“Provocative Mothers” with Suzanne Schnittman

Suzanne Schnittman’s book, Provocative Mothers and Their Precocious Daughters, presents the engaging lives of four pioneers in the women’s rights and abolitionist movements and their four daughters. Each helped procure woman suffrage in her own way, demonstrating the richness of family influences in building activism and character. Suzanne will share some of their most enticing stories.

Suzanne Schnittman earned her PhD in American History at the University of Rochester. After teaching for many years at a number of colleges in New York, she retired to pursue her passion: women’s history. She currently works as an independent scholar, which affords her the time to research women like those she explores in her latest book. She lives in Rochester, where she participates in many endeavors that promote the area’s academic, women’s and children’s concerns.

This is an on-line lecture, presented via Zoom link. .

Further information, including the Zoom link will be sent out the Friday before the March 23 talk.

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

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.

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!

19th Amendment Musical Celebration

Tune in to Facebook and YouTube next Wednesday at 6:30 PM for a special performance in honor of the 100th Anniversary of 19th Amendment LIVE at the National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House! Featuring Principal Second Violin Rob Simonds, Assistant Principal Second Violin Daryl Perlo (The James E. Dumm Chair, funded in perpetuity), Willa Finck (violin), Olita Povero (viola), Ingrid Bock (cello), Hayley Grainger (flute), Kamalia Freyling (clarinet), and Karl Vilcins (bassoon).

PLEASE NOTE: Due to current COVID-19 restrictions, there will be no live audience at this performance.

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 – January 2021

Migrant Longing: Letter Writing across the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Miroslava Chavez- Garcia, 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 – November 2020

Amnesia and Politics in the Mount Hope Cemetery

Lecturer: Katie Terezakis, 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 – October 2020

Women in the Nixon Administration: Defining Simple Justice

Lecturer: Yi Shun Lai, MFA

In 1969, during President Richard Nixon’s second press conference as president, journalist Vera Glazer asked if he was planning on doing better than appointing thee women per 200 high-level Cabinet and policy-making appointments he’d made thus far in his administration.
This question, set against the backdrop of Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique and the formation of the National Organization for Women, would give rise to a task force that would eventually more than triple the number of women hired into significant positions in Nixon’s administration, and give rise to the first female FBI agents and generals.
Yi Shun Lai wrote the Nixon Foundation and Presidential Library’s most recent permanent exhibit about the task force leading to these results, which was colloquially referred to as “A Matter of Simple Justice.” In this talk, she’ll share what she learned over her deep dive into the project. Attendees will learn about the “Women’s Program,” and get a rare view of what it’s like to put together a museum exhibit.

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.