After travelling overland to Oregon from Illinois at the age of 17, Abigail Scott Duniway became a school teacher, and then entered upon a career as a pioneer farm wife. When her husband, Ben, suffered financial setbacks and was later injured in an accident, Abigail set out to support the family, which by 1869 included six children. She found that, as a woman, her opportunities were severely limited. After another stint at teaching, an occupation that paid women only a fraction of what it paid men, she built up a successful millinery business. But these were only preludes to the discovery of her true vocation — that of relentless campaigner for equal rights.

In 1871, Duniway began publishing the New Northwest, a weekly newspaper devoted to promoting, not just suffrage, but an entire agenda of women's issues. At the time the journal commenced publication, married women did not even have the right to ownership of their own wardrobes. Under the mentorship of the far more experienced Susan B. Anthony, who visited the West Coast and traveled through Oregon and Washington with Duniway at this time, the newly established publisher learned the ins and outs of politics, and went on to become a national as well as local leader of the woman's movement.

In addition to writing for the New Northwest, Duniway authored several books, including her autobiography, Path Breaking, and an epic poem, David and Anna Matson. However, the bulk of her literary accomplishments are found in the pages of her newspaper, and in a later publication she edited, The Pacific Empire. The two periodicals contain over twenty of her own novels, as well as countless columns of editorials and news. A distinctive feature was Duniway's "Editorial Correspondence," an ongoing narrative of her travels throughout the Pacific Northwest and across the United States while campaigning for equal rights.

A few rare issues of the New Northwest survive, although complete sets are now available only on microfilm. It contains most of Duniway's serialized novels, which form a vital record of what life in the "old west" was like from the perspective of an ardent feminist. In these narratives, standard conventions are reversed. Strong women rescue their menfolk from trouble, and the law enforcers are generally the villains — because they carry out legislation that robs women of their rights. Duniway revised several of the novels originally published in her newspapers for eventual publication in book form. The manuscript of Ethel Graeme's Destiny: A Story of Real Life is a revision of Her Lot; or, How She was Protected, which appeared in the columns of the New Northwest in 1878.

The January 21, 1886, issue of the New Northwest was specially preserved by Duniway because it contains an account of her vigil over the deathbed of her daughter, Clara, who passed away at the age of 31 from tuberculosis, the "plague of the 19th century." Because all of Duniway's other five children were sons, she felt the loss of this lone daughter and eldest child most keenly.

However, the boys (Willis, Hubert, Wilkie, Clyde and Ralph) all worked closely with their mother in the publishing business as they grew to maturity — first learning to set type, later writing copy as well — and were able to draw on the experience in their later careers. Duniway's second youngest son, Clyde, went on to become a university president. His son, David Duniway, served as Oregon's first State Archivist, and later donated the family papers to the University of Oregon.

Abigail Scott Duniway, hailed as a noted campaigner, writer and editor, was also a vibrant and compelling presence on the lecture platform. She was a featured speaker at local rallies as well as at national suffrage association meetings, and received complimentary reviews of her powers as a public speaker from a wide variety of sources.

One of Duniway's most treasured goals was to achieve suffrage victories in the three states of what she designated as her "chosen bailiwick." These were Oregon, Washington, and Idaho — the states that had comprised the old Oregon Country. Despite staunch opposition from some of the most influential men in Oregon, including Abigail's own brother and long-time editor of the Portland Oregonian, Harvey Scott, these victories came to pass. Idahoan women won the vote in 1896, followed by Washingtonians in 1910, and, after a number of early near-wins, Oregonians finally achieved victory in 1912, eight years in advance of the passage of the national amendment.

By the time of Duniway's death in 1915, she had achieved near-legendary status. When the Lewis & Clark Centennial was celebrated in Portland in 1905, it featured an "Abigail Scott Duniway Day," and contemporaries honored her as the quintessential "pioneer mother," as well as the "Mother of Woman Suffrage."