"They say I did well. Think of my developing as a president of a social science society in my old age!"
Miss Mitchell took no prominent part in the woman suffrage movement, but she believed in it firmly, and its leaders were some of her most highly valued friends.
"Sept. 7, 1875. Went to a picnic for woman suffrage at a beautiful grove at Medfield, Mass. It was a gathering of about seventy-five persons (mostly from Needham), whose president seemed to be vigorous and good-spirited.
"The main purpose of the meeting was to try to affect public sentiment to such an extent as to lead to the defeat of a man who, when the subject of woman suffrage was before the Legislature, said that the women had all they wanted now--that they could get anything with 'their eyes as bright as the buttons on an angel's coat.' Lucy Stone, Mr. Blackwell, Rev. Mr. Bush, Miss Eastman, and William Lloyd Garrison spoke.
"Garrison did not look a day older than when I first saw him, forty years ago; he spoke well--they said with less fire than he used in his younger days. Garrison said what every one says--that the struggle for women was the old anti-slavery struggle over again; that as he looked around at the audience beneath the trees, it seemed to be the same scene that he had known before.
"... We had a very good bit of missionary work done at our table (at Vassar) to-day. A man whom we all despise began to talk against voting by women. I felt almost inclined to pay him something for his remarks.
"A group from the Washington Women Suffrage Association stopped here to-day.... I liked Susan B. Anthony very much. She seemed much worn, but was all alive. She is eighteen months younger than I, but seems much more alert. I suppose brickbats are livelier than logarithms!"
Miss Mitchell was a member of several learned societies.
She was the first woman elected to membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, whose headquarters are at Boston.
In 1869 she was chosen a member of the American Philosophical Society, a society founded by Benjamin Franklin, in Philadelphia.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science made her a member in the early part of its existence. Miss Mitchell was one of the earliest members of the American Association for the Advancement of Women. At one period she was president of the association, and for many years served as chairman of the committee on science. In this latter capacity she reached, through circulars and letters, women studying science in all parts of the country; and the reports, as shown from year to year, show a wonderful increase in the number of such women. She was a member, also, of the New England Women's Club, of Boston, and after her annual visit at Christmas she entertained her students at Vassar with descriptions of the receptions and meeting of that body. She was also a member of the New York Sorosis. She received the degree of Ph.D. from Rutgers Female College in 1870, her first degree of LL.D. from Hanover College in 1832, and her last LL.D. from Columbia College in 1887.