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
In June she and Mrs. Stanton went to a large meeting of Progressive
Friends at Waterloo, where the latter read this same speech on divorce
and then, to quote Miss Anthony's own words, "As usual when she had
fired her gun she went home and left me to finish the battle." In this
case it lasted several days, but Mrs. Stanton knew she could count upon
her friend to defend her to the last ditch. Miss Anthony was always on
the skirmish line. She would interview the married women who could not
leave home and children, get their approval of her plans and then go to
the front. Once or twice a year she would gather her hosts for a big
battle, but the rest of the time she did picket duty, acted as scout
and penetrated alone the enemy's country. Between meetings she would
find her way home, make over her old dresses and on rare occasions get
a new one. This she called "looking after the externals." Then, as her
mother was an invalid, she would clean the house from top to bottom and
do a vast amount of necessary work.
In her diary are many such entries as these: "Washed all the shutters.
Took up the carpet this morning.... Whitewashed the kitchen today....
Helped the girl wash this morning; in the afternoon ironed six shirts,
and started for New York at 4 o'clock. Was a little bit tired." At one
time, with the help of a seamstress, she made fourteen shirts,
stitching by hand all the collars, bosoms and wristbands, and, as this
woman had worked in the Troy laundry, she taught Miss Anthony to
clear-starch and iron them. Each summer she managed to be home long
enough to assist with the canning, pickling and preserving. The little
journal gives the best glimpses of her daily life, usually only a hasty
scrawl of a few lines but containing many flashes of humor and wisdom.
Thus the records run:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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