In 1916 the NAWSA purchased the "Woman's Journal" from Alice Stone Blackwell. The newspaper had been established in 1870 by Blackwell's mother, Lucy Stone, and had served as the primary voice of the suffrage movement most of the time since then. It had significant limitations, however. It was a small operation, with Blackwell herself doing most of the work, and with much of its reporting centered on the eastern part of the country at a time when a national newspaper was needed.