Election Day Special—Complimentary Tours of the Susan B. Anthony House

Rochester, NY—The Susan B. Anthony House invites one and all to visit the National Historic Landmark at 17 Madison Street on Election Day, Tuesday, November 2, for a complimentary tour. The House is open for tours from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the last tour starting at 4:15 p.m.

“First, we encourage everyone to vote and second, we invite everyone to the House on Madison Street. It was not only Susan B. Anthony’s home, but also the national headquarters for the campaign to win voting rights for women,” says Deborah L. Hughes, executive director of the Susan B. Anthony House. “We need to remind ourselves of these hard-earned rights, and honor the courageous women who fought the long and difficult battle to guarantee them.”

An ardent abolitionist, labor activist, educational reformer, temperance worker, suffragist, and women’s rights campaigner, Susan B. Anthony was arrested in 1872 at this home on Madison Street for the crime of voting—it was then a crime because she was a woman. Forty-eight years later, and fourteen years after her death, the 19^th Amendment was finally ratified, guaranteeing women the right to vote. It is known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in honor of her life’s work for the cause of women’s equality.

The Susan B. Anthony House is located at 17 Madison Street, off West Main. Admission is normally $10 for adults, $8 for seniors, $6 for students; group tours and custom tours are available by appointment by calling 585-235-6124, ext. 19.

Background: The Susan B. Anthony House was Anthony’s home for the 40 most politically active period of her life and the site of her famous arrest for voting in 1872. It has been preserved in Anthony’s memory as an historic site since 1946 and a National Historic Landmark since 1966. It is supported primarily through the contributions of its members. It is not affiliated with any other organization or group bearing Susan B. Anthony’s name.

Mission Statement: The Susan B. Anthony House preserves the National Historic Landmark where the great reformer lived for 40 of her most politically active years, collects and exhibits artifacts related to her life and work, and offers programs through its learning center that challenge individuals to make a positive difference in their lives and communities.  For more information, visit our website at www.susanbanthonyhouse.org.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE    Wednesday, November 02, 2011

CONTACT: Ellen K. Wheeler—585-279-7490, ext. 15,  PR & Communications Dir.

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Anthony House Presents “Meet the Madison Mavens” to re-open guest room

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:      Thursday, August 11, 2011

CONTACT:   Ellen K. Wheeler, Public Relations & Communications Director (585) 279-7490, ext. 15

Rochester, NY—The Susan B. Anthony House officially re-opens the guest room, the large second-floor front bedroom in the National Historic Landmark, with a special event on Friday, August 19 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. called “Meet the Madison Mavens.” Reservations are required at 585-279-7490, ext. 12 or lstrasenburgh@susanbanthonyhouse.org. Admission is $25 for non-members, complimentary for members.

“The room has been closed to the public for nearly two years, undergoing rehabilitation,” explains Deborah Hughes, executive director of the Susan B. Anthony House. “For many years after the Susan B. Anthony Memorial was established in 1945-6, this was the museum room, exhibiting the large collection of historic photos of the suffrage campaigns given to the House by Carrie Chapman Catt. We now re-open it as a bedroom, with portraits of some of the people who stayed overnight here displayed on the walls.”

These “Madison Mavens” include Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anna Howard Shaw, Ida Husted Harper, Carrie Chapman Catt, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Lucy Read Anthony, who purchased the House in 1865 and used this room as a bedroom until her death in 1880.  After that it became a parlor for a time when Mary Anthony rented out the first floor to tenants, then a workroom for the suffrage campaign, then a guest chamber for the many people who visited Susan B. and Mary Anthony over the years.

“As a guest room, this space gives us the opportunity to share information about some of the many amazing women who were important to the Anthonys and who stayed overnight in this house,” Hughes explains. “Each of these featured women played a significant role in the women’s rights movement and other important social reforms. For them, the House on Madison Street was a hub of energy, inspiration, and activity.”

The event will include visits with House docents portraying six of the people whose portraits are on display in the guest room. Light refreshments will be served in the Carriage House.

For more information, please go to www.susanbanthonyhouse.org or call 585-279-7490, ext. 12.

 

Mission Statement (adopted 4/2010): The National Susan B. Anthony House and Museum preserves the National Historic Landmark where the great reformer lived for 40 of her most politically active years, collects and exhibits artifacts related to her life and work, and offers programs through its learning center that challenge individuals to make a positive difference in their lives and communities.

 

The Susan B. Anthony House is supported primarily through the contributions of its members and donors. The Susan B. Anthony House is not affiliated with other organizations bearing her name.

Susan B. Anthony House salutes California on its suffrage centennial!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, September 15, 2011

CONTACT: Ellen K. Wheeler, PR & Communications Dir. (585) 279-7490, ext. 15

 

Anthony House invites California women to carry a symbol of women’s rights!

 

Rochester, NY— The Susan B. Anthony House invites the women of California to carry on their arm “Ms. Anthony—Purse with a Purpose,” a contemporary version of Ms. Anthony’s original alligator handbag, as they mark California’s centennial of woman suffrage on October 10, 2011, a cause Susan B. Anthony worked for a quarter of a century to bring about.  The Anthony House, the National Historic Landmark in Rochester, NY and Anthony’s home for her 40 most politically active years, is offering this exciting symbol of the great reformer’s life and work for today’s innovative, creative women.

Deborah L. Hughes, executive director of the Susan B. Anthony House, said, “The original alligator bag traveled with Susan B. Anthony wherever she went, including several trips to California.”  In it, she carried the key assets of her campaign for women’s rights—speeches, flyers, newspaper clippings, and the transcript of her trial for voting. With it, she was immediately recognized and known as “the lady with the alligator purse.” Children—from California, according to tradition— even invented a jump-rope rhyme that features the line

“‘VOTE!’ Said the lady with the alligator purse.”

Susan B. Anthony featured prominently in the long struggle for women’s voting rights in California. Ida Husted Harper details Susan B. Anthony’s trips to California in the biography Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, the first trip happening in 1871, when Anthony, together with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, traveled all over the state. On December 15 that year, her friends in San Francisco held a reception and banquet in her honor at the Grand Hotel. Harper shares this account from the San Francisco Chronicle: “Miss Anthony said: ‘I go from you freighted with a burden of love and gratitude, and no greetings have been more precious than those of working men and women. Tonight when the woman who earns her livelihood by selling flowers through the hotel came to the door of the parlor and, presenting me with the beautiful bouquet which I hold in my hand, asked, ‘Will you accept this because you have spoken so nobly for us poor workingwomen?’ it brought tears to my eyes…I felt a thrill of gratitude that I had been permitted to prosecute this work…we are not working for ourselves, but for those now suffering around us. For them, our sisters, and for future generations must we labor.’ ”

Twenty-four years later Susan B. Anthony returned to San Francisco for the Woman’s Congress in May of 1895, this time to lead the campaign for a state suffrage amendment. Harper reports “The newspapers of San Francisco had decreed that this congress should be a success, and to this end they had been as generous with space and as complimentary in tone as the most exacting could have desired. The result was that at not a session during the week was the great hall large enough to hold the audience which sought admission…” The mayor of the city offered the welcoming address, stating his belief, according to Harper, that “the ballot should be placed in the hands of woman as the most powerful agent for the uplifting of humanity.”  At the close of the Woman’s Congress, according to Harper, the Chronicle reported: “nobody ever supposed that the women of San Francisco cared for aught except their gowns, their teas and their babies. But they do. They like brains, even in their own sex. And they can applaud good speeches even if made by women…” In spite of Anthony’s intense campaign all around the state, the people of California in 1896 turned down the suffrage amendment, passing it fifteen years later in a special statewide election on October 10, 1911. This was five years after Anthony’s death but still 9 years before women in every state won that vital right with the ratification of the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution.

California women can now share in that history with “Ms. Anthony—A Purse with a Purpose.” It was designed for the Anthony House by the Abigail Riggs Collection and is a beautifully crafted, numbered, limited-edition handbag inspired by the original alligator bag that was donated to the Susan B. Anthony House more than 60 years ago. Roomy enough for a mini-laptop computer, with comfortable handles for over-the-shoulder wear, this faux-alligator bag features a nameplate with Susan B. Anthony’s famous words, “Failure is impossible” as well as a medallion with her statement for woman’s financial independence, “Every woman needs a purse of her own.” The handbag comes with a DVD that tells the story of this ‘Purse with a Purpose’ and includes women from all around the world thanking Susan B. Anthony for her vision and perseverance.

“In purchasing the contemporary handbag,” continues Hughes, “women today all over the country share Ms. Anthony’s story as they embark on their own campaigns and causes, and demonstrate the financial independence Susan B. Anthony wanted women to have.” One-hundred percent of the purchase price from each handbag directly supports the mission and programs of the Susan B. Anthony House, thanks to a visionary group of women who underwrote the cost of manufacturing the bags.

For more information, please go to www.susanbanthonyhouse.org or call 585-279-7490, ext. 15.

Mission Statement (adopted 4/2010): The national Susan B. Anthony House and Museum preserves the National Historic Landmark where the great reformer lived for 40 of her most politically active years, collects and exhibits artifacts related to her life and work, and offers programs through its learning center that challenge individuals to make a positive difference in their lives and communities.

 

The Susan B. Anthony House is supported primarily through the contributions of its members and donors. The Susan B. Anthony House is not affiliated with other organizations bearing her name.

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