SPENCER, Sara Andrews, reformer, born in Savona, Steuben County, New York, 21 October, 1837. Her maiden name was Andrews. After graduation at the normal school of St. Louis, Missouri, in 1856, she taught until she married Henry C. Spencer, a son of Platt R. Spencer, in 1864 and removed to Washington, D.C. On 14 April, 1871, Mrs. Spencer and seventy-two other women of Washington attempted to register and vote, but were refused. She then brought suit in the supreme court of the District, and Judge David K. Cartter's decision that" women are citizens but have not the right to vote without local legislation" was reaffirmed by the United States supreme court in 1874. In 1871-'2 Mrs. Spencer defeated the pending bill to license the "social evil" in Washington. In 1873 she secured a bill from the District of Columbia legislature for the reform of outcast girls, and she was also the author of a bill in congress for a girls' reform-school (1876). From 1874 till 1881 she was secretary of the National woman suffrage association, which she represented at the Republican presidential convention in Cincinnati in 1876, and delivered an address. She also engrossed and signed the woman's declaration of rights, presented at the Centennial celebration in Philadelphia. In 1871-'6 she was president of the District of Columbia woman franchise association, and is general secretary of the Charity organization society of the District of Columbia. She has published "Problems on the Woman Question" (Washington, 1871), and "Thirty Lessons in the English Language" (1873).