The Revolution (newspaper)

The Revolution was a weekly women's rights newspaper published between January 8, 1868 and February 1872. It was the official publication of the National Woman Suffrage Association which was formed by feminists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. This newspaper was edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury and initially funded by George Francis Train.

The newspaper's motto, printed on the masthead of the first edition's front page, was, "Principle, not policy; Justice, not favors." Beginning with the second edition, the following was added to the motto: "Men, their rights and nothing more; Women, their rights and nothing less." Later editions used these words as the motto: "The True Republic—Men, their rights and nothing more; Women, their rights and nothing less."

Although The Revolution’s circulation never exceeded 3,000, its influence on the national woman’s rights movement was enormous. The paper functioned as the official voice of the National Woman Suffrage Association and discussed controversial issues of divorce, prostitution, and reproductive rights and linked change to female enfranchisement and other things. The Revolution was instrumental in attracting working-class women to the movement by devoting columns to concerns such as unionization and discrimination against female workers.

Train's contributions to the paper declined after he was imprisoned in England for backing Irish rebels. His support ceased by May 1869, and the paper began to operate in debt. Anthony insisted on expensive, high-quality printing equipment, and she paid women workers the high wages she thought they deserved. She banned any advertisements for alcohol- and morphine-laden patent medicines; all such medicines were abhorrent to her. However, revenue from non-patent-medicine advertisements was too low to cover costs.

In January 1870, a rival paper was launched by Lucy Stone, called the Woman's Journal. Despite conjecture at the time, it is doubtful that Anthony and Stanton suffered from any competition for subscribers. Few subscribers switched allegiance; many subscribed to both.

On May 22,1870, Laura Curtis Bullard bought The Revolution for one dollar, with Anthony assuming its $10,000 debt, an amount equal to $184,000 in current value. Anthony used her lecture fees to repay the debt, completing the task in six years. Bullard was a Brooklyn-based writer whose parents became wealthy from selling a popular morphine-laden patent medicine called "Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup". Under Bullard, the paper reorganized to include more social gossip and mainstream literature, and it began to carry the lucrative patent medicine advertisements that Anthony had banned. Nevertheless, it did not thrive; its last issue was published in February 1872.