Representative women of New England/Susan B. Anthony

by Mary H. Graves

1820 SUSAN B. ANTHONY 1902

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, in virtue of her birth, her parentage, her six years of budding childhood passed at the foot of "Old Greylock" in the Berkshire range of hills, also through the residence of her ancestors in direct line, both maternal and paternal, with most if not all of their kith and kin, for seven generations, in Rhode Island or Southeastern or Western Massachusetts, may be justly claimed as a New England woman. Daughter of Daniel and Lucy (Read) Anthony, she was born at Adams, Mass., February 15, 1820, and was named for an aunt, Susan Anthony Brownell. The history of the family in America begins with the arrival at Portsmouth, R.I., in 1634, of John Anthony, a native of Hempstead, England, and then twenty-seven years of age. He served the colony as a Deputy, 1666-72. He had three sons—John, Jr., Joseph, and Abraham—and two daughters.

John, Jr., was the father of Albro³ Anthony, whose daughter Elizabeth,⁴ born in 1728, married a Scotsman, Gilbert Stuart, Sr., and became the mother of Gilbert Stuart, born in 1755, the great portrait painter.

From John Anthony, the immigrant, to Daniel Anthony, of Adams, Mass., the line appears (from the printed records consulted) to have descended through Abraham,² William,³ William, Jr.,⁴ David,⁵ Humphrey.⁶ William Anthony, son of Abraham and his wife, Alice Woodell, or Wodell, married in 1695 Mary Coggeshall, who belonged to a family well known in Portsmouth, R.I., to this day.

David Anthony married Judith Hicks. Shortly before the Revolution he removed from Dartmouth, Mass., where his son Humphrey was born in 1770, to Berkshire, settling near Adams. Judith Hicks probably belonged to the family founded by Robert Hicks, who came over in the "Fortune" in 1621.

Humphrey Anthony married Hannah Lapham. Both were birthright Quakers, or Friends, and she was an Elder, and in " meeting" sat on the "high seat." Their son Daniel was born in 1794. At the time of the division in 1826 between the liberal and the orthodox Friends, he sided with the liberals, or Hicksites. He was educated at Nine Partners, a Friends' boarding-school, and began active life as a teacher, shortly becoming a cotton manufacturer, some years later a farm-owner, and then engaging in the insurance business, the family home being successively in Adams, Mass., Battenville. Centre Falls, and Rochester, N.Y. Mr. Anthony was a man of excellent business capacity, true moral courage, and sterling integrity; his wife, Lucy Read Anthony, a woman of sweet disposition and gentle manners, yet not lacking native energy and force of character. Her father, Daniel Reatl, was a native of Rehoboth, Mass., a Universalist in religion, a Whig in politics. Her mother, Susanna Richardson Read, was from Scituate.

The removal of Daniel Anthony and his family from Adams to Battenville, N.Y., forty-four miles distant, took place in 1826. Young as she was at this time, Susan had already, from her close association with "Old Graylock" — visible embodiment of strength and uplift, its top seeming to touch the sky — received an inspiration destined to remain with her through life. At, Battenville the Anthony chiUh-en, two boys and four girls, were taught in a private school at home. At the age of fifteen Susan was a teacher in that school. At seventeen she taught in a family at Easton, N.Y., receiv- ing her hoard and one dollar per week. The next summer she taught a district school and "boarded round," her wages being a tlollar and a half ])er week. Following that, she attended successively a boarding-schoc)l. Miss Deborah Moul.son's, at Hamilton, near Philadelphia, ami a private school at home taught by Daniel Wright. Here ended, 1830, her school-da3's proper. From the first she had shown herself precociously intelligent, ambitious to learn, and fond of mastering difficult prolilenis.

The winter had brought business reverses to Mr. Anthony. With characteristic honesty he turned over his property to his creditors, reserving only the bare necessities allowed by law, and in March removed to Centre Falls, two Tuiles away. For some time after, Susan's energies were devoted to domestic concerns, such as washing, cooking, spinning, and weav- ing, with (piilting bees, apple bees, sleigh rides, and other rural diversions, not to mention eligible offers of marriage at this period and later on to keep life from being dull and pleas- ureless. Her next school was at New Rochelle, N.Y. For teaching a sunmier term of fifteen weeks she was jiaid thirty dollars.

The final migration of Daniel Anthony and his household, now depleted by the marriage of two daughters, was in 1845, the journey being made by railroad and canal to a farm three miles west of Rochester, N.Y. For three years from May, 1846, Susan was an assistant in the Canajoharie Academy, the principal of which, Daniel H. Hagar, failed not in after life to cx))ress high aj)preciation of her ability and services as a teacher. In 1850 and 1851 she was at home, managing the farm, her father attending to his business in Syracuse. After one more brief term of school, in the spring of 1852 she gave up teaching, to devote herself henceforth with singleness of purpose and rare continuity of effort to the stremions activities of her " fifty years of noble endeavor for the freedom of women," activities thus sununed up and circumstantially set forth in her authorized biography (happily not finished), "The Life and Work of Susan R. Anthony," by Ida Husted Harper, published in 1898. In these well-filled volumes, two in number, the leading facts and events, together with numerous stir- ring incidents and anuising episodes in her ])ul)lic career, are recordcMl in chronological order, ])assages from letters and from her diary revealing more intimate experiences of joy and of sorrow, bearing witness to strong family affections and a large capacity for friendship. The work is carefully indexed, and each vol- ume prefaced by a copious table of contents, with conspicuous headings, marking various turning-points and stages in the life journey therein set forth. For example may be cited: Chai)ter V. Entrance into Public Life (1850- 52) ; VI. Temi)erance and Teachers' Conven- tions (1852-.'53); X. Campaigning with the (iarrisonians (1857-58); XIV. Women's Na- tional Loyal League (1863-64); XYU. Cam- paigns in New York and Kansas (1867) ; XVIII. Establishing the Revolution (1S68); XIX. Fovmding the National Suffrage Society (1869); XX. Fiftieth Birthday (1870); XXI. End of Revolution (1870); XXIII. First Trip to the Pacific Coast (1871); XXV. Trial for Voting under Fourteenth Amendment (1873); XXX. Writing the History; XXXI. The Legacy— Nebraska Campaign (1882)— Off for Europe (1883); XXXV. (hiion of Associa- tion.s — International Council (1888); XL. Made President of National A.ssociation, 1892; XLI. World's Fair — Congress of Re])resentative Women (1893); XLV. Second 'i.sit to Cali- fornia (1895); Anthonv Reunion at Adams (1897).

While teaching at Canajoharie, Miss Anthony .served as secretary of the local society of the Daughters of Temperance; and at a supper on March 1, 1849, to which they invited the people of the village, she made the ])rincipal address, reading it from her manuscript. It was her first platform utterance.

It may here be mentioned that the Woman's Rights Convention that met at Seneca Falls in .Inly, 1848, and adjourned to meet in Roches- ter, August 2, had been attended by her father, mother, and sister Mary, and that they had signed its declaration. Reading with interest the New York Tribune reports of a similar convention in Worcester, Mass., October, 1850, Miss Anthony " sympathized fully with the demand for equal rights for women, but was not yet (juite convinced that these included the suffrage."

In 1S51 , as the president of a lotlge of Daugh- ters of Temperance in Rochester, she was very active in raising funds and organizing societies to carry on temperance work, and there "first <lisplayed that executive ability which was destined to make her famous." Attending in that winter an anti-slavery meeting conducted by Stephen and Abby Kelley Foster, she was so much interested that she accompanied them for a week in their lecturing toiu'. In the fol- lowing May she first met I'^^lizabeth Cady .Stan- ton, who afterward said of her, "I liked her thoroughly from the beginning." From their second meeting in the next sunmier at the home of Mrs. Stanton dated their lifelong friendship, acquaintance with Lucy Stone beginning at the same time and place.

Miss Anthony's experience as a delegate from the Daughters of Temperance to the mass meeting held by the Sons of Temperance at Albany early in 1852 would have disheart- ened a less heroic woman. "Her credentials, with those of other wonien delegates, were accepted, but, when she rose to speak to a motion, she was informed by the presiding officer that ' the sisters were not invited there to speak, but to listen and learn.' She and three or four other ladies at once left the hall."

The women then held a little meeting of their own, which the Rev. Sanuiel .1. May helped to organize. The result was the first Woman's State Temperance Convention. This was held in Rochester in April of the same year. At Syracuse in September, 1852, she attended for the first time a Woman's Rights Convention. From that convention she " came away thoroughly convinced that the right which woman needed above every other, the one, indeed, which would secure to her all others, was the right of suffrage."

At the first annual meeting of the Woman's State Temperance Society, held in Rochester in June, ISS;^, Miss Anthony was re-elected secretary, but refused to serve, stating that " the vote showed they would not accept the principle of woman's rights, and, as she be- lieved thoroughly in standing for the equal- ity of woman, she would not act as officer of such a society. . . . Miss Anthony, although a total abstainer all her life, was never again connected with a temperance organization." In 1854 Judge William Hay, of Saratoga, brought out a new edition of his romance, "Isabel d' Avalos," dedicated as follows: —

TO

SUSAN B. ANTHONY

Whose earnestness of purp<)se, honesty of intention, unremittin;^ industry, indefatigable perseverance, and extraordinary business talent are .surpassed only by the virtues of her life, devoted, like that of Dorothea Dix, to the cause of humanity.

In the winter of 1861 a number of aboli- tionists under the leadership of Susan B. An- thony planned a series of meetings to be held in the State of New York. In the small towns the meetings passed off quietly; but in every city, from Buffalo, where the first one was held on January 3, to Albany, they were broken up by mobs. At Albany the Democratic mayor, George H. Thacher, true to his oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the State of New York, aimounced to their op})o- nents his intention of protecting them in the right of speech. On the day apjwinted Asso- ciation Hall was filled to the doors. "The mayor went on the platform, and announced that he had placed policemen in citizens' clothes in various parts of the hall, and that whoever made the least disturbance would be at once arrested. Then he laid a revolver across his knees, and sat during the morning, afternoon, and evening sessions. Several times the mob broke forth, and each time arrests were promptly made. Toward the close of the evening he said to Mi.ss Anthony, 'If you insist upon holding your meetings to- morrow, I shall still protect you; but, if you will adjourn at the clo.se of this session, I shall consiiler it a personal favor.' Of course, she willingly acceded to his request." This closed the series of conventions. Inmiediately after- ward the State Woman's Rights Convention was held in Albany, February 7 and S, and this was the last of those conventions for five years. In the summer of 1862 Miss Anthony attended her last State Teachers' Convention, which was held in Rochester. For ten years she had kept up her membership dues, and had not missed an annual meeting; ami since 1.S.53, when she first made her voice heard in the deliberations, she had advocated the rights of women teachers to hold office in the organization, to serve on committees, to exercise free speech, and to receive equal pay with men for equal work.

In the fall she entered the lecture field, speaking extempore on "Emancipation the Duty of the Government." A prominent citizen, after hearing her at Mecklenburg, wrote to her, "There is not a man among all the political speakers who can make that duty as plain as you have done."

In New York City, at an enthusiastic meeting held in Dr. Cheever's church on May 14, 1863, in a dark period of the Civil War, when speeches were made by Angelina Grimke W^eld, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and others, was formed the Woman's National Loyal League, to give support to the government in its war for freedom. Mrs. Stanton was elected president. Miss Anthony secretary of the organization. Its object was to secure jjetitions to the Senate and House of Representatives, praying for an act emancipating all persons of African descent held in involuntary servitude. To this work Miss Anthony devoted her energies for a year and a half, sending out from the headquarters of the league. Room '20, Cooper Institute, where she remained all through the hot summer, thousands of blank petitions, accompanied by a circular letter asking for .'signers to the petitions. Charles Sunmer distributed these petitions under his frank; and on February 9, 1S64, he presented to the Senate the first instalment of the filled-out petitions, saying: "These petitions are signed by one hundred thousand men and women. They are from all parts of the country and from every condition of life. They ask nothing less than universal emancipation, and this they ask directly from the hands of Congress." In August, 1864, the number of signatures had reached nearly four hundred thousand. Charles Sunmer and Henry Wilson testified that " these petitions formed the bulwark of their demand for Congressional action to abolish slavery."

In January, ISfiS, a few weeks after the return of Miss Anthony from Kansas, where in the fall of 1867 she had taken part in the suffrage campaign for woman and the negro man, was issued in New York City the first number of the Revolution, a weekly paper conducted by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton in the interests of women, George Francis Train and David M. Melliss, of the New York World, agreeing to supply the needful funds until the paper should be on a paying basis. Its motto was: "Men, their rights and nothing more. Women, their rights and nothing less." Parker Pillsbury was one of the editors. The undertaking was considered ill-advised by the majority of suffragists. Miss Anthony writes: "All the old friends, with scarce an exception, are sure we are wrong. Only time can tell, but I believe we are right, hence bound to succeed." The New York Home Journal comments: "The Revolution is plucky, keen, and wide-awake. Some of its ways are not at all to our taste, yet we are glad to recognize in it the inspiration of the noblest aims, and the sagacity and talent to accomplish what it desires. It is on the right track, whether it has taken the right train or not."

The Independent, in concluding a "breezy editorial," said, "Its business management is in the good hands of Miss Susan B. Anthony, who has long been known as one of the most indefatigable, honest, obstinate, faithful, cross-grained, and noble-minded of the famous women of America."

After two and one-half years of hard work the Revolution was given up for financial reasons, Miss Anthony assuming personally the entire indebtedness, ten thousand dollars. She wasted no time in mourning over her disappointment and losses. Alone she started to earn the money to pay this debt with interest. For an evening lecture at Hornellsville four days later she received one hundred and fifty dollars. Says her biographer, "Miss Anthony worked unceasingly through winter's cold and summer's heat, lecturing sometimes under private auspices, sometimes under those of a bureau, and herself arranging for unengaged nights." In six years the work was done. On May 1, 1876, she wrote: "The (iay of juhile(> for nie has come. I have paid the last dollar of the Revolution debt!"

On November 5, 1S72, at an election held in the city of Rochester for a Rej^resentative in Congress, Susan B. Anthony and fourteen other women cast their ballots. This remarkable act was done untler the conviction that it was in accordance with the Constitution of the United States, as explained by Francis Minor, of St. Louis, Henry R. Selilen, of Rochester, and Albert G. Riddle, of A'ashington, all lead- ing members of the bar, who believed women had a right to vote under the Fourteenth Amend- ment. It was also intended as a test case. Many of the leading ])apers supported her, but the fifteen women of Rochester who voted were all arrested. Miss Anthony's trial took place in June, 1S73, at Canandaigua. Judge Selden testified that he advised her to vote, and in a masterly address argued her case from a legal, constitutional, and moral standpoint. The prosecuting attorney followed. Associate Justice Ward Hunt then delivered his opinion, and directed the jury to bring in a verdict of guilty. The next day he sentenced her to pay a fine of one hundred dollars and costs. "May it plea.se your honor," said she, "I will never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty," and she never did. Even by opponents of woman suf- frage the action of Judge Hunt was denounced as arbitrary and illegal. On May 15, 1869, women from nineteen States, who had come to New York as tlelegates to the third anniversary of the Ecjual Rights As- sociation, met and formed a new organization, to be called the "National Woman Suffrage Association, whose special object should be a sixteenth amendment to the Federal Con- stitution, securing the ballot to the women of the nation on etiual terms with men." Mrs. Stanton was elected president, Anna Dickinson one of the vice-[)residents, and Miss Anthony one of the executive committee. To the supe- rior business ability of Miss Anthony as planner and manager, occupying various ofhcial posi- tions, the success of the many annual conven- tions since held by the society has been largely due. In November, 1869, was formed the American Suffrage Association, numbering among its leading members Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and Mary A. Livermore. The union of the two societies. National and American, pro- posed by the American in Deceml)er, 1887, was effected in February, 1890. For bringing about this result more credit is acknowledged to be due to Alice Stone Blackwell than to any other one person.

Of the new National-American Suffrage Asso- ciation Mrs. Stanton was the president in 1890 and 1891, when she asked to be relieved on account of age. Miss Anthony was made presi- dent in 1892, and held the office till 1900, when she declined re-election, and was made an honorary president for life. On resigning active leadership at the age of eighty, she said, "I expect to do more for woman suffrage in the next decade than ever before."

After fifty years of toilsome activity and heroic devotion to a principle, her cheerful testimony is, "I do not look back upon a hard life: I have been continually at work because I enjoyed being busy." Conviction that her "cause was just and she was in good company" helped her over many hard places.

The .secret of her continuance and her suc- cess may be gathered from the remark of Charles Dudley W'arner after a suffrage con- vention at Hartford, Conn., in the sixties: " Susan Anthony is my favorite. . . . You could .see in every motion and in her very silence that the cause was all she cared for; self was utterly forgotten."

It was Mrs. Stanton, long-time intimate friend of Mi.ss Anthony, who wrote of her, " I can truly say she is the most upright, coura- geous, self-sacrificing, magnanimous human being I have ever known."

Work on the History of Woman Suffrage, planned by Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton, and Mrs. Oage, and which they expected would be a pamphlet of a few hundretl pages, was begim on the first of August, 1870, at the home of Mrs. Stanton. As material for the history, Miss Anthony had collected and preserved, during the quarter of a century preceding. letters, reports, and other documents, filling several large trunks and boxes. To examine and assort these was in itself no slight task. In her diary Miss Anthony wrote, " I am immersed to my ears, and feel almost discouraged. . . . The work before me is simply appalling." The pamphlet idea was soon outgrown. The undertaking progressed intermittently, different writers assisting, Miss Anthony devoting months and months of toil, as well as bearing the burden of the business responsibility, to the conclusion. The first volume was issued in May, 1881. The second volume was completed in April, 1882. The third appeared in December, 1886. These three were edited by Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Gage. Their preparation and publication were made possible by the legacy of Mrs. Eliza Jackson Eddy. The fourth volume, edited by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper, completing the record of the century, was published at the beginning of 1003. In the account of the thirty-second annual Suffrage Convention, in Washington, D.C., in February, 1900, mention is made of Miss Anthony's report as a delegate to the International Congress of Women in London in 1899 and her description of the reception of the Congress by the Queen at Windsor Castle. There is also an interesting account of the notable celebration of Miss Anthony's eightieth birthday.

As we have no warrant for here producing any considerable portion of the contents of Mrs. Harper's " Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony," readily as its bright paragraphs lend themselves to quotation, the foregoing glances and glimpses must suffice to represent that veteran reformer in these pages. In conclusion it may be remarked that the biography above named leaves Miss Anthony where it found her—at the foot of Old Greylock: here, at the ancestral homestead, on the 29th of July, 1897, she attended, as guest of honor, the annual meeting of the Berkshire Historical Society, and on the following day, with a numerous band of kinsfolk and friends, the Anthony Reunion, a notable gatiiering on their native heath of many loyal American citizens, not a few of them true-born sons and daughters of New England.

M. H. G.