage.
James did not live long enough to participate in the 1915 woman suffrage referendum movement in Pennsylvania, but is mentioned in Anthony's letters to friends.
Sources:
Anthony, Susan B. The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: An Awful Hush, 1895 to 1906.
Bryn Mawr College Yearbook: Class of 1921. Accessed online at http://repository.brynmawr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=bmc_yearbooks.
Gordon, Ann D. The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: An Awful Hush, 1895 to 1906. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2013.
"Miss Anthony's Projects," Philadelphia Inquirer, March 2, 1900, 5.
"Remains to Lie in State," Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle, March 14, 1906, 15.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, and Susan B. Anthony, National Woman Suffrage Association Report of the Sixteenth Annual Washington Convention, March 4-7, 1884. Rochester, NY: Charles Mann, 1884.
"State Suffrage Meetings," Bucks County (PA) Gazette, Nov. 16, 1905, 2.
Upton, Harriet Taylor (Ed.). Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Jan.16-19, 1893. Washington, D.C.: Stormont & Jackson, 1893.
"Women Seek to Vote," Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 8, 1902, 2.