Category: 2020

Victoria Brzustowicz

The Anthony Museum Reveals the Soon-To-Be-Released Susan B. Anthony Doll

Mattel’s Latest Inspiring Women™ Collectible Doll 

Susan B. Anthony has been spotted in Canada, and there have been sightings on Pinterest and murmurs online, but even fans at her home base at the National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House in Rochester, New York, have had to squelch rumors that the old girl was soon to arrive on doorsteps across the United States in a new, but familiar form. Today, inside sources at the Anthony Museum revealed the breaking news that Mattel™ is about to induct Susan B. Anthony into their Inspiring Women™ line in the form of a signature Barbie® doll.

The Anthony Museum has been keeping the secret for months. “We were delighted that the design team from Mattel™ reached out to us early in the project, demonstrating their interest in a doll and packaging that would reflect Susan B. Anthony’s life and work, and that would launch in this historically significant year when we celebrate Susan B. Anthony’s 200th birthday, the 19th Amendment, and the Anthony Museum’s 75th anniversary,” says Deborah L. Hughes, president & CEO of the Anthony Museum. 

 “While Barbie may have started as a teenage fashion model in 1959, she has evolved over the decades into a feminist role model, most recently with a 2020 Barbie presidential candidate who is Black and has a diverse campaign staff,” says Michelle Parnett-Dwyer, curator of dolls at The Strong National Museum of Play, home to the National Toy Hall of Fame. “It’s only fitting in this year of celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, that Barbie has now taken on the role of representing Susan B. Anthony.”

Lynn Sherr, journalist and author of Failure is Impossible, says, “Such a useful little likeness of our first suffrage felon!  Add a ‘Failure is Impossible’ button with a ‘Votes for Women’ sash, and the suffragist who once playfully explained her decision not to marry – she didn’t want to be ‘a drudge or a doll’ – is an organizing tool for the next generation. Better yet, give her a ballot!”

Esteemed Susan B. Anthony biographer, Ann Gordon, lends another perspective. “You can almost hear her speak, ‘Yes, your honor, I have many things to say.’  She is still telling us to get ‘a citizen’s right to vote.’”

The Barbie® Signature Susan B. Anthony Inspiring Women™ Doll has already been sighted at the Anthony Museum. The doll officially launches on October 5, but a limited number are currently available through the Anthony Museum online shop at shop.susanb.org.

Questions related to this doll launch may be directed to pr@susanb.org.

Victoria Brzustowicz

The Suffragist City Parade Marches ON

View  this  virtual march celebrating hope, courage, and change!

The National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House will host its 4th annual Suffragist City Parade on September 20th, 2020. We are marching with HOPE for the future, celebrating those with COURAGE from the past, and inspiring CHANGE for justice for all today.

The 2020 Suffragist City Parade is a virtual event, broadcast online on September 20, at 6:00 PM EDT. View the Parade here.   (The Anthony Museum will schedule encore presentations, at times to be determined.)

Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass were champions for voting rights and human rights, and they both lived in Rochester, NY, for many years. It is in honor of these two leaders that Rochester claims to be “Suffragist City.” During this historic year, we know there’s been a lot of progress since Anthony and Douglass started agitating for justice. That’s what gives us hope.

The doors to many occupations have opened, so the parade will showcase the people in careers and fields that were not available to most women (and some men) until recently. We want the march to celebrate our achievements and to say thank you to those who courageously stood up on our behalf.

We also know that we’ve still got work to do. We want our parade to be a visible reflection of the people who make up our communities, the changemakers helping us move closer to that vision of being “of the people, by the people, for ALL the people.”

We invited people to participate in the Suffragist City Parade by submitting a video or still image; the response has been overwhelming, with submissions from across the United States.

Please join us Sunday at 6:00 pm, and view the many groups who will march virtually with their messages of Hope, Courage, and Change!

Victoria Brzustowicz

On news of a presidential pardon for Susan B. Anthony on August 18, 2020

Objection! Mr. President, Susan B. Anthony must decline your offer of a pardon today.

Anthony wrote in her diary in 1873 that her trial for voting was “The greatest outrage History ever witnessed.”  She was not allowed to speak as a witness in her own defense, because she was a woman. At the conclusion of arguments, Judge Hunt dismissed the jury and pronounced her guilty.  She was outraged to be denied a trial by jury. She proclaimed, “I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty.” To pay would have been to validate the proceedings. To pardon Susan B. Anthony does the same.

If one wants to honor Susan B. Anthony today, a clear stance against any form of voter suppression would be welcome. Enforcement and expansion of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would be celebrated, we must assure that states respect the 14th, 15th, and 19th Amendments to the United States Constitution. Support for the Equal Rights Amendment would be well received. Advocacy for human rights for all would be splendid. Anthony was also a strong proponent of sex education, fair labor practices, excellent public education, equal pay for equal work, and elimination of all forms of discrimination.

As the National Historic Landmark and Museum that has been interpreting her life and work for seventy-five years, we would be delighted to share more.

Deborah L. Hughes
President & CEO
The National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House

Victoria Brzustowicz

Monday Lecture Series 2020-2021

The National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House proudly presents the 18th season of its popular Monday Lecture Series. This season’s line-up features ten guest speakers covering a range of timely topics inspired by the life, work, and legacy of Susan B. Anthony.  

This season will be presented online, with each presentation offered to registered guests at 1pm ET.

 

Sept. 21, 2020 Cartooning for Suffrage! : Nina Evans Allender
Ronnie Frishman
Oct. 19, 2020 Women in the Nixon Administration: Defining Simple Justice
Yi Shun Lai, MFA
Nov. 16, 2020 Amnesia and Politics in the Mount Hope Cemetery
Katie Terezakis, PhD
Dec. 14, 2020 Relationships and Rights: Sophonisa Breckinridge, Same-Sex Relationships, and Women’s Activism in Modern America
Anya Jabour, PhD
Jan. 11, 2021 Migrant Longing: Letter Writing Across the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands
Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, PhD
Feb. 8, 2021 The Role of Imagery in Social Movements
Tamar W. Carroll, PhD
Mar. 8, 2021

Suffragists: Public Relations Pioneers

How on earth did suffragists get their message out without Facebook or Instagram?! Join us for our March 8th, Monday Lecture, featuring Arein Rozelle from St. John Fisher College, and discover how pioneering public relations suffragists were the influencers of their day!
Apr. 12, 2021 When White Women Wanted a Monument to Black ‘Mammies’–A 1923 Fight Shows Confederate Monuments Are About Power, Not Southern Heritage
​Alison Parker, PhD
May 10, 2021 Manhood Enslaved: Bondmen in Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century New Jersey 
Ken Marshall, PhD
June 7, 2021 Why the ERA went MIA
Jennifer M. Lloyd, PhD

 Individual lectures are $25 each.  

To purchase reservations, click here.

 

Victoria Brzustowicz

Underpin and Overcoat

Rochester Contemporary Art Center (RoCo), the National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House, and SewGreen Rochester present a new public art installation celebrating the major women’s rights anniversaries being celebrated this year. “Underpin and Overcoat,” by artists Amelia Toelke and Andrea Miller explores the idea of jewelry as signage, which wearers adorn for both themselves and for others. Inspired by the objects Suffragists often made—such as pins, ribbons, sashes, and medals—“Underpin and Overcoat” gives greater presence to jewelry and wearable objects that are tools for protest, action, and identity-formation.

This public installation takes the form of oversized buttons that are proportionally scaled to ornament several Rochester buildings. Incorporating expressions, icons, sayings, and slogan, these buttons will be affixed to several building facades between Rochester Contemporary Art Center (137 East Ave.) and the National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House (17 Madison St.), Sew Green (438 West Main St.). “Underpin and Overcoat” aims to unify the public, inspire action, bring joy, and create a space for viewers to insert their own messages and ideals. The work aims to help us discuss opposing views, ask questions, and find commonality in shared sentiments. During this critical political season, “Underpin and Overcoat” enlarges the intersection of jewelry, political history, and social justice on the streets—much as the Suffragists did themselves.

The artists also invited local artists and organizations to contribute designs for some of the buttons to provide a platform for additional voices. Contributors include Amanda Chestnut, Tania Day, Thievin’ Stephen, Erica Jae, Abiose Spriggs, and the Seneca Art & Culture Center at Ganondagan.

In partnership with SewGreen Rochester, Christ Church, and Susan B Anthony Museum and House, RoCo will host an artist talk and Sash Memorial workshop on Saturday, July 25. Inspired by the iconic “Votes for Women” sashes worn by Suffragists from 1850 – 1920, the artists, Sew Green staff, and other collaborators invite all community members to create their own, contemporary versions of this historic piece of political ephemera. All are welcome, especially those with little sewing experience. Sashes made at this event will be collected and exhibited in the artists’ larger exhibition, Worn.

Update 7-24-2020

The public art installation by artists Amelia Toelke and Andrea Miller is now on display outside 19 Madison Street, the Anthony Museum Visitor Center!

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Andrea G. Miller is an educator and visual artist whose practice is greatly influenced by the traditions of metalsmithing and sculpture, community outreach, and public education. Miller, born and raised in the Midwest, completed her MFA from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and earned a BS in art education as well as a BFA in metals from Ball State University. She maintains an active studio practice and exhibition record outside of the classroom. In 2017, she was awarded the Lilly Endowment’s Teacher Creativity Fellowship, which allowed her to restore and travel with her vintage camper, LeRoy. She and the camper traveled over 5,000 miles from Indiana, throughout the southwest and back. Travel and adventure have become an important part of her life and she strives to empower her students to approach making and their life with the same sensibilities.

Amelia Toelke is a visual artist whose work engages the language of jewelry to explore the complex negotiation between identity, culture, and adornment. Toelke’s work activates the space between object and image, reality and representation, revealing her long-time infatuation with flatness. Through a palette of recurring imagery and tropes her work seeks the point where humor and sentimentality meet. Toelke currently lives in Chatham, NY.

ABOUT THE COLLABORATORS

Amanda Chestnut’s work focuses on the representation of history—and in particular, how the history of race and gender impacts modern narratives. Her art has been exhibited in Rochester at Firehouse Gallery, Joe Brown Gallery, University of Rochester, and High Falls Art Gallery at the Center at High Falls. She was formerly a resident at the Center for Photography at Woodstock in Woodstock, NY, and at Genesee Center for the Arts & Education in Rochester, NY. She has held graduate assistantships at Visual Studies Workshop and the Criminal Justice Department, both at the College at Brockport in Rochester. Chestnut holds an MFA graduate of Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY. As an artist interested in both upending and interpreting traditional definitions of the archive, she pairs archival images and text with contemporary imagery and her own perspective to convey the history, emotion, and lasting socio-economic impact of the past. Her previous works incorporate photographic poems that draw from archival imagery, text-based poems, and Chestnut’s hair. Most recently Chestnut curated “Verified” a group exhibition at Loud Cow in Spencerport, NY, and the Rochester Biennial at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center (RoCo). To learn more about Amanda Chestnut, her personal artistic and curatorial endeavors visit amandachestnut.com.

Tania Day-Magallon is a Mexican American artist who has collaborated in numerous art events and exhibits in Rochester. She started her art education at a young age and attended to different art institutions in Mexico City where she also began her licentiate studies in Fine Arts at a renowned university where Frida Kahlo taught for some years, contributing to an undeniable legacy in the style of many Mexican female artists. Day-Magallon has received and embraced that artistic influence during the years she lived in Mexico, and it is manifested in her artwork as she employs a rich symbolism emphasizing her own cultural identity and spiritual views. Tania Day-Magallon has also participated in art exhibits in Chicago, where she resided for several years; and she has participated in collaboratives, presentations, performances, and has given art workshops at different venues including at her private studio. In addition, Day-Magallon is also passionate about body art including henna design and tattoos; she owned a tattoo parlor in the city of Chicago which has influenced and enriched her artistic career in many aspects. Tania Day-Magallon is currently a member of WOC-Art collaborative, and other art groups and collectives where she remains active. She has also a BA from SUNY, where she continued her studies in visual arts and psychology. Learn more here: daymagallonart.com

Erica Jae was born and raised in the 19th ward of Rochester, NY. Out of love and protection, her mother allowed her only to play from in front of her house up to the stop sign that was located two houses down. Naturally, Erica grew curious about the world beyond her parameters and in college, she majored in social sciences with a concentration in mental health. Over the last 8 years, Erica has worked as an assistant manager, a clinical case manager, and a residential counselor in various group homes. Her work has been featured on NBC nightly news with Lester Holt and published in local magazines. From an early age Erica expressed herself through writing fictional short stories, poetry, and blasting hip hop from the stereo in her room. With her camera as an advocate, Erica tells the stories of the people within her community and beyond. Her work seeks beauty in hidden gems, balance with the duality of light and dark, and stillness in the poetic rhythm of the streets. Learn more here and IG: @artxericajae // @ello_yellow

Born and raised in Atlanta, Ga. Abiose Spriggs received her undergraduate degree at the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio for fine art. She was introduced to art through her parents. Her mother is an educator and her father was in art administration. Abiose’s entire upbringing was centered around art thus growing her appreciation for it and leading to further study. Her art focuses primarily on her personal experience and interest as a black person in America. Expressed through various mediums, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and paint. In her paintings, she loves utilizing the medium to show the artist’s hand often against an attempt to create the absences of the artist hand. Painterly brush strokes that are free and dance across the surface confined by the square. This, to the artist, is what it’s like to be black in America. Being fed the illusion of freedom but never allowed to have it. Color has always been important in her art, the connection of color to emotion is a large driving force behind anything she draws. Spriggs is continually inspired by painters who`utilize bold colors and big canvases and those that use multiple mediums. Jacob Lawrence, Josef Albers, Sam Gilliam, David Hammonds, Cezanne, Paul Gaugin, Egon Schile, Emma Amos, Wanda Koop, Radcliffe Bailey, Virginia Jaramillo, Betye Saar, Kerry James Marshall, and Elizabeth Catlett to name a few.

Thievin’ Stephen makes art in Rochester, where part of supporting local artists is avoiding businesses that don’t. Learn more here: thievinstephen.com or Instagram: @thievinstephen

Victoria Brzustowicz

Reopening Our Doors to the Public!

ROCHESTER, NY- The National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House announced today that it will reopen its doors to the public for tours on July 1, 2020.

“In line with New York State Phase 4 Guidelines for historical sites, the Anthony Museum is pleased to announce it will reopen to the public for tours on July 1, 2020,” said Deborah L. Hughes, President & CEO.

“In following New York State guidelines, the Anthony Museum is working to ensure appropriate public health and physical distancing measures are put in place for the safety of our staff, volunteers, and visitors,” Hughes said. “We are pleased to be able to offer tours in this historic year, and know that online advance sales of tours will be an important part of facilitating this.”

In addition to the advance online sales of admission tickets, safety measures will include appropriate queue management, one-way traffic flow, and increased cleaning of facilities, as well as an introduction of hand sanitizer stations. Certain areas of the National Historic Landmark home and its Visitor Center will be off-limits to guests because of narrow spaces that make safe physical distancing impossible.

The Anthony Museum will continue to follow and review up-to-date recommendations from New York State, and will modify reopening plans if necessary.

Advance online reservations will be available to book starting June 30. Please note that the Anthony Museum will be closed on July 4th in observance of the July 4th holiday.

Click here for information on reopening and for a link to online reservations.

Victoria Brzustowicz

In Memory of George Floyd

by Deborah L. Hughes, President & CEO, National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House

“Whatever faults and failings other nations may have in their dealings with their own subjects or with other people, no other civilized nation stands condemned before the world with a series of crimes so peculiarly national,” wrote journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett in The Red Record: Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the Unites State, 1895.

The National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House stands in solidarity with those from the past, like Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and those from the present who have called out our nation’s long-standing hypocrisy of waving the banners of “freedom” and “justice for all” while brutally extinguishing life and liberty through our “justice system”” for others, like George Floyd.

In The Red Record, Wells-Barnett published the names of those known to have been lynched in 1893 and 1894, in order to awaken the nation to the depth of the atrocities. In 2018, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened in Montgomery, Alabama, listing on 800 monuments thousands of names of those who have been lynched. The sacred memorial was “conceived with the hope of creating a sober, meaningful site where people can gather and reflect on America’s history of racial inequality.”

Today, we remember these women, men, and children who have died in recent years because we, as a nation, have failed to put an end to the racial terror in our communities. We grieve with their families, and we pause to say their names. We know there are many more whose names we do not know.

George Floyd
Breonna Taylor
Ahmaud Arbery
Charleena Chavon Lyles
Michael Brown
Korryn Gaines
Trayvon Martin
Sandra Bland
Eric Garner
Alexia Christian
Philando Castile
Mya Hall
Laquan McDonald
Meagan Hockaday
Tamir Rice
Jordan Davis
Alton Sterling
Janisha Fonville
Freddie Gray
Natasha McKenna
Sean Reed
Tanisha Anderson
Aura Rosser
Walter Scott
Kendrec McDade
Sheneque Proctor
Michelle Cusseaux
Botham Jean
Pearlie Golden
Gabriella Nevarez
Oscar Grant
Kenneth Chamberlain
Yvette Smith
Miriam Carey
Samuel DuBose
Kyam Livingston
Kayla Moore
Shelly Frey
Malissa Williams
Amadou Diallo
Alesia Thomas
Shantel Davis
Sharmel Edwards
Rekia Boyd
Shereese Francis
Aiyana Stanley-Jones
Tarika Wilson
Kathryn Johnston
Alberta Spruill
Kendra James
LaTanya Haggerty
Margaret LaVerne Mitchell
Tyisha Miller
Danette Daniels
Frankie Ann Perkins
Sonji Taylor
Eleanor Bumpurs

In her autobiography, Wells-Barnett shared that, “The very frequent inquiry made after my lectures by interested friends is ‘What can I do to help the cause?’ The answer always is: ‘Tell the world the facts.’”

We are grateful for the witness of Ida B. Wells Barnett, the Equal Justice Initiative, #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, and any person or organization that is committed to exposing the depth and truth of our nation’s racial terrorism. We believe that we must have the courage to face the horrific truth of our past and the painful reality of our present, before we can move toward to healing and reconciliation. We are on our knees in solidarity for a beloved community.

May you be well, may you be safe, may you be courageous.

Victoria Brzustowicz

Update from the Parlor Office June 2, 2020

By Deborah L. Hughes, President & CEO

“The consent of the governed is the sole, legitimate authority of any government! This is the essential, peculiar creed of our republic. That principle is on one side of this war; and the old doctrine of might makes right, the necessary ground-work of all monarchies, is on the other. It is a life-and-death conflict between all those grand, universal, man-respecting principles, which we call by the comprehensive term democracy, and all those partial, person-respecting, class-favoring elements which we group together under that silver-slippered word aristocracy. If this war does not mean that, it means nothing.”
~Antoinette Brown Blackwell, 1863

Susan B. Anthony called us out in 1863, “It is a war to found an empire on the negro in slavery, and shame on us if we do not make it a war to establish the negro in freedom—against whom the whole nation, North and South, East and West, in one mighty conspiracy, has combined from the beginning.”Our nation, supposedly founded on the ideals that all are “created equal” and that the government gets its power and authority from the people, has waged a war against humanity, in direct contradiction to the ideals of liberty, justice, and equality. The Civil War was not a war between the north and the south, nor did it end in 1865. It was a war for the soul of our nation, and we are still in the midst of the battle.

Anthony had a challenge, “I therefore hail the day when the Government shall recognize that it is a war for freedom. We talk about returning to the old Union—”the Union as it was,” and “the Constitution as it is”—about “restoring our country to peace and prosperity—to the blessed conditions that existed before the war!” I ask you what sort of peace, what sort of prosperity, have we had? Since the first slave-ship sailed up the James River with its human cargo, and there, on the soil of the Old Dominion, sold it to the highest bidder, we have had nothing but war. When that pirate captain landed on the shores of Africa, and there kidnapped the first stalwart negro, and fastened the first manacle, the struggle between that captain and that negro was the commencement of the terrible war in the midst of which we are today. Between the slave and the master there has been war, and war only. This is only a new form of it. No, no; we ask for no return to the old conditions. We ask for something better. We want a Union that is a Union in fact, a Union in spirit, not a sham.”

We put down slavery, but we took up weapons like lynching, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, and racial profiling. We’ve waged war by denying access to businesses, clubs, and board rooms. We’ve waged war by segregating classrooms and separating school districts. We’ve waged war by intimidation. We’ve waged war by creating food deserts and accepting higher infant mortality and disparate health outcomes. We’ve waged war by moving away, or turning away.

Perhaps we have not been personally guilty of these crimes, but we must understand that we are complicit. We’ve paid for this war with our tax dollars and we’ve benefited from this war with our privilege. We must be willing to listen to those who have been under attack for far too long, and together, we can actively engage in ending this war. Then, perhaps, we’ll have a union in fact, not a sham.

Victoria Brzustowicz

A Woman with a Cause

A Woman with a Cause: Meet The Sixteen-Year-Old Anthony Museum Tour Guide

Guest blog by Julia Smith

Editor’s Note: Julia Smith is a recent Nazareth College graduate, and volunteered at the Anthony Museum as a receptionist in the summer of 2018. Her mother, Sue Smith, was one of the Anthony Museum’s beloved docents. This article was originally written as coursework for Julia’s class “Feature Writing.”

At sixteen, you would expect Lola DeAscentiis to be learning TikTok dances in her friend’s basement or haphazardly attempting to hydro dip her sneakers on the driveway. Instead, DeAscentiis commits her time to being one of the youngest tour guides at the National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House in downtown Rochester, NY.

“I’ve always had a passion for women’s history,” said DeAcentiis of becoming a docent. “Being right in Rochester, why wouldn’t I take that opportunity?”

A sophomore at Our Lady of Mercy High School, DeAscentiis began working at the Anthony Museum when she was only in eighth grade. However, because of her age (she was thirteen at the time), she was not allowed to give tours.

Instead, DeAscentiis jumped into working on community outreach initiatives such as the Anthony Museum’s Girl Scouts Program, which aims to connect social justice causes of today to Anthony’s legacy and life’s work. When DeAscentiis began high school last year, she embarked on a rigorous training schedule to finally become a docent at the Anthony Museum.

“I don’t want to say it came naturally since it was a lot of work, but getting to learn from the other docents and doing some reading on my own was something I really enjoyed doing,”she said. On the final tour before she received her certification, she caught the eye of playwright Mark Mobley, who incorporated her story into The Rochester Philharmonic’s bicentennial celebration of Anthony’s work, Women’s Suffrage: Past + Present. Her story was one of a select few featured among the likes of Mayor Lovely A. Warren; Susan B. Anthony Center Director, Dr. Catherine Cerulli; and Tamara Leigh, Director of Operations and Public Relations for the Out Alliance.

But Mobley isn’t the only one who recognized DeAscentiis’ talent.

“I have never in my fifteen years as an educator taught a student like Lola,” said Sarah DeMulder, DeAscentiis’ eighth grade English teacher and mentor. DeMulder describes DeAscentiis the way you would try to explain a once in a lifetime cosmic event, pausing in an attempt to describe a unique occurrence just right.

“We were reading Edgar Allen Poe and we did a few of his prose pieces and a handful of poems,” said DeMulder. “Lola’s response to that was to go out and get an entire anthology of Poe’s work and dig through it. She’s just constantly wanting more.”

When faculty members at Mercy decided to plan a centennial celebration for the ratification of the 19th Amendment, DeAscentiis was immediately added to the committee.

“I felt like it was necessary to bring Lola on board,” said DeMulder. “Lola’s depth of knowledge on the subject matter supersedes any of our knowledge. She doesn’t just know about it. She lives it and believes in it.”

Linda Lopata, Director of Interpretation & Visitor Services at the Anthony Museum, agrees.

“She’s very unusual for her age,” Lopata said. “She’s thinking about things deeply but she’s also incredibly engaging.”

“When people are waiting for their tour and then she comes out, you can see in their face they’re kind of like ‘what is this?’” said Lopata. “But by the end, they’re like ‘she was phenomenal.’ And that’s not because she’s fifteen— it’s because she’s really, really good.”

Even at her young age, DeAscentiis is already inspiring young women and girls through her work at the Anthony Museum.

“Having [tours with] children is really fun,” DeAscentiis said of giving tours to little kids. “They take what they’ve learned in school and they’re actually so excited…I just love their energy.”

DeMulder’s two elementary school aged daughters both look up to Lola as a role model. “I asked my now eight-year-old what she would like to do to celebrate her eighth birthday and she wanted to go back to the Anthony Museum,” said DeMulder.

“Her email starts with ‘futureprez,’” Lopata said. “I don’t doubt it.”

In her time away from the Anthony Museum, DeAscentiis tries to keep herself busy. She’s currently on the editorial board of her school’s newspaper, participates in diversity club, and even started a TikTok account called HERstory focused on educating the public about women who were often overlooked or under-appreciated in history.

“It’s been a really great way to connect and reach out to people,” DeAscentiis says of the account, which has accumulated over three thousand likes on the platform.

Even though the Susan B. Anthony House is more than ten times older than she is, DeAscentiis finds Anthony’s life of service more powerful and relevant than ever.

“My favorite part of the tour to give is probably the very last room: her bedroom,” said DeAscentiis. “At that point people definitely start to tear up a little bit at the end of her story. That just means a lot to me because her story really was that moving and if I’m able to convey that in the hour I have with those people, it makes me feel pretty accomplished.”

“If I’m able to inspire people through her story, I think that’s a really great start at carrying on her legacy.”

Victoria Brzustowicz

An Open Letter to Nurses from the Nursing Friends of the Anthony Museum

An Open Letter to Nurses from

#susanbthanksnurses

Dear Nurses:

We are an ad hoc group of leaders in nursing education, research, and practice who are thinking of you.

We appreciate the stresses you are experiencing as you care for persons who are victims of Covid-19. We praise your life-sustaining care and support.

You are dedicated nurses who are tireless in preventing further deleterious effects during patients’ struggles to survive. We know so many are recovering, thanks to your care. We also understand that it is heartbreaking when someone does not survive, despite your excellent care.

We admire the nursing care you are giving to patients, and we appreciate that you are providing a caring presence for those who cannot have family members or loved ones at their bedside during this pandemic.

We are thinking of you. We appreciate you. We thank you.

Sincerely, the Nursing Friends of the Anthony Museum

Calls to Action

Nurses: Amidst this this historic health crisis, we encourage you to record or share your stories using #susanbthanksnurses, to forward them to the Rochester Medical Museum and Archives, attention Kathleen Britton, curator, here.

Friends of Nurses: We encourage you to express your support by lighting a candle in honor of nurses and midwives, and post an image to social media using #susanbthanksnurses

*The Nursing Friends of the National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House was formed in 2009 to create and promote the connections between nursing, Susan B. Anthony, and Rochester’s history. Learn more about this group here.