(1867–1919) Madame C. J. Walker was her business name. Her given name was Sarah Breedlove. She was the first African American Women millionaire. Early in the 20th century, she demonstrated political equality because she showed that African-American women could start their own business and be successful. She created her own line of hair care products and founded a school for training women in her hair care products. She was later a political activist, and donated funds to African American Schools.

Ultimately, Madame C. J. employed 40,000 African American women and men in the US, Central America, and the Caribbean. She also founded the National Negro Cosmetics Manufacturers Association in 1917. In 1918 she was several times the keynote speaker at fundraisers for the National Association of Colored People.

Madame C.J.'s business grew rapidly, with sales exceeding $500,000 in the final year of her life. As her wealth increased, so did her philanthropic and political outreach. She contributed to the YMCA, covered tuition for six African American students at Tuskegee Institute, and became active in the anti-lynching movement, donating $5,000 to the NAACP’s efforts. Just prior to dying of kidney failure, Sarah Breedlove/Madame C. J. revised her will, bequeathing two-thirds of future net profits to charity, as well as thousands of dollars to various individuals and schools.

(1832–1919) The only woman ever awarded the Medal of Honor—the US military's highest decoration—was a gender-queer Civil War surgeon named Dr. Mary Edwards Walker. Mary was a suffragist, a veteran and POW, and a talented doctor who challenged convention in every way.

Turned down in her attempts to join the Union army, Mary volunteered at first. She finally got a contract, and proved able and unflappable—but still couldn't get a formal commission. The American Medical Association tried hard to block her, both with outright sexism and more veiled critique of her training in "eclectic" or what today we'd call alternative & homeopathic medicine. In the 1850s traditional medical schools wouldn't admit women, so the distinction between credentialing & sexism was a thin line.

Dr. Mary was a committed suffragist who used her public profile to advance the cause. She is the first woman known to try and vote in New York, in her hometown of Oswego. It was 1867, early in what became known as the New Departure, a strategy of voting as civil disobedience. She campaigned for dress reform for decades, before and after the war and as a longtime officer of the Dress Reform Association. She was very close to Belva Lockwood, landmark lawyer and presidential candidate, and they worked together for suffrage through the 1870s.

Dr. Mary's contributions to the movement were all but erased from the historical record by Stanton and Anthony, who were threatened by her and uncomfortable with her gender-bending. She was arrested repeatedly for her clothing, and charged with disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace in both New York City and Baltimore. At that point she was still wearing long hair and a mid-calf dress over pants. By the 1870s, Walker cut her hair short and wore unambiguously male clothing for the rest of her life. She sat for photos and had portraits painted in those years—in top hat & dinner jacket, Dr. Mary wanted to be seen clearly for who she was.

There are two children's books about Dr. Walker: Mary Walker Wears the Pants and Mary Wears What She Wants. But the most fitting tribute is Washington DC's Whitman-Walker Clinic, named for Walt Whitman and Mary Walker. The clinic has been serving the health and well-being of LGBTQ in Washington for more than 40 years. (Biographical info from Dr. Mary Walker: An American Radical by Sharon Harris.) Bio by Rachel B. Tiven.

(1830–1910) Mary was active in the suffrage movement in her Victor community. Her mother was considered the community’s earliest known suffragist - Laura Arnold Murray (1793–1865). Mary was one of five children.

Mary was a close friend of Susan B. Anthony and a member of the Political Equality Club of Rochester. She wrote civic-minded articles for the Victor Herald. If you know more about Mary, you can help us tell her story. Please use our Add a Suffragist form to submit your information.

(1855–1938) As a graduate from the Utica Academy in 1872, Lucy presented an essay entitled "The Pressures of Society upon Beliefs," indicating her resolve to effect change. Susan B. Anthony came to Utica in 1894 to address suffrage at the Utica Opera House. "Women of Oneida County," she declaimed, "you are paid less than men doing the same job as you because you do not have the ballot. You are denied the right to a voice in government because you do not have the ballot. What you have is a whole white male aristocracy."

Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, the orator of the cause, addressed women in Utica in 1900 and urged them to stand up for themselves and make a difference. She also maintained that men did not represent women at the ballot box. After her speech, the local suffrage movement began in earnest with the formation of the Utica Political Equality Club with Lucy as its president.

She promoted the cause for 20 years, encouraging more women to join the movement. She helped to bring the New York State Suffrage Convention to Utica in 1912. In the August 31, 1912 Utica Herald Dispatch she was quoted: "Women suffrage appealed to my sense of justice, and during the past five years the feeling of equal suffrage for men and women is an essential feature in a democracy, and the hope it will aid in making better conditions for women and children will have strengthened my belief in the necessity of votes for women."

In 1915, a suffrage liberty torch was carried throughout New York State with Lucy (at age 60) carrying the torch nineteen miles from Utica to Verona.

(1901–1963) “Judy” was Rochester’s first Congresswoman. She served as a representative from 1959 to 1963. She began her work in Republican party affairs in the 1930s, serving successively as a local fundraiser and campaigner, then as a county committeewoman, and finally as a member of the state executive committee. In the ‘40s she began attending national conventions and seconded Thomas Dewey’s nomination in 1948. Though her career in Congress was tragically cut short by illness, she was well respected in national circles. She served for a time on the new House Committee on Space and Aeronautics. Once, she refused her $600 “stationery allowance,” arguing that Congressional expenses were becoming bloated.

(1828–1923) Mathilde was born in Germany and arrived in New York with her family in 1848. She was very active in social reform issues within the German-American community, and from 1869-1872 she was co-owner and editor-in-chief of the German language newspaper, Die Neue Zeit.

As a leading voice in the German-American women’s reform network, Mathilde helped found Deutscher Frauenstimmrechtsverein in 1872, which was often critical of the national women’s movement, particularly when issues of nativism arose. Despite any conflict, Mathilde served on the executive committee of the National Woman Suffrage Association and was elected as a delegate for the 1873 International Congress in Paris. Notably, she was an honorary vice president of NAWSA for New York between 1898 and 1919.

(1864–1917) Adelaide was the first president of the Political Equality Club of Rome, NY. She helped raised money for the National Woman's Party.

Although the club did not picket, they were part of a 50-member area women's group supporting Alice Paul and her efforts to secure the vote. In 1931 the New York State League of Women Voters presented a memorial tablet to the State of New York to hang inside the State Street entrance to the Capitol to commemorate the women foremost in the cause of women's suffrage. Four women from Oneida County appear on the tablet: Miss Lucy Carlile Watson, Miss Janet Price, Mrs. Samuel J. Bens and Adelaide William White.

(1856–1936) A lifelong teacher, Jennie began her career in a small rural school near her home, then taught at Porter School, which at that time was in the town of Geddes. She then became the assistant to the late Miss Mary Flanagan, the principal of Delaware School. Jennie served as principal of the old grade school on Magnolia Street until the new school was erected on Bellevue Heights. In the early 1890's she became its principal, serving until 1923 when she retired after 55 years as a teacher in the Syracuse and vicinity schools.

Jennie E. White was an officer of the Women’s Rights Convention and was awarded an honorary degree at the convocation of the University of the State of New York in 1927 in recognition of her outstanding record in Education. From the Syracuse Herald Feb. 4, 1936

(1873–1957) The owner of the Whitehouse Leather Company, a suffragette and early proponent of birth control, Vira became interested in suffrage after the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 erupted into violence.

She marched in the May 1913 suffrage parade in New York City and volunteered with the Women's Political Union after the parade. Six months later, Vira gave her first outdoor suffrage speech.

Vira was chairman in 1913 of the publicity council of the Empire State Campaign Committee and in 1916 of the New York State Woman Suffrage Party (NYSWSP). In May 1915, Vira made cold calls to potential voters to ask their views on suffrage. This is one of the earliest examples of telephone polling.

Vira was the first vice-chair of the New York City Woman Suffrage Party and a member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, organizing large suffrage parades in New York City. On September 8, 1917, she led the second New York Suffrage Campaign at Sagamore Hill, meeting with Theodore Roosevelt. Leading an incredibly successful fundraising campaign, making large donations herself and soliciting donations from New York's most prominent families—when New York State granted women the right to vote on November 6, 1917, Vira was widely credited with the win.

Vira Boarman Whitehouse's husband was a member of the Men's League for Women's Suffrage. By July 1917 he was treasurer of the League. When Vira bought and managed the Whitehouse Leather Products Company, she worked to improve working conditions for women.

Additionally, she served on the National Chairman of the Woman’s Action Committee for Victory and Lasting Peace.

(1873–1939) Rosalie was a lawyer, judge, government official, and suffragist. She was admitted to the New York Bar in 1895. In 1896, she was the first woman lawyer to try a case before the New York Supreme Court.

Rosalie and her father were partners in a law firm, Loew and Loew, before she took a position with the Legal Aid Society in 1897. "It is an error to suppose that woman cannot look at things in a large way," she commented in an 1896 newspaper profile. "There is nothing in the mental bias of a woman to prevent her having a comprehensive knowledge of any of the affairs of life, no matter how great."

She used her language skills (fluency in Hungarian, Yiddish, and German) to represent and interpret for immigrant workers, in cases involving labor violations, predatory loans, and fraud. In 1903, she was rejected for membership in the Bar Association of the City of New York, on the basis of her gender

She was active in the women's suffrage movement in New York City, as a member of the Brooklyn Woman’s Suffrage Party and as New York congressional chair of the Woman’s Federal Equality Association. Rosalie represented Brooklyn at the National Suffrage Convention in Washington in 1917; and she spoke on behalf of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in a Congressional hearing in 1918. Additionally, she helped to found the National Women's Republican Club. In 1918 she attended the Republican National Committee meeting in St. Louis, working for the party's public support for the 19th Amendment.

Rosalie was in the first group of twelve women admitted to the Bar Association of the City of New York, in 1937; by that time, she had a long career in the law, and had already served two years as Justice on the Court of Domestic Relations in New York.

(1833–1914) Educated at Wilbraham Academy, Charlotte was associated with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as a worker for suffrage for women, and became known as an eloquent and forceful public speaker.

She was a founder of the culture-shifting Sorosis Club – the preeminent all-women’s club in the United States that was closed to men – was elected its president in 1870 and re-elected five times. She devoted much time and effort to securing a permanent foundation for that organization, and was instrumental in organizing the Association for the Advancement of Women that was formed by it in 1873.

Charlotte instituted lectures on health and dress reform, suggested and aided in preparing entertainments for various purposes, and assisted many women in obtaining public recognition. She lived abroad with her husband in 1875-1900, but despite living outside America, she maintained her interest in the elevation of her sex and sought every opportunity to labour for it. Originally she had been buried in Rhode Island and then later was moved to Woodlawn Cemetery in New York.

(1815–1895) Before the Civil War, Julia spent more time in abolition than woman's rights activities, although always strongly supported economic, social, and political rights for women. In 1869, she planned with five other women to register to vote in local elections in Washington. They presented a letter to election judges that read, in part, "We know that it is unusual for those of our sex to make such a request. We do so because we believe ourselves entitled to the franchise." Although the judges refused the request, their effort was covered in the press. A book about her: ”A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time: Julia Wilbur's Struggle for Purpose" by Paula Whitacre 2017.

(1861–1933) Mary was Borough Chairman for Staten Island (then referred to as Richmond) of the City Party led by Carrie Chapman Catt in 1915, when the suffrage amendment appeared on the New York State ballot. As part of that campaign, according to a 1915 New York Tribune article, she and Mrs. James Lees Laidlaw led a feminine column of representatives from New York City, through Binghamton, to Rochester for the final Suffrage Party convention before the 1915 ballot initiative.

The City Party organized mass meetings, canvassed homes and businesses, and attempted to reach nearly 600,000 voters, ultimately enrolling 60,000 new members to the Party. Mary lectured broadly on women's suffrage, for example, the New York Age reports to an African Methodist Episcopal congregation in Bayonne, NJ.

By 1919 Mary became active in the League of Women Voters, the independent, non-partisan group aimed at enhancing women's political power, educating voters, and constraining partisan corruption. She chaired the League's Richmond chapter. *courtesy alexanderstreet.com

(1832-1884) Catherine Mary was born in Albany, NY to activist parents, Susan and Michael Douge, who were dedicated to improving the status for the African Americans in their community. Catherine, also referred to as Mary, followed their example.

After completing her education, she taught at the Wilburforce School for African American children. At a young age Mary lost her husband (Henry Hicks) and first child to illnesses. She herself contracted tuberculosis but continued to serve others. After the Civil War she spent several years teaching formerly enslaved adults and children in Virginia and South Carolina.

Returning to Albany, Mary, now remarried to Andrew Williams, became involved in the suffrage movement. When NY passed the School Suffrage Law in 1880, she and her mother worked to have women of color register to vote. They proudly voted in the school commissioner election in April of that year. Mary was elected Vice President of the Albany Woman Suffrage Society. It was one of the few organizations that did not separate women of color from white.

Mary addressed the statewide Woman Suffrage Convention in October, 1881. Her contributions to equality and social justice were noted in her obituary. Mary is included (under the name C. Mary Williams) in the 1998 book "Refusing Ignorance; The Struggle to Educate Black Children in Albany, New York 1816-1873" by Marian I. Hughes.

(1855 –1944) “I dare not cease to hope and aspire and believe in human love and justice…”

Frances (Fannie) was born in Brockport, NY, to one of only a few black families residing in the overwhelmingly white community. Fannie would look back on her youth as a time of innocence, also believing that these childhood experiences of “social equality” ill-prepared her for the racism that she faced later in life. Her growing awareness of the unfair treatment African American women received led her to pursue a lifetime of activism and strengthened her commitment to improving their lives.

In 1870, Fannie became the first African American woman to graduate from SUNY Brockport, then Brockport State Normal School. After graduation, Fannie Barrier went to teach in the Washington D.C. area, hoping to help the freedmen. Life there was very different from what she had experienced and she was “shattered” by the discrimination she encountered.

In 1887, she married Samuel Laing Williams, and the couple moved to Chicago where Fannie’s husband opened a law practice with Ferdinand Barnett, husband of Ida B. Wells Barnett. It was in Chicago that Fannie Barrier Williams became one of the most celebrated figures of her time.

No longer teaching, Fannie became very active among Chicago reformers. She was director of the art and music department of the Prudence Crandall Study Club, formed by Chicago’s elite African-American community. She worked for the Hyde Park Colored Voters Republican Club and the Taft Colored League. An associate of both Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, she represented the viewpoint of African-Americans in the Illinois Women’s Alliance and lectured frequently on the need for all women - but especially black women - to have the vote.

Recognizing the lack of services available to women, Fannie helped to found the National League of Colored Women in 1893 and its successor, the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) in 1896. When she became aware of the lack of African-American physicians and nurses in the hospitals, she helped to create Provident Hospital in 1891, an inter-racial medical facility.

Fannie was instrumental in the creation of the Frederick Douglass Center in 1905, and the Phillis Wheatley Home for Girls. The latter became part of a national movement, and the hospital and settlement house still serve the Chicago community today.

Fannie was the first African-American and the first woman on the Chicago Library Board, waging a battle for the representation of African-Americans at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. She succeeded in having two staff appointments designated for African-Americans. Fannie herself was appointed as Clerk in charge of Colored Interests in the Department of Publicity and Promotions. She was also invited to present two major addresses, one to the World’s Congress of Representative Women and the other to the World’s Parliament of Religions. In the first, The Intellectual Progress of the Colored Women of the United States Since the Emancipation Proclamation, followed by a discussion and words of praise from Frederick Douglass, Fannie disputed the notion that slavery had rendered African-American women incapable of the same moral and intellectual levels as other women and called on all women to unite to claim their inalienable rights.

(1818–1914) Sarah was a life-long advocate for abolition, women’s suffrage, and political equality. She became involved in social justice through her older sister, Amy Post, who was an ardent abolitionist and suffrage supporter. They were both frequent guests in the home of fellow abolitionists and suffrage supporters Lucy and Daniel Anthony; Susan B. Anthony’s parents.

In 1848, Sarah, her sister Amy, Daniel and Lucy Anthony, Mary Anthony, and Frederick Douglass travelled from Rochester to Seneca Falls to attend the Women’s Rights Convention. At the conclusion of the conference, Sarah signed the Declaration of Sentiments. A few weeks later another convention was held in Rochester, and Sarah was designated as a secretary. In 1853 another convention was held in Rochester. Sarah attended and once again was a designated secretary.

When the National Woman's Suffrage Association was formed, Sarah was one of its first members. She was also one of the first members of the Political Equality Club of Rochester. In 1872, she was one of the many women who attempted to register to vote (Susan B. Anthony and fourteen others succeeded in voting illegally). A year later, she was an officer in the Women’s Taxpayer Association--a short lived organization formed to protest the taxation of women without representation.

Sarah could be counted on for financial contributions when needed. In 1900, when the fundraising campaign to admit women to the University of Rochester came up short, Sarah contributed $2,000. In 1888, she was invited by Susan B. Anthony to attend her newly formed International Council of Women. Susan proudly introduced Sarah as one of the signers of the Declaration of Sentiments. Sarah was a close friend of Susan and was a frequent visitor at the Anthony home for holidays and birthdays. Sarah died in 1914 at the age of ninety-six.

(1881–1975) An American sculptor, suffragist, and animal welfare activist; Alice was one of the first American artists to embrace Cubism and Futurism. She was also an ardent suffragist.

Alice helped to bring the charismatic Emmeline Pankhurst to a speaking engagement in Paris and felt inspired to go to London herself to join the suffrage movement there. With the National Women’s Social and Political Union, she participated in militant demonstrations in England. She was incarcerated for two months in Holloway Prison, London.

With other suffragettes, Alice protested her treatment by participating in a hunger strike. She used smuggled plasteline to model a portrait bust of her fellow prisoner, Pankhurst. Alice continued her suffrage activism after her return to the United States in 1914. She was Recording Secretary of the Woman’s Suffrage Party of New York during the winning campaign. Alice only returned to sculpture full-time after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. In 1920, she returned to Albany and gradually turned away from art to focus on political activism, especially animal rights, going as far as writing the Peace Plantation Animal Sanctuary organization's 12 Guiding Principles, which are still in use today.

In 1921, Alice helped to create the League of Women Voters of New York State, eventually serving as a delegate to the 1948 United Nations assembly in Paris.

Alice Wright and Edith J. Goode were lifetime companions, having met at Smith College. Together they worked tirelessly for peace and justice.

(1806–1875) Martha was an important suffragist during the early years of the woman suffrage movement, yet she has been overshadowed by her more well-known sister, Lucretia Mott. Martha played a vital role as behind-the-scenes organizer and confidant to Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Before she became active in women's rights, Martha balanced a busy family life with anti-slavery work, organizing abolition meetings and hosting freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad in her home in Auburn, New York. In fact, she was six months pregnant when she attended the famous tea at which she, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Jane Hunt and Mary Ann McClintock planned the 1848 Seneca Falls convention.

Despite being crippled by a fear of public speaking, Martha consented to be the president or secretary of several state and national women's rights conventions during the 1850s and 60s. Outside of conventions, she held several offices. Martha was chosen in 1869 as the first president of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association, served on several executive committees, was vice president three times for the American Equal Rights Association, and then was elected president of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1874. *courtesy alexanderstreet.com

(1882–1980) Little Falls was regarded as “the hot bed of Herkimer County” for women’s suffrage and Zaida Zoller was central to the activity. Susan B. Anthony and Dr. Anna Howard Shaw were guests at meetings held in the Zoller home. Zaida was chairwoman of the Little Falls Suffrage Club.

In 1916, the Herkimer County Suffrage Convention was held in Little Falls. In 1917, Zaida hosted a Suffrage School meeting. Zaida’s twin brother, Abram (Mayor of Little Falls), spoke on the benefits of women’s suffrage. A suffrage library was also established at the local YMCA. In that same year, Zaida invited Dr. Anna Howard Shaw (past-president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) to Little Falls to attend a suffrage party at her home. Zaida organized numerous meetings and parades. After the passage of the 19th amendment, she was president of the Little Falls Chapter of the League of Women Voters.