Tag: History

Susan B. Anthony Birthday Gala 2021

In a break with tradition, the Anthony Museum has made plans to safely share Susan B. Anthony’s birthday celebration with their biggest audience ever through a televised broadcast. The “Gala” will be a 1/2 hour program on WROC-TV at 7pm on Wednesday, February 10, and will also be streamed on the internet. An inspiring program is planned that will be memorable and entertaining. As in other years, it will also serve as the major fundraising event for the Anthony Museum. Click here to give now.

The keynote speaker will be Susan Zirinsky, acclaimed journalist and groundbreaking producer, now president and senior executive producer of CBS News. Her nickname in the newsroom is “Z.” Like Anthony, she is described as “legendary” and “trailblazing.”

Zirinsky recently received the National Press Club’s highest honor, the Fourth Estate Award. “Susan Zirinsky is the personification of journalistic perseverance, tenacity, and integrity,” Club President Michael Freedman said. “Like the best of those before her at the network of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, Susan leads by example, displaying the courage of her convictions and making a positive difference—at CBS News and throughout the profession. She is a role model not only for women but for everyone who is dedicated to journalistic ethics and excellence. We are proud to honor her achievements—and that’s the way it is.”

The theme of the 2021 Susan B. Anthony Birthday Gala is A 2 Z, saluting the intersection between Susan B. Anthony as a public relations maven, author, and newspaper editor, and Susan Zirinsky, broadcast media icon.

In her biography of Anthony, broadcast journalist and author Lynn Sherr noted: “Acutely aware of the power of the printed word, [Susan B. Anthony] was a one-woman press phenomenon, utilizing every aspect of the media that existed—daily newspapers, monthly magazines, women’s journals—to promote The Cause with impressive skill.”*

These two women understand the power and influence of the press. They never let a glass ceiling limit their work, their ascendance, or their impact as they open the world for others.

Questions related to the 2021 Susan B. Anthony Birthday Gala may be directed to pr@susanb.org.

For sponsorship opportunities both before and during the broadcast event, please call 585.249.7490, x 712.

*Lynn Sherr, Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words, © 1995, Random House.

For The Future

For the Future: The Susan B. Anthony Historic District (music, art and action)

FOR THE FUTURE: THE SUSAN B. ANTHONY HISTORIC DISTRICT (MUSIC, ART AND ACTION)

fivebyfive will be starting our season focused on the Rochester community, teaming up with ROCmusic Collaborative, the Susan B. Anthony Neighborhood, and the Landmark Society for a collaborative virtual program, For the Future: The Susan B. Anthony Historic District (Music, Art, and Action) Sunday November 8th at 2pm.

This event will feature the world premiere of music composed for the event by Mina Esary in collaboration with the ROCmusic students, performed by fivebyfive and the students. This new work will be the catalyst for a community talk-back about the complicated dimensions of the suffrage movement: the history of the movement, who was included, who was excluded, and what work is still needed.

Community talk-back panelists include:

Jean Elisabeth Pedersen – Associate Professor of History at the Eastman School of Music and the University of Rochester

Deborah Hughes – President and CEO of the Susan B. Anthony Museum and House

Cona Marshall – Assistant Professor in Religious Studies and African and African American Studies at the University of Rochester

Kathryn Murano Santos – Senior Director of Collections and Exhibitions at the Rochester Museum and Science Center

The event will be virtual and will feature three parts:
1) A video premiere of a new work by composer Mina Esary which will feature students from the ROCMusic Collaborative with fivebyfive
2) A community talkback
3) An optional socially distanced neighborhood walk in the Susan B. Anthony district
For more information and to register, click here.
Registration is required
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

Monday Lecture Series – June 2021

Why the ERA went MIA

Lecturer: Jennifer Lloyd, PhD

The Equal Rights Amendment, written by Alice Paul and supported by the National Women’s Party, was first proposed in Congress in 1923 but did not pass both houses until 1972. By 1982 thirty states had ratified it, one short of the required number. Why did it take nearly fifty years to pass Congress and why wasn’t ratified? What would it mean for women if ratification was successful?

This lecture will be presented online,  offered to registered guests at 1pm ET.

Space is limited—make your reservations today online here or call 585.279.7490.

Individual lectures are $25 each. NOTE: The link to the online lecture will be sent to registrants the Friday before the scheduled lecture.

Monday Lecture Series – May 2021

Manhood Enslaved: Bondmen in Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century New Jersey

Ken Marshall, PhD

This lecture will be presented online,  offered to registered guests at 1pm ET.

Space is limited—make your reservations today online here or call 585.279.7490.

Individual lectures are $25 each. NOTE: The link to the online lecture will be sent to registrants the Friday before the scheduled lecture.

Monday Lecture Series – April 2021

When White Women Wanted a Monument to Black “Mammies”: A 1923 Fight Shows Confederate Monuments Are About Power, Not Southern Heritage

Lecturer: Alison Parker, PhD

Alison Parker is History Department Chair & Richards Professor of American History at the University of Delaware. She has research and teaching interests in women’s and gender history, African American history, and legal history.  Dr. Parker is going to share a slice of history about white women’s racist memorialization to the “Black Mammy. Her insights were published in a New York Time’s editorial in February 2020.

This lecture will be presented online,  offered to registered guests at 1pm ET.

Space is limited—make your reservations today online here or call 585.279.7490.

Individual lectures are $25 each. NOTE: The link to the online lecture will be sent to registrants the Friday before the scheduled lecture. Please let us know if you have not received an email by April 9th at 5pm.

Monday Lecture Series – March 2021

Suffragists: Public Relations Pioneers

Lecturer: Arien Rozelle

This lecture will be presented online,  offered to registered guests at 1pm ET.

Space is limited—make your reservations today online here or call 585.279.7490.

Individual lectures are $25 each. NOTE: The link to the online lecture will be sent to registrants the Friday before the scheduled lecture.

Monday Lecture Series – February 2021

The Role of Imagery in Social Movements

Lecturer: Tamar W. Carroll, PhD

This lecture will be presented online,  offered to registered guests at 1pm ET.

Space is limited—make your reservations today online here or call 585.279.7490.

Individual lectures are $25 each. NOTE: The link to the online lecture will be sent to registrants the Friday before the scheduled lecture.