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
Into this commodious home Lucy Anthony brought her aged father and
mother, and carefully tended them until the death of both within the
same year, aged eighty-four. In May, 1834, came the first great sorrow,
the death of little Eliza, aged two years, and the mother was
heart-broken. Her life was centered in her children, and she could not
be reconciled to giving up even one. After her own death, nearly fifty
years later, in her box of most sacredly guarded keepsakes, was found a
little faded pink dress of the dear child's which many times had been
moistened with the mother's tears.
The children continued to attend this private school, and as Guelma and
Susan reached the age of fifteen, each in turn was installed as teacher
in summer when there were only young pupils. The factory now was at the
height of prosperity; there was only one larger in all that part of the
country, and Daniel Anthony was looked upon as a wealthy man. He was
much criticised for allowing his daughters to teach, as in those days
no woman worked for wages except from pressing necessity; but he was
far enough in advance of his time to believe that every girl should be
trained to self-support. In 1837, writing to Guelma at boarding-school,
he urges her to accept the offer of the principal to remain through the
winter as an assistant:
I am fully of the belief that shouldst thou never teach school a
single day afterwards, thou wouldst ever feel to justify thy
course.... Thou wouldst seem to me to be laying the foundation for
thy far greater usefulness. Thy remaining through the winter, must,
however, be left solely to thyself, as it would be of little avail
for thee to stay and not be contented. Thy home, Guelma, is just
the same as when thou left it, and shouldst thou decide to spend
the winter months away, we will try to keep it the same until thy
return in the spring. Let me know if thou canst be content to
remain away a few months longer from thy mother's kitchen.
[Autograph:
Thy Father
Daniel Anthony]
In the winter of 1837, at the age of seventeen, Susan taught in the
family of Doris and Huldah Deliverge, at Easton, a few miles from
Battenville, for $1 a week and board. The next summer she taught a
district school at the neighboring village, Reid's Corners, for $1.50 a
week and "boarded round," and proud was she to earn what was then
considered excellent wages for a woman. In the fall she joined Guelma
at boarding-school. The little circular, yellow with age, reads:
DEBORAH MOULSON, having obtained an agreeable location in the
pleasant village of Hamilton, in the vicinity of Philadelphia,
intends, with the assistance of competent Teachers, to open
immediately a Seminary for Females....
Terms, $125 per annum, for boarding and tuition....
The inculcation of the principles of Humility, Morality and a love
of Virtue, will receive particular attention.
[Illustration:
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.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account