FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT:
Monday, November 03, 2008 Ellen K. Wheeler
Director of Development & Public Relations
(585) 279-7490, ext. 12
Susan B. Anthony to Visit Historic Site
of her Illegal Vote for President in 1872
Rochester, NY—Susan B. Anthony, as portrayed by Rochesterian Barbara Blaisdell, will lead a group of people from the Susan B. Anthony House at 17 Madison Street at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, November 4, to the site on West Main Street where she and a group of women voted in the 1872 presidential election. The group will include members of the Susan B. Anthony Neighborhood Association who are friends and neighbors of the Anthony House today. It will also include visitors from Nigeria and Sudan, women who are guests of the State Department and have been invited to the United States to observe our country’s election process.
The site on West Main Street is directly across from Canal Street and near Hahn Automotive. In 1872, there was a shop at this location that also served as a polling place. There, Susan B. Anthony and fourteen other women cast their ballots, believing that the 15th amendment gave them that right. Miss Anthony’s arrest in her Madison Street home two weeks later, and subsequent trial in Canandaigua the following spring, demonstrated that the amendment’s reference to “citizens of the United States” did not include women.
A statue commemorating their courageous action in 1872 is planned for the site on West Main Street, to be designed by Rochester artist, Pepsy Kettavong. Kettavong created the Anthony-Douglass statue in Anthony Park on Madison Street and the Nathaniel Rochester statue in the South Wedge. A prototype of his proposed statue for the voting site will be shown at the commemoration on West Main Street, to which the public is invited to attend.
Background: The Susan B. Anthony House was Anthony’s home during the most politically active period of her life and the site of her famous arrest for voting in 1872. It became incorporated as a memorial to Susan B. Anthony in 1946. It is a National Historic Landmark and is supported primarily through the contributions of its members.
Mission Statement: The Susan B. Anthony House is a learning center through which we share and interpret Miss Anthony’s life and work as a champion of women’s rights, thereby inspiring and challenging individuals to make a positive difference in their lives and communities. For more information, visit our website at www.susanbanthonyhouse.org.