Annie Webb was born in Manchester, England, on May 5, 1861. Unable to attend university due to her sex, she received training as a teacher at a boarding school. She came to the U.S. in the early 1880s and found a job teaching at Miss Sarah Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut. She married Edward Porritt, a political historian and journalist, in 1891. The couple had four children, Philip, Longshaw, Mary, and Marjory. Annie supported the family through teaching during the 1890s while she and her husband co-authored a history of the House of Commons. In 1901 and 1902, the family lived in England and South Africa, returning to the U.S. in 1903 and settling in Hartford, Connecticut.
Annie Porritt published articles in Outlook, the Independent, the Yale Review, American Historical Reviews, Political Science Quarterly, Forum, and many English journals. From 1910 to 1913 she was Secretary of the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association and spoke frequently in public for women's suffrage. She was the author of many articles, pamphlets, and books, including Causes of the Revolt of the Women in England (1912), The Militant Suffrage Movement in England (1912), The Political Duties of Mothers (1912), and Votes and Babies (1912). With her husband, she was co-author of The Unreformed House of Commons (1903). Porritt also chaired the Birth Control Review editorial board and wrote articles for it; was Secretary of the American Birth Control League in the early 1920s to 1932; and founder of the Connecticut League for Birth Control. She died in a car accident in August 1932.
From the guide to the Annie Gertrude Webb Porritt Papers 123., 1898-1976, (Sophia Smith Collection)
