The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty YearsHarper, Ida Husted
History
The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years
Harper, Ida Husted
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906
With her, to think was always to act. She reached Rochester on the
morning of election day, and went at once to the home of William and
Mary Hallowell, that home whose doors never were closed to her, where
for more than fifty years she was welcome day or night, where she
always turned for advice, assistance and sympathy and ever found them
in the fullest measure. She explained to them her idea of calling a
meeting in Rochester for the specific purpose of starting a petition
for more extended property rights to women. They encouraged the
project, and she then turned toward her other Mecca, the home of Maria
G. Porter. Three of the Porter sisters kept a private school in this
city for thirty years, while the eldest, Maria, made a home for them
and also took a select class of boarders. This was a literary center,
she often invited Miss Anthony to meet her distinguished guests, and
ever encouraged and sustained her public work. Mr. Channing was
boarding here, and when Miss Anthony unfolded her plan, he exclaimed,
"Capital! Capital!" and at once prepared an eloquent call for the
convention. This meant for her the writing of letters to scores of
influential people asking their signatures, which were almost
invariably given, and was followed by all the drudgery necessary for
every meeting of this kind.
[Autograph:
W. H. Channing]
The convention opened Nov. 30 at Corinthian Hall, Rev. May presiding
and Rev. Channing the leading spirit. Two forms of the petition were
adopted, one for the just and equal rights of women in regard to wages
and children; the other for the right of suffrage. Miss Anthony was
appointed one of the lecturers, and also put in charge of the
petitions. Sixty women began circulating these, and she herself
canvassed her own city, lectured in a number of towns, and at the same
time made arrangements for a State suffrage convention to be held in
Albany February 14 and 15. At this time Parker Pillsbury wrote to Lydia
Mott:
Is there work down among you for Susan to do? Any shirt-making,
cooking, clerking, preaching or teaching, indeed any honest work,
just to keep her out of idleness! She seems strangely
unemployed--almost expiring for something to do, and I could not
resist the inclination to appeal to you, _as a person of particular
leisure_, that an effort be made in her behalf. At present she has
only the Anti-Slavery cause for New York, the "Woman's Rights
Movement" for the world, the Sunday evening lectures for Rochester
and other lecturing of her own from Lake Erie to the "Old Man of
Franconia mountains;" private cares and home affairs and the
various et ceteras of _womanity_. These are about all so far as
appears, to occupy her seven days of twenty-four hours each, as the
weeks rain down to her from Eternal Skies. Do pity and procure work
for her if it be possible!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account