Finding Susan B. Anthony
July 11, 2010
by Anna Belle Pfau
|“Mumps,” says the Doctor;
“Measles,” says the Nurse;
“Votes for women,” says the lady
with the alligator purse.
~Nursery rhyme about Susan B. Anthony and her famous black travel case
We’re home now and though we didn’t get the chance to share much of the trip with you from the road, we do have plenty to report now that we’re back. The trip was amazing and everyone was thoroughly changed by the experience. There were plenty of poignant moments and lots of discussion, some visits with people that the girls still can’t stop talking about. When last we left you, we had finished up in Massachusetts and were headed to Rochester, NY in search of Susan B. Anthony. As we moved into what I considered to be the heart of the trip, things really began to pick up steam and we found her.
The Susan B. Anthony house is located at 19 Madison Street in Rochester. The foundation that runs the house also owns 17 Madison Street, where the sign-in and gift shop, as well as various displays are located. Across the street from these two houses is another house, which was donated to the foundation, and in which the administration offices are located. It was obvious as soon as we pulled up that these folks knew how to do women’s history.
19 Madison Street, (Amelia, Anna Belle and Nancy)
These houses are nestled among some of the most beautifully preserved Victorian and pre-Victorian houses, on a street that ends in a small grassy park, which is also beautifully kept. Our tour guide was a docent named Nancy and she shepherded us through the house telling the girls Susan’s story and the stories of other people who participated in the push for women’s rights. She knew so much and recounted it all from memory. Lily, Amelia and I were enchanted.
In those rooms, once walked by Anthony herself, we heard details that are omitted from history books. There was a $200 check that was uncovered when some boards on the steps were removed; this was a fee from a speaking engagement, an enormous sum at the time. The house, we learned, did not belong to Susan B. Anthony, rather it belonged to her sister, Mary. This is because their mother had been afraid that Susan would sell the house to support her suffragist work. The maternal Anthony insisted that Susan had given back every dime she ever made, and she could not in good conscious leave Susan without a home to return to.
We learned from Nancy that Mary Anthony herself was quite an advocate of women’s rights, and was once confronted with a disparity that many women still face today: she was offered half the salary of the male principal at a local school to assume his position. The school had petitioned her repeatedly to serve as its principal, which she was tempted to do since the school was in walking distance. When she found out they had offered her half of the male principal’s salary, she marched right down and announced she would do it for no less than the same pay. She got it too, and served as principal of that school until her retirement.
In the parlor of the Susan B. Anthony house stands a beautiful upright piano, a gift to the memorial by some passing patron who happened to see a picture of the parlor and learned he had the same kind of piano at home. He later donated it and paid to have it shipped. It stands as a testament to the many people who have worked tirelessly to restore the house. In a room upstairs, for example, the wallpaper is a replica of the original wallpaper, which was created by a local college student who was relying on a black and white photo. It is beautiful, and the student managed to help the foundation secure it for an eighth of the cost of commercial restoration. These little stories of outsiders who care really lend something special to the place.
Voting Booth at the Susan B. Anthony house
Later in the tour we went back to the gift shop area, behind which sits what the ladies there told us was the same kind of machine that Susan B. Anthony cast her illegal vote on in 1872. We later learned from Amy Siskind that that kind of voting booth is still in use in New York today. Amazing.
After our tour we took a walk to the park, Susan B. Anthony Square as it is formally called, at the end of the street, where an amazing tribute to both Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglas had been designed and sculpted by an artist and local immigrant from Laos. Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglas had been close friends throughout the decades they both lived in in the city. The artist (sadly we did not write down his name) had been so impressed with the stories of these two Rochester heroes that he was moved to create a tribute to their friendship. We thought it fitting that another generation had been inspired by the civil rights struggles these two great figures had shared.
Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglas Memorial at Susan B. Anthony Square
From this day of the trip onward our enthusiasm grew. Seeing our tour guide’s zeal and hearing so many great little anecdotes about Anthony, the house, and the city of Rochester, Amelia and Lily really began to understand what this trip was about. They had agreed to the trip because they are teenagers and it “got them out of town,” as they told me, but you could really see changes happening within in them starting with this visit. Their natural teen apathy was wearing down, and they could not help but begin to make connections, the kind of connections I had hoped would happen, but couldn’t really push them to. We drove away from Rochester, striking out for Seneca Falls, and the car was bustling with conversation about how they could have an impact like Anthony did, and how they could participate politically in the world today.
Perfect. Seneca Falls would drive these points home for them even more.
Sounds like a great trip. I have never been east of Mansfield, Ohio but this sort of historical trip could motivate me to go for a few weeks. I could only vaguely place Fredrick Douglas so I googled him and I loved this quote of his “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.” WOW. If only most of the people who call themselves Democrats and Republicans could internalize that thought we’d live in a different and more productive country. Thanks for writing about your trip so we can enjoy it too.
Thank you for writing about the trip! I’ve enjoyed following your journey.I look forward to hearing about Seneca Falls.
Mansfield, eh? That’s the heart of Ohio, so there’s half that and Pennsylvania’s a long state, but you could do it, Bes. Where we were in upstate it is beautiful and quite a scenic drive. We took a hotel room at Rochester, but we camped at Seneca Falls, which has plenty of camping grounds. There’s a samll fee to see the Susan B. Anthony house, but all the activities in Seneca Falls are free.
I’ll be sharing Seneca Falls next, which was very powerful for all of us. Can’t wait to see what you think, yttk!
AB,
Your trip and the trouble you have taken to describe it to us is really inspiring… I am already (as many of us) thinking how I will make this (or at least part of it)tour with my daughters, my son and my husband (and son in law too), and my grand daughter. We always make a trip together, at least once a year.
Also, as I am lucky and travel much both for business and pleasure, I will try to seek everywhere I go, in the US and abroad, women’s history.
you should think about making it into a book.
I am so much looking forward to Seneca Falls!
If you really care about the right to vote that this woman worked herself ragged to get for us, watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccbd4DbpS4c
The URL for the doco is:
http://www.wewillnotbesilenced2008.com/
This is THE single most important thing confronting us right now — if this crap isn’t stopped cold and immediately, then Susan B and everyone else who worked like she did will have gone through all that for NOTHING. All those women arrested, tortured with forced-feeding, brutalized — for NOTHING.
This is more than just going to the polls and flipping a lever — if the lever isn’t connected to anything, then it’s not doing the memory of these hard-working women any good.
This is a doco BY a woman about an election stolen from a woman, and an overwhelmingly female population of poll workers and voters who were harassed, threatened, and prevented from exercising the rights that Anthony and others worked themselves ragged to get. Getting this documented and blown open finally, after two years of silence, is the proper way to commemorate what Anthony, Paul, Stanton, and the others worked for.
Saw it Janis and grateful that the truth is *starting* to come out!!!
Amy, I have to admit it made me feel an awareness of at least a scintilla of decency in the human race to see that Hillary WON, and that it took a massive organized effort of corruption and threat to screw with things. In the end, most people did indeed vote for the woman. Including men. Including people of all colors, and it was wrenching to see the black women who had seen the corruption have to bear witness to it anonymously! One spoke with her name and face, but the other black women spoke in the dark or with their faces pixelated. What the hell is this, 1930? They worked so hard to get their voting rights away from Jim Crow, and now they are STILL fearful of reprisals over voting rights nearly 80 years later?! This is goddamned evil!
But I have to say that it struck me that the people, men and women, who could actually respect a woman and see her as a dignified leader were in the majority. It took a massive campaign of evil, physical threat, and corruption to tip it the other way. It made me feel that humans might not be entirely garbage for the first time in two and a half years.
I hope with all my heart that this goes huge. Fox is supposedly going to follow the story for a few months, so the DNC will have to respond at some point. If voting is gone, nothing is left.
I would be jubilant if Fox would really bring this story out.after 2008 I could understand the first time in my life that some women don’t vote anymore.
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