(1895–1935) A teacher of physical culture from Buffalo, NY, Janet was 26 years old when she traveled to Washington to participate in the 1917 suffrage protests at the White House. Her courageous participation in these historic protests earned her a place in suffrage history.

Janet was among the second of three groups of protestors who marched from NWP headquarters across the street to the White House. A crowd formed at the scene, and police made no attempt to disperse them. The first group took their places at the upper gate without incident. However, as soon as the second group took their positions at the lower gate, the police immediately arrested both groups of suffrage protestors. When the third group emerged from NWP headquarters, the crowd applauded as the suffragists took their places. The police waited four minutes before arresting them on a charge of “violating an ordinance.” At the police station, all 16 were charged with “unlawful assembly.”

In court on July 17 all 16 were found guilty of “obstructing traffic” and sentenced to 60 days at the Occoquan Workhouse, the federal prison in Lorton, Virginia. Family members visited the suffragists in prison and, shocked by their condition, appealed to President Woodrow Wilson. After serving three torturous days at the Occoquan Workhouse, the 16 suffragists—including Janet—were pardoned by the president and released.

(1890–1949) On August 23, 1917, Margaret and five other women appeared at the White House bearing banners quoting President Woodrow Wilson. Within ten minutes of their protest, all the women were arrested for obstructing traffic. When they pleaded their case the judge pointed out that the president was “not the one to petition for justice.” The women were fined twenty-five dollars or thirty days at Occoquan Workhouse. Every woman refused to pay the fine.

On September 4, 1917, during a parade for recently drafted soldiers of World War I, Margaret was again arrested, along with twelve other women. In a fashion similar to their earlier picketing at the White House, the women all sported controversial banners. This time the banners stated, “Mr. President, how long must women be denied a voice in the government that is conscripting their sons?” The punishment was more severe, and the women served sixty days at Occoquan Workhouse.

During her confinement, Margaret and ten other women, claiming to be political prisoners, refused to work. As a result of her bold activism for women’s voting rights, Margaret lost her job in the Buffalo public schools. Rather than appearing before the school board to answer its charges, she accepted a position with the Red Cross. The Central Federated Labor Union of New York criticized the Buffalo school authorities for suspending Margaret, pointing out that the suspension violated the Clayton Act, whereby non-violent picketing was legal. (Courtesy alexanderstreet.com)

(1864–1924) Susan was a thought leader on the issues of women's and African Americans rights and capacity. She was an active and accomplished substitute teacher in New York City Public Schools at a time when such opportunities for African American women were very limited.

In addition to her teaching career as the first Black teacher in an integrated public school in New York, Susan did much to support other Black women. She was active in the Women's Loyal Union of New York City, a Black women's organization, as the Recording Secretary.

Susan was a contributor to Woman's Era, the first newspaper aimed at African-American women. She wrote an 1894 profile called "Mrs. William E. Matthews," about the then-president of the Women's Loyal Union, Victoria Earle Matthews for the paper. Susan also addressed the Brooklyn Literary Union in an 1892 talk where she discussed the importance of Black women's contributions to literature and poetry in the United States, including Phillis Wheatley, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and H. Cordelia Ray. The talk was later published as "Some Afro-American Women of Mark" in the AME Church Review.

(1866–1946) Lucretia was consistently involved in civic and community affairs, primarily supporting black women.

In 1913 she was a delegate to the Empire State Federation of Women's Clubs. 1921 found her as the director of the Red Cross Women's Auxiliary for Harlem Hospital, a hospital she had been employed by. A few years later, she was named a deaconess of her church, Nazarene Congregationalist. In 1931, she was elected vice president of the Northeast Federation of Women's Clubs.

Ten years later, she represented the Brooklyn's Mother's Club at the annual convention of the New York Federation of Colored Women's Club. Examples of their work include caring for Harriet Tubman until the time of her death in 1913. This group corresponded with presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman on civil rights topics such as unequal treatment of black Americans in the Armed Forces and housing discrimination. Lucretia did her part to have her community be a place where children could thrive.

(1890–1987) Little seems to be known about Leah's suffragist activities other than that she was involved in the Bristol Women's Club where she was a speaker on the topic of Women's Suffrage.

If you know more about her, you can help us tell her story. Please use our Add a Suffragist form to submit your information.

(1870–1924) Blanche is best known for marrying a man against her father’s wishes even when she would be cut out of his considerable inheritance. Such an action was scandalous at the time and widely reported in the newspapers. Most women would have accepted the tenets of the will, but Blanche sued for her right to the inheritance and won a compromise settlement. Her fight for personal rights led to her advocacy for women’s rights.

Blanche was President of the Equal Franchise League of New Rochelle, New York. Equal Franchise Societies were being formed in cities and states throughout the country. These societies were led by wealthy women who planned to use their influence and means to support women’s suffrage.

She was also a member of the National Woman’s Suffrage Association. She attended the 1912 Westchester Women’s Suffrage Association and read a report from The Equal Franchise League of New Rochelle, New York.

(1921–2006) Dubbed the “mother” of the modern women’s movement, Betty Friedan was an American feminist writer, activist, and complicated force to be reckoned with. A leading figure in the women’s movement in the United States, she spent five years conducting interviews with women across the country, charting white, middle-class women’s metamorphosis from the independent, career-minded New Woman of the 1920s and 1930s to the housewives of the postwar era who were expected to find total fulfillment as wives and mothers.

Published in 1963, The Feminine Mystique hit a nerve, becoming an instant best-seller that continues to be regarded as one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century, often credited with sparking the “second wave “of American feminism.

In 1966, Friedan co-founded and was elected the first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), which aimed to bring women into the mainstream of American society now [in] fully equal partnership with men.

In 1970, after stepping down as NOW's first president, Friedan organized the nationwide Women’s Strike for Equality on August 26, the 50th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution granting women the right to vote. The national strike was successful beyond expectations in broadening the feminist movement; the march led by Friedan in New York City alone attracted over 50,000 people.

In 1971, Friedan joined other leading feminists to establish the National Women’s Political Caucus. Friedan was also a strong supporter of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution that passed the United States House of Representatives (by a vote of 35 - 24) and Senate (84 - 8) following intense pressure by women’s groups led by NOW in the early 1970s. Following Congressional passage of the amendment, Friedan advocated for ratification of the amendment in the states and supported other women’s rights reforms.

As more diverse voices emerged within the women’s movement, Friedan not only struggled to retain her leadership but was criticized by other feminists for focusing on issues facing primarily white, middle-class, educated, heterosexual women. Radical feminists also blasted Friedan for referring to lesbian women in the movement as the “lavender menace,” and for Friedan’s willingness to cooperate with men. Ever politically expedient, Friedan believed the only hope for change was by retaining the movement’s mainstream ties and veneer. This alienated her from younger, radical, and visionary feminists who were increasingly becoming the vanguard of the movement. Friedan nonetheless remained a visible, ardent, and important advocate for women’s rights.

(1826–1898) Matilda was a suffragist, Native American rights activist, abolitionist, freethinker, and author. She is the eponym for the Matilda Effect, which describes the tendency to deny women credit for scientific invention.

Matilda was the youngest speaker at the 1852 National Women's Rights Convention held in Syracuse, New York. She was a tireless worker and public speaker, and contributed numerous articles to the press, being regarded as one of the most logical, fearless and scientific writers of her day. During 1878–1881, she published and edited at Syracuse the National Citizen, a paper devoted to the cause of women.

In 1880, she was a delegate from the National Woman Suffrage Association to the Republican and Greenback conventions in Chicago and the Democratic convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. With Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, she was for years in the forefront of the suffrage movement, and collaborated with them in writing the History of Woman Suffrage (1881–1887). She was the author of the Woman's Rights Catechism (1868); Woman as Inventor (1870); Who Planned the Tennessee Campaign (1880); and Woman, Church and State (1893).

Matilda served as president of the New York State Suffrage Association for five years, and president of the National Woman's Suffrage Association during 1875–76, which was one of the affiliating societies forming the national suffrage association, in 1890; she also held the office of second vice-president, vice-president-at-large and chairman of the executive committee of the original National Woman Suffrage Association.

Matilda's views on suffrage and feminism were considered too radical by many members of the suffrage association, and in consequence, she organized in 1890 the Woman's National Liberal Union, whose objects were: To assert woman's natural right to self-government; to show the cause of delay in the recognition of her demand; to preserve the principles of civil and religious liberty; to arouse public opinion to the danger of a union of church and state through an amendment to the constitution, and to denounce the doctrine of woman's inferiority. She served as president of this union from its inception until her death in Chicago, in 1898. (Source: Sue Boland)

(1831–1911) Sarah was an African-American educator and suffragist from New York City who was the first African-American female school principal in the New York City public school system. She led a long and distinguished career in the New York public schools, beginning as a teacher’s assistant in 1845 when she was fourteen years old and retiring as a principal in 1900.

An active supporter of woman suffrage and African American civil rights, Sarah Garnet was also a businesswoman and owned a seamstress shop in Brooklyn from 1883 to 1911. In the late 1880s, she helped found the Equal Suffrage Club, a Brooklyn-based club for black women. Additionally, Sarah served as superintendent of the Suffrage Department of the National Association of Colored Women.

As a member of the Equal Suffrage Club, Sarah supported the Niagara Movement, a predecessor to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1911, Sarah accompanied her sister, Susan Smith McKinney Steward, to London, England, for the first Universal Races Congress. (Contributed by Meg MacDonald)

(1830–1911) As an outspoken member of the New York State Grange, Eliza Gifford urged the influential agricultural organization to support women's suffrage. After years of campaigning by Eliza and other NYSWA activists, the New York State Grange endorsed an equal suffrage resolution at its 1881 convention in Utica, NY.

Eliza’s resolution was followed up in local subordinate Granges throughout the state and the Grange was key to bringing the suffrage cause to rural communities. Though anti-suffrage views persisted among some members, many Grangers took up the cause, sending petitions to the state legislatures in Albany. Eliza continued to advocate for women’s suffrage, eventually serving as the first vice-president of the Jamestown Political Equality Club. In 1891, she brought the issue to the attention of the national Grange, and in 1893 the national Grange endorsed a resolution supporting equal suffrage for women.

(1893–1975) Susan was educated at Boston’s Winsor School, Bryn Mawr College (B.A., 1915), and the University of Chicago Law School (LL.B., 1919). In 1916, Susan worked for woman suffrage in Boston.

New York City became her home in 1921. Admitted to the New York bar in 1921, no law firm would hire her because she was a woman, an event Susan Gilbert remembered all her life.

Susan was the second woman member of the New York State Board of Regents appointed by Governor Herbert Lehman, serving in that post from 1935 to 1949. She was also an active member of the Bar Association of New York City, Hadassah, the Women’s City Club and the Democratic Party. When Brandeis University was founded in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1949, Susan and Jacob Gilbert were deeply involved in its development. She became the honorary national president of its National Women’s Committee, was made fellow of the university in 1952, and was awarded a doctor of humane letters in 1963.

(1865–1933) Kate was born in Rochester, New York. Her parents were Irish immigrants and ardent women rights advocates. Her mother, Ellen, was friends with Susan B. Anthony. Kate Gleason led the kind of life that Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton dreamed would come true someday as the result of their work. To begin, in 1884, she attended Cornell University, a school that opened its doors to women due to Susan B. Anthony’s efforts.
Equally significant, Kate was the first woman to enroll in their Mechanical Arts engineering program. It was extremely rare for women to enter the engineering profession. According to the Society for Women Engineers, “. . . it was rare for more than one woman a year (if any) to receive an engineering degree nationwide from 1876 until 1900.”

She did not graduate from Cornell, having to return home to Rochester to assist in her father’s machine shop business. However, she continued to take engineering classes at Sibley College of Engraving and the Mechanics Institute, later to become the Rochester Institute of Technology. With the winds of the women’s rights movement at her back, Kate continued to become “the first” in many areas. With her confidence, keen business acumen, and engineering knowledge, she became the company’s first global sales woman, bringing in European business. Gleason Works exists to this day as a global provider of gear-cutting equipment.

It is reported that Kate was the first woman to be appointed a receiver of a company in bankruptcy. She led Ingle Machine Company of East Rochester, New York out of bankruptcy, paying off its debts in eighteen months and returning it to profitability. In 1918 she was the first woman member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Kate continued her work in roles traditionally held by men. She developed affordable housing for the working class by deploying mass production efforts and a unique concrete method that she developed. She continued her work in housing development, helping to rebuild a French village after World War 1, and starting building projects in California and South Carolina. As a fitting tribute to women’s rights, she and her father hosted a grand (and what was to be the final) birthday party for Susan B. Anthony in 1906. And in 1912 Gleason contributed $1,200 to the National Woman’s Suffrage Association. The amount was one of its largest pledges. In 1998, the Rochester Institute of Technology named its engineering school the Kate Gleason College of Engineering, the first college to name an engineering school after a woman.

(1826–1920) A lifelong resident of Long Island and mother of five, Rhoda spent her later years vigorously supporting the suffrage movement. She was the vice president of the Political Equity League of Queens and Nassau Counties. Rhoda also served as a member of the Nassau County Suffrage Club in Rockville Center and was later named as the permanent honorary president. Well into her 80s, Rhoda rode in suffrage parades along with Edna Kearns and others. The 1913 photo shows her driving her horse drawn carriage in a parade from Mineola to Hempstead. Rhoda was known as Long Island’s oldest suffragist.

(1864–1934) Alice was an active member of her community, including a dedication to women's suffrage along with her sister and brother-in-law Francis and Frank Cobb. She was also active in St. Paul's Universalist Church's many community groups. If you know more about her, you can help us tell her story. Please use our Add a Suffragist form to submit your information.

(1811–1872) Horace began his career as a printer's apprentice at the age of fourteen. After working for several newspapers, he founded the New York Tribune, a city newspaper which was highly regarded for its in depth stories and excellent writing. By 1860 its circulation had reached almost 288,000, and Horace enjoyed a national reputation as political savant, social crusader, moralist, and eccentric.

The paper supported the Whig party and was emphatically anti-slavery. It shaped public opinion at the time. Horace was involved in Whig politics but was disappointed when they failed to support nominating him for office. He ran for president of the US as a "new liberal" Republican candidate but lost to US Grant. He died before the electoral college met; with a change in politics and society as well as a shift in how he was perceived by the public. At one point he was so abused that he was asked whether he was running for the presidency or the penitentiary. Horace's saying "Go West Young Man" is well known.

(1878–1965) Helen was an attorney who was an early member of the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women, emphasizing a militant, aggressive form of activism in support of women's enfranchisement. Over her activist career, she was also a founding member of the College Equal Suffrage League of New York and the Original Woman Suffrage Party.

Helen held leadership roles in the Nineteenth Assembly District, Borough of Brooklyn and Borough of Manhattan Woman Suffrage Parties, and served on committees of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She marched in the first New York suffrage parade, and is credited with beginning the practice of intensive district street speaking, demonstrating its effectiveness by speaking 56 consecutive nights on one street corner, 96th Street and Broadway.

(1831–1905) Cordelia supported a number of reform causes throughout her life, including temperance and women’s suffrage. She was active in the Wyoming County Suffrage Image of booklet cover: Political Equality Club Association, and she served for many years as president of the local Political Equality Club.

One year she refused to pay her taxes in order to protest her lack of the right to vote. She was also known as a generous financial donor to the cause of suffrage. She donated a $500 subscription, which was eventually used to help publish the History of Woman Suffrage.

(1831–1918) In 1867, Jean and her husband, a former Civil War Colonel, moved to Rochester, NY, where he served twice as a Democrat in the U.S. Congress. She helped draft the constitution of the Woman's Educational and Industrial Union, started by Unitarian reformer Mary Gannett and Susan B. Anthony in 1893.

Jean was a leader in the Women's Political Club organized by Mary Anthony and others, and addressed a suffrage hearing of the House Judiciary Committee of the U.S. Congress. When Anthony decided to return to Madison Street in 1891, Jean raised $250 through the Political Club to refurnish the house. The Greenleafs were among the few invited to the Anthony home on New Years Day, 1895, and Jean later spoke at Susan's 75th birthday and 85th birthdays. In 1907, she addressed the gathering at Rochesters A.M.E. Zion Church for the unveiling of a stained-glass window memorial for Susan B. Anthony.

(1861/75–1943) Ada was active in the suffrage movement in New York from 1899 through roughly 1912. A survivor of what her father described as “mild attacks of temporary insanity,” after losing first her mother and then stepmother, with whom she was close, Ada spent some time in at least two mental institutions before “recovering” from suicidal tendencies. Her immersion in community and society groups was suggested as her self-created cure, with Ada joining the Browning Society, a local poetry group, and becoming the club's secretary in 1896.

By 1899, Ada's interests had turned to women's rights and she became active in the Syracuse Women's Educational and Industrial Union, founded in 1886 with the aim of improving the ""physical, intellectual and moral condition of women and children."" Ada's work there launched an Employment Bureau designed to help young women find gainful employment. Her efforts to ensure education and work for local women led to her involvement with the New York Trades School for Girls and Day Nursery in Syracuse, where she served on the Board until 1912.

Through her work in the aforementioned groups, Ada was drawn into the suffrage movement. By 1901, she was described in the local press as "an ardent suffragist," serving as the corresponding secretary for the New York State Woman Suffrage Association, attending statewide and national suffrage conventions, donating $5.00 annually to the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) (roughly $130 in today's money), and making connections with the major players in the movement, including Carrie Chapman Catt and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Ada served as a de-facto touring manager for both women during their lecture tours throughout New York State in 1902 and 1903, hosting Catt at her home and arranging speaking engagements across the state for Gilman.

Ada Hall also began to lecture herself, speaking on suffrage, architecture, and women's rights starting in 1904. Around the same time, she joined Syracuse's Political Equality Society and became their auditor.
(Courtesy of AlexanderStreet.com)

(1813–1886) Sarah was a Quaker and abolitionist who joined the Friends of Human Progress in the late 1840s. She was also a member of the Women's Loyal National League, the American Equal Rights association, and The National Woman Suffrage Association.

In July 1869, Sarah attended the State suffrage convention held in Saratoga Springs to create a permanent organization for the State of New York. She was elected to the Advisory Counsel for the Third Judicial District from Milton, NY, serving alongside Susan B. Anthony. In 1884, Sarah served as secretary at the convention of residents of the Second Assembly District of Ulster County. At the convention, a resolution was passed to request the Senator and Assemblyman from the county to work for the Woman Suffrage bill.