Susan B. Anthony Museum

The Susan B. Anthony Museum is located in the home where the voting rights activist lived from the time she was in her twenties, first with her family and later with her sister, Mary.

We entered from the visitors' center next to the home's dining room. Our docent, Allison, showed us pictures of the the way the current building looked when Susan lived here. It is so accurately restored and furnished, you feel you are paying her a visit.

The Life of Young Susan

Allison told us about a pivotal moment in young Susan's life. She and her sisters and brothers were attending a local school. Susan's a favorite subject was math, and she was excited when the teacher announced that they would learn advanced mathematics that day. At her age, advanced mathematics meant long division. She was disappointed when the teacher dismissed the girls early because he felt they had no reason to learn division.

When Susan told her father, Daniel, he took all his children out of that school and hired his own tutor. He told the tutor, “No subject is off limits to my children. You teach them whatever they want to learn.”

From that, Anthony learned, when you see something that's not fair, change it. She spent the rest of her life working to change laws she saw as unjust.

She began teaching when she was 15 and was paid around $2 a week, while men teachers were paid between $10 and $15. This sparked her career in activism. She began attending Educational Society meetings and speaking out about pay inequality.

Daniel Anthony, who was a Quaker, began hosting meetings of abolitionist societies when the family moved to New York. It was at those meetings where Susan Anthony met Frederick Douglass and his wife, Anna Marie.

Again, Anthony saw something unfair, so she joined the American Anti-Slavery Society and started traveling around, speaking against slavery.

How Susan Lived

In the parlor, there are hints about Susan B. Anthony, the person. An upright piano tells of her love of music. Books scattered on the mahogany table show she was an avid reader. Art on the walls and atop the marble fireplace demonstrate her love of art.

It was here where one of moments occurred that shaped the movement for a woman's voting rights. Allison told us that by the mid-1860s, Anthony realized that until women had the right to vote, they would be second-class citizens.

This parlor was where she was arrested for trying to claim the right to vote. Anthony and about 14 other women registered and voted in the November 1872 presidential election. She voted for Grant. She did it knowing she would be arrested, but felt the publicity would make people aware of the unfairness of the Constitution's limiting the right to vote to men.

Susan B. Anthony on Trial

A couple of weeks later, on November 18th, there was a knock on the door. A young deputy marshal came with a warrant for her arrest. She made him wait in the parlor while she went upstairs to change clothes. When he told her she needed to go to the courthouse and turn herself in, she insisted he handcuff her and treat just as he would a man being arrested. She milked this opportunity for all publicity possible.

The trial judge, Ford Hunt, told the all-male jury that she was guilty, without giving them time to deliberate, and fined her $100 plus court fees. She said, “I'll never pay a dollar of this unjust penalty.” And she didn't. It's still sitting unpaid in the court records.

A Parting of the Ways

Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass disagreed about supporting the 15^th Amendment, because it addressed expanding voting rights regardless of race but not sex. Douglass agreed the amendment should include women, but felt that adding women to it would have prevented it from passing.

The 15^th amendment passed in 1870. In part it read, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Amendment 14 already included the word “male citizen.”

Upstairs, Anthony's bedroom is simple and displays a black silk brocade dress made from material she was given by a group of Mormon women as a thank you for her efforts to get women the right to vote. She usually wore a black dress with a red scarf that made her stand out in a crowd.

Mary, Susan's sister, worked as a teacher and helped fund Anthony's speeches. Mary has the smallest room in the house, although she was the one who had bought the home from their mother.

Upstairs, Anthony's office looks like she just stepped out. As the movement grew and she needed more room and three secretaries, they added office space in the attic.

One section of the home has placards and artifacts about Anthony's life and work.

Statue

In nearby Susan B. Anthony Square Park, I loved the bronze sculpture, created by local artist Pepsy Kettavong, called Let's Have Tea. It portrays Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass sipping cups of tea around a table.

Mount Hope Cemetery

Both Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass are buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester.

Susan B. Anthony and her sister Mary's graves are roped off from the rest of her family's tombstones with a shiny black chain hung from two short posts. Many visitors had pasted their “I voted” stickers on the post. Their tombstones are modest white stones engraved with just birth and death dates.

Frederick Douglass's grave site is more elaborate. His grave is raised and engraved with his birth and death date. His grave is flanked by his first wife, Anna Murry Douglass, his second wife, Helen Pitts Douglass, and one of his daughters, Annie. A gray granite marker  is placed at the head of the plot flanked by two large flower urns.

Frederick Douglass Memorial

The Frederick Douglass Memorial is a reminder of the legacy of Douglass, and what he did in the fight for freedom and equality. The memorial features an eight-foot statue using his son as a model. It was first erected in 1899 at the train station then moved to Highland Bowl in 1941, and made its last move here to Frederick Douglass Memorial Plaza in 2019. The base is engraved with many of Douglass's speeches. It's surrounded by a park with an amphitheater.

Bridge

The two civil rights heroes are memorialized by what locals call the Freddie-Sue Bridge. But it's officially named the Frederick Douglass-Susan B. Anthony Bridge over the Genesee River on Interstate 490.

 

 

 

 

 

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