She began taking part in the woman suffrage movement in the 1860s, and became a leader in the county and state, speaking widely and helping establish organizations to support it.

[4] For decades, Des Moines also was important as a city on the migrant trail of pioneers to the West and flourished with trade.

Among his successful enterprises, her husband was one of the founders of the American Emigration Company, which recruited and helped settle nearly one hundred thousand immigrants from Scandinavia in Iowa and nearby states.

[2] While not known to have much formal education in her early life, Annie Savery read widely and deeply, and was known for her study of many fields.

Savery worked closely with leaders such as Lucy Stone, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B.

[4] When Stanton and Anthony collaborated with Victoria Woodhull, who supported free love, the partnership garnered negative opinions, especially in conservative Iowa.

[1] Savery worked to negotiate the difficulties, continuing to stress that women could support woment's rights independent of their opinions about such side issues as free love.

It was debated in 1872 by the full state legislature, and the controversy about Woodhull and free love proponents in the women's movement derailed important support.

[5] No woman suffrage bill was proposed in Iowa again until 1916,[4] a few years before the national constitutional amendment was passed in 1919, giving women the vote.

Savery turned to other fields, acting as financial partner in establishing a beekeeping operation in 1871 with Ellen Smith Tupper.

[1] After losing their house to fire and struggling financially during the depression of the 1870s, the Saverys moved to Montana in 1878, where her husband recovered his fortune in mining and other investments.

Her friend Judge Nathaniel M. Hubbard from Cedar Rapids, a leader in the Republican Party,[8] was the main speaker at the funeral, praising her intellectual pursuits and capacity.