(1867–1932) Margaret (Maggie) Cline Hill attended the Women Right's Convention and was member of the Universalist Church and the vice president of the Ladies Aid group.

(1847–1929) Lucretia was an active member of the Phelps Equality Club on Executive Committee, and a delegate representing the Phelps Political Club at the county convention. If you know more about her, you can help us tell her story. Please use our Add a Suffragist form to submit your information.

(1850–1901) Belle was an active member of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association, serving as a delegate to the national convention. She supported suffrage activities within her local community, and she was also a member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. If you know more about her, you can help us tell her story. Please use our Add a Suffragist form to submit your information.

(1809–1875) Anna and her husband, Henry Holmes, were abolitionists who allowed their house in Washington County, NY to be used as part of the route along the Underground Railroad. She was elected to the Advisory Counsel for the Fourth Judicial District from Greenwich, NY, serving alongside Susan B. Anthony. If you know more about her, you can help us tell her story. Please use our Add a Suffragist form to submit your information.

(1865–1932) In her autobiography, singer-actress Lena Horne remarked that "the part of me that responds to causes or to injustices, or issues fighting comments on all kinds of issues, that part of me is the creation of my proud, activist grandmother, who never seemed to be afraid of anything".

Horne's grandmother, Cora, was a community leader and suffragist in Brooklyn in the first decades of the 20th century. She was a leader in the Urban League, the YWCA, and the NAACP, and a vocal advocate of women's suffrage in the heated years of the New York state campaign.

During World War I, Cora led a Red Cross unit making and repairing bandages, in connection with the Brooklyn YWCA. A detailed essay about Cora's life reports that, "in recognition of her contributions, Cora was appointed to the mayors Victory Committee."

Cora continued actively participating in the National Association of Colored Women and the NAACP and by 1918 was also involved with the Brooklyn League on Urban Conditions and the Big Brother and Big Sister Federation, organizations in which she would hold many leadership positions and with which she would continue working until the end of her life. Among these, Cora served as editor-in-chief of the Empire State Voice, the newsletter of the New York Federation of Colored Women's Clubs.

(1844–1913) Mary was a brilliant orator that traveled with Susan B. Anthony and wrote the bill that later became the 19th Amendment. She was appointed in 1891, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, to represent that body in the National Council of Women of the United States in Washington, D.C.

Mary Catherine Howell and Anthony made a tour of New York state in 1894 and presented the state constitutional convention with a massive suffrage petition.

(1827-29–1929) Emily accomplished a lot in her 101 years. Raised by Quaker parents, Emily was an abolitionist, educator and a supporter of suffrage.

During the 1860s she resided in Virginia teaching newly slaves to read. Emily established a school for the children of former slaves in Heathsville, VA. Returning home in 1881, Emily continued to support education for all through donations and serving as an advisor. She was the director of the Sherwood Select School until 1926 when it became a public school named in her honor.

Emily lent her voice to suffrage. She met with Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton to organize lectures on voting rights. Emily spoke at the 30th anniversary of the Women's Convention in Seneca Falls. She spoke before Congress, participated in two women's parades in New York City and met Queen Victoria in London to discuss suffrage issues.

Emily was the first female director of a national bank and ran her family farm until her death. To say she led a full life feels like a bit of an understatement. She wished to have these words upon her stone: "I strove to realize myself and to serve" and "Purposes nobly fulfilled".

(1808–1867) Hannah was born and raised in a Quaker family in Sherwood, NY and is best recognized for her work as an abolitionist. The home she shared with her husband, Slocum, was a well documented safe house on the Underground Railroad. Former slaves were provided safe passage to Canada. After the war ended, Hannah and Slocum sold land to former slaves, helping several families settle in their community. Her example supported her own children's notable achievements in the area of abolition and suffrage.

(1859–1942) Isabel was born into a family active in the abolition and suffrage movements. By her early 20s she was corresponding secretary of the Association for the Advancement of Women and active with the New York State Woman Suffrage Association, and communicated with key people including Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt, William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Booker T. Washington, and Julia Ward Howe.

In 1891 Isabel was a founding member of the Sherwood Equal Rights Association, (in what is now known as Aurora, rather than Sherwood NY) a chapter of the national Equal Rights Association. She helped to found the Sherwood Political Equality Club, a woman's suffrage group, which met in her parents' home. She served as treasurer of New York State Woman Suffrage Association’s important conventions, including the 1897 convention in Geneva, NY and the 1895 convention in Newburg, NY where the New York Times reported she was one of the “prominent” suffragists in attendance. In the 1910s Isabel served as an officer of NYSWSA during her Cornell University classmate Harriet May Mills’ tenure as president.

Because of its importance, well after her passing, the entire hamlet where her family lived, known as the Sherwood Equal Rights Historic District, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places (in 2008). One of the parcels that has been restored is Opendore, Isabel's former estate.

(1890–1920) Lillian was a lead organizer of the Broome County Woman Suffrage Party and also held executive positions in the NYS Women's Suffrage Party and was a director of the League of Women Voters; the latter group formed out of the Votes for Women Club after suffrage was won.

(1846–1881) Mary lectured around Western New York in the spring of 1869 with Charles Lenox Remond, a well-known Massachusetts abolitionist, in support of the Fifteenth Amendment. During that summer she spoke at many events, including the Colored Men's Convention in Binghamton, NY. In her lectures, Mary addressed controversial issues such as her ideas about black equality, her allegiance to the Republican Party and her aggravation at the Democratic Party's persistent "cry of the white man's government." Mary and those in attendance at the convention attributed some of the backlash against the black suffrage movement to the "white supremacist politicians," who dominated the New York membership of the Democratic party.

Although Mary's lectures primarily focused on garnering support for black male suffrage, she did find opportunities, including the 1869 meeting of the Equal Rights League, to make an appeal for what she referred to as "impartial suffrage," by which she meant the rights of African Americans and women to vote. Mary's contributions to the woman suffrage movement of the 19th century won her a notation in the History of Woman Suffrage. (Courtesy of AlexanderStreet.com)

(1856–1897) Maude served as the President of Warsaw's Monday Club and Chairman of the legislative committee of the NYS Woman Suffrage Association. Proceedings of the Thirtieth Annual Convention of the National American, published in 1898, mention Maude as an officer in the NYSWSA and include her in a roll of the immortals in the movement, the occasion being the 50th anniversary of the 1848 convention.

(1875–1943) Addie was a leading African-American reformer -- a powerful force in the YWCA/YMCA movement and a founder of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW).

As the first African-American employee of the Young Women's Christian Association, a segregated institution at that time, Addie leveraged the power of its national network to support civil rights. Her husband William Alphaeus Hunton was the first African-American employee of the Young Men's Christian Association. They both traveled extensively for their jobs and moved several times. She was a leader in every community in which they settled: first in Richmond, VA, then in Atlanta, and finally in Brooklyn.

Addie Hunton was a well-known speaker and writer from 1900 onward, publishing in popular periodicals like Voice of the Negro, Colored American Magazine, and later the NAACP's The Crisis. As a leader in the very white world of the YWCA, she pushed that organization to be more engaged in fighting lynching and discrimination. At the same time, she urged African-Americans to appreciate the power of working with the YWCA/YMCA despite its segregated structure.

Her experiences during World War I bitterly informed her activism. After her husband died in 1916, Addie accepted the YMCA's request to go to Europe to support African-American troops. Historian Adrienne Lash-Jones describes her experience: "Upon reaching France for this assignment, she found that she was one of only three Black women permitted to work among two hundred thousand racially segregated Black troops."

Work in the war effort exposed Addie to the most blatant racial discrimination that she had ever experienced, as she witnessed the many ways that Black troops had to endure officially sanctioned racial prejudice and segregation while they served in the United States armed forces. Her book, Two Colored Women with the American Expeditionary Forces (1920) co-written with Kathryn M. Johnson, is most revealing of the bitterness and indignation that she felt as a result of the entire experience. Her book also revealed the smoldering anger within the Black community as they fought to participate in the war effort, and their disappointment with the lack of progress that their participation made.

Upon returning, Addie joined the women's peace movement. Due to racism in the white-led peace groups, Addie Hunton and Mary Margaret (Mrs. Booker T.) Washington created a new peace group, the International Council of Women of the Darker Races. She traveled the world for that group and for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, a more deliberately integrated organization.

In addition to leading both of those peace groups, Addie remained an active board member - often president or executive committee - of NACW, NAACP, YWCA, and the Empire State Federation of Women's Clubs. Bio by Rachel B. Tiven.

(1862–1938) While few records exist of Mary's presence in the suffrage movement, she was a known member of the South Bristol WCTU and attended the Bristol Universalist Church.

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

(1875–1938) Addie was an African-American woman who was a leader in New York State women's clubs. From 1913–1920, she was the Financial Secretary of the Empire State Federation of Women's Clubs. It had 4,000 members. The organization's mission was to empower women and children in New York State. In 1913, the Federation voted in support of women's suffrage.

In addition, Addie was a Tarrytown and Westchester County political activist, who held the role of president and chairwoman for many organizations.

(1842–1906) American physician, writer, and suffragist, Dr. Mary Jacobi was considered to have been the foremost woman doctor of her era. She was the first female graduate of the NY College of Pharmacy in 1863.

Mary was an esteemed medical practitioner and teacher, a harsh critic of the exclusion of women from these professions, who frequently disputed medical claims that women should not vote, attend college, or work due to mental and physical deficiencies, and a social reformer dedicated to the expansion of educational opportunities for women. She was also a well-respected scientist, supporting her arguments for the rights of women with the scientific proofs of her time.

(1879–1919) Eva was a member of the Empire State Federation of Womens Clubs, lead and supported by Black women. Few records exist of her life as a clubwoman. She served as a delegate in 1913 when the club endorsed suffrage, and a 1914 newspaper notice reveals that “Miss Eva Jacobs, Mrs. W.H. Williams, Miss Beatrice Jackson, Mrs. Addie Jackson left Friday to attend the Federation of Women’s Clubs.”. Eva was an acquaintance of Mrs. Addie Jackson, financial secretary of the Federation, who also resided in her town.

(1842–1922) Marie was born in Syracuse and lived there for the majority of her years. She is viewed as an early leader and pioneer of the women's movement(s) in the area. She served as President of the Political Equity Club, Women's Democratic Club and the Onondaga County Suffrage Association. In 1906 as a leader of the Kanatendah Club, she hosted the New York State Women's Suffrage Association Convention. In 1912, Marie joined in the first suffrage march in New York City.

When Marie stepped away from some of work within the numerous organizations she was a member of, leaders would come to her for advice. Marie Jenney was the mother of two daughters, Miss Julie R. Jenney and Mrs. Frederic C. Howe, who followed in her footsteps.

(1866–1947) While working as a lawyer, Julie was involved with multiple women's and suffrage organizations in Syracuse, most of which bore the stamp of her mother's tireless activism. Marie R. Jenney was founder of the Ka-na-te-nah Woman's Club, composed of 350 members, and president of the Syracuse Council of Women's Clubs, a 3,000-member organization. She also served as a state or local leader in at least a half dozen other organizations dedicated to advancing the welfare of women, including the Political Equality Club.

Following in these footsteps, Julie took on a similar role as a leader in the New York women's movement. She served as director of the Professional Women's League and held membership in the Political Equality Club and the Woman's Suffrage Association. In 1896, Julie delivered a lecture on "Law and the Ballot" before the National Woman Suffrage Association's annual convention, in which she argued that women's legal rights were inextricably bound to the legislatures that approved them. She contended that only the vote would provide women the assurance that any rights they gain would be duly protected in the future. Julie went on to serve the New York State Woman Suffrage Association and spoke at the annual convention in Oswego in 1901. *courtesy alexanderstreet.com

(1890–1967) A prolific writer with a fascination for the medieval period, Eleanore was a member of several womens' clubs involved in suffrage. She completed a Masters Degree in Medieval Comparative Literature at Columbia, and received a Newbery Honor in 1947 for her mystery story The Hidden Treasure of Glaston.

Eleanore left a small but solid contribution to both the women's suffrage movement and the field of children's literature.