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
This life of ease proved to be of short duration. Her brother was
renominated for mayor and plunged at once into the thick of a political
campaign, while Miss Anthony went to the office to help manage his
newspaper, limited only by his injunction "not to have it all woman's
rights and negro suffrage." The labor, however, which she most enjoyed
was among the colored refugees. Soon after the slaves were set free
they flocked to Kansas in large numbers, and what should be done with
this great body of uneducated, untrained and irresponsible people was a
perplexing question. She went into the day schools, Sunday-schools,
charitable societies and all organizations for their relief and
improvement. The journal shows that four or five days or evenings every
week were given to this work and that she formed an equal rights league
among them. A colored printer was put into the composing-room, and at
once the entire force went on strike. The diary declares "it is a
burning, blistering shame," and relates her attempts to secure other
work for him. She met at this time Hiram Revels, a colored Methodist
preacher, afterwards United States senator from Mississippi.
During these months she was in constant receipt of letters pressing her
to return to the East. Phillips said: "Come back, there is work for you
here." From Lydia Mott came the pathetic cry: "Our old fraternity is no
more; we are divided, bodily and spiritually, and I seem to grow more
isolated every day." Pillsbury wrote: "We do not know much now about
one another. We called a meeting of the Hovey Committee and only
Whipple and I were present. Why have you deserted the field of action
at a time like this, at an hour unparalleled in almost twenty
centuries? If you watch our papers you must have observed that with you
gone, our forces are scattered until I can almost truly say with him of
old, 'I only am left.' It is not for me to decide your field of labor.
Kansas needed John Brown and may need you. It is no doubt missionary
ground and, wherever you are, I know you will not be idle; but New York
is to revise her constitution next year and, if you are absent, who is
to make the plea for woman?" Mrs. Stanton insisted that she should not
remain buried in Kansas and concluded a long letter:
I hope in a short time to be comfortably located in a new house
where we will have a room ready for you when you come East. I long
to put my arms around you once more and hear you scold me for my
sins and short-comings. Your abuse is sweeter to me than anybody
else's praise for, in spite of your severity, your faith and
confidence shine through all. O, Susan, you are very dear to me. I
should miss you more than any other living being from this earth.
You are intertwined with much of my happy and eventful past, and
all my future plans are based on you as a coadjutor. Yes, our work
is one, we are one in aim and sympathy and we should be together.
Come home.
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