Mary Otis Gay Wilcox (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 Moravian Cemetery ​ 2205 Richmond Road, New Dorp, NY 10306 Richmond County Learn More

Susan Smith McKinney Steward (1846–1918) Susan was Brooklyn's first black woman physician (who also happened to be the third black physician in the whole country.) Dr. Kinney Steward had a very successful practice with locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan but for her, medicine was more than just treatment. It was a means by which she could further elevate and impact the community she loved and fight for racial inclusion and women's rights. During her life she founded clinics, clubs and suffragette groups. Susan fought daily against the convergence of racism, sexism and professionalization in order to have a great impact on Brooklyn. Green-Wood Cemetery Section 204, Lot 29541 500 25th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232 Kings County Learn More

Margarite (Peggy) Baird Johns (1890–1970) Peggy was a well-known artist and suffragist in Greenwich Village. She was known to mix with radicals, writers, poets, and artists. In 1917 she met Dorothy Day and became close friends for the rest of their lives. They joined the National Woman's Party and picketed in front of the White House to urge the passage of the woman suffrage amendment. Later that day, Peggy, Dorothy, and others were arrested and sent to Occoquan workhouse. Peggy earned the “prison pin,” a symbol of her “sacrifice of individual liberty for the liberty of all women.” Saint Sylvia Cemetery ​ 104 Broadway, Tivoli, NY 12583 Dutchess County Learn More

Helen Pitts Douglass (1838–1903) Helen was born in Honeoye, Ontario County, to abolitionists and suffragists parents. She went to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in Lima, NY, and graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1859. She taught at the Hampton Institute in Virginia until poor health forced her to return home. In 1882, Helen moved to Washington D.C. where she was active in the women's rights movement and co-edited the Moral Education Society's paper, The Alpha. Helen was hired as a clerk in the recorder of deeds office, run by Frederick Douglass. They were married on Jan. 24, 1884. He was 66 and she, 46. Neither his children nor her family approved. When asked about her marriage, she responded, "Love came to me, and I was not afraid to marry the man I loved because of his color." Helen and Frederick traveled extensively and lived in Haiti when Douglass was appointed Minister by President Benjamin Harrison. After Frederick's death in 1895, Helen worked to save their home in Washington, named Cedar Hill, as a memorial to her husband's legacy. She died there in 1903. No services were held and her remains were interred in the Douglass family plot in Mount Hope. (Bio by the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery) Mount Hope Cemetery Section T Lot 26 1133 Mount Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620 Monroe County Learn More

Jessica (Judy) McCullough Weis (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. Mount Hope Cemetery Section W, Lot E 1/2 142 1133 Mount Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620 Monroe County Learn More

Mary Catherine Seymour Howell (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. Mount Morris (City) Cemetery ​ Sand Hill Road, Mount Morris, NY 14510 Livingston County Learn More

Susan Elizabeth Frazier (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. Rhinebeck Cemetery ​ 16 Mill Road, Rhinebeck, NY 12572 Dutchess County Learn More

Victoria Earle Smith Matthews (1861–1907) Victoria was a journalist, author, clubwoman, and social worker. She was born into enslaved status in Fort Valley, Georgia, and was largely self-taught, using the library of the house in which she worked. She was first a "sub" for reporters on the large dailies of New York City, later for other newspapers and magazines. In 1879 she married William Matthews, a coachman, and settled in Brooklyn with their one son, Lamartine. In 1892 Victoria became the first president of the Woman's Loyal Union of New York, and in 1895, with Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin and others, helped found in Boston the National Federation of Afro-American Women. She was the principal planner of the meeting in Washington, D.C., when the federation merged with the National Colored Women's League, organized by Mary Church Terrell, to become the National Association of Colored Women. Under Terrell, it's first president, Victoria served (1897-1899) as national organizer. *Courtesy of AlexanderStreet.com Maple Grove Cemetery Plot: Summit 127-15 Kew Gardens Road, Kew Gardens, NY 11415 Queens County Learn More

Catherine Mary Douge Hicks Williams (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. Albany Rural Cemetery Sec. 99 Lot 3 123-125 Menand Road, Menands, NY 12211 Albany County Learn More

Lucy Phillips Allen (1851–1946) Lucy was a founding member of the Easton Political Equality Club in 1891. She was president of the club during its most active years. Here is her quote from 1910 regarding the women of the PEC: "The majority of us are farmers' wives here in Easton and our husbands are perfect - we are so well-housed, so soft-bedded, and so loving cared for that our tendency is to forget that Easton isn't the whole world, that there are other women not as we are. Yet industrial [economic] conditions are open to some slight criticism even in this paradise of Easton. First of all, we want to get rid of this fallacy that marriage is a state of being supported. Since our men are mainly the gatherers of money - we mistakenly assume that they are the creators of wealth. They are not. The man gives his daily labor toward earning board and clothes, but what he receives cannot be eaten or worn. It is nothing till he puts it into his wife's hands and her intelligence, energy, and ability transforms the raw material. Until this is done no man can receive anything worth having. He begins and she completes the making of their joint wealth. The man turns his labor into money, the woman turns the money into usable material. Their dependence is mutual. She supports him exactly as he supports her." (Information and quote from Strength Without Compromise, Teri Gay 2009) Easton Rural Cemetery Section 5, Row 8 Meeting House Road, Easton, NY 12154 Washington County Learn More

Elizabeth Burrill Curtis (1861–1914) The daughter of Anna Shaw and George William Curtis, who was a famed author, orator, abolitionist and suffragist in his own right, Elizabeth proudly carried on the progressive legacy of her family as a vocal advocate for voting rights and civic education for women. Elizabeth was a speaker at the New York State Constitutional Convention in 1894, echoing her father's 1867 speech "Equal Rights for Women." Her pleas went unanswered, but she was undeterred by the loss. Elizabeth founded the Political Equality Club of Staten Island, and Susan B. Anthony visited Staten Island to support Elizabeth's efforts. In 1898, Elizabeth testified before the Senate Select Committee on Woman Suffrage. After her death in 1914, fellow suffragist Mary Otis Willcox said of Elizabeth's contribution to the movement: "By the force of her personality [she] raised the cause from a subject of ridicule to one at least for serious consideration." Moravian Cemetery ​ 2205 Richmond Road, Staten Island, NY 10306 Richmond County Learn More

George Francis Train (1829–1904) George was a rather eccentric wealthy man of many endeavors. Among other ventures, he financed a newspaper published by Susan B and Elizabeth C, The Revolution, dedicated to women's rights. Described by one historian as "one of the strangest and most colorful characters of the era—“a combination of Liberace and Billy Graham." George was always dapper, polished, freshly shaved and scented with cologne; he carried a cane for effect rather than need. He ran for President against Lincoln in 1864, but no votes in his favor were recorded. While running again for President in 1868, he made a trip around the world in 80 days and was apparently the inspiration for the character of Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne's novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. George claimed to have invented perforated stamps, erasers attached to pencils and canned salmon, but he was also a devoted and effective supporter of women's suffrage and the temperance movement to ban alcohol. Anthony and Stanton found common cause with him (though he believed that African-Americans should not be given the vote until they had been taught to read) and he became the principal funder of their newspaper, mentioned above. While traveling together on a speaking tour in Kansas the three became great friends and Anthony found his limitless energy a source of personal strength and inspiration. She credited him with the 9,000 votes in support of a women's suffrage amendment (that was a lot of votes in the sparsely-populated new state). The first issue of their newspaper was distributed on January 8, 1868. In its pages, Anthony, Stanton, Train and a few other writers imagined and advocated for a world entirely different from the cruel one outside of their New York City office door. They all shared frustration over the apparent limits of what had been accomplished in the wake of the Civil War. “Men talk of reconstruction on the basis of 'negro suffrage,'” wrote Stanton, “while multitudes of facts on all sides. . . show that we need to reconstruct the very foundations of society and teach the nation the sacredness of all human rights.” Green-Wood Cemetery ​ 500 25th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232 Kings County Learn More

Madame C.J. Walker (Sarah Breedlove) (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. Woodlawn Cemetery Butternut, Section 141 South, S 4199 Webster Avenue, Bronx, NY 10470 Bronx County Learn More

Eliza Wright Osborne (1830–1911) Eliza followed in the footsteps of her mother, Martha Coffin Wright, who together with Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and her aunt, Lucretia Mott, had called the first Women's Suffrage Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. After her marriage to farm machinery manufacturer David M. Osborne, with whom she had four children, she devoted her prodigious energies to both her household and the fight to enfranchise women, hosting regular meetings at her Auburn, NY, home with Anthony, Stanton, and other leaders in the movement. A witty and persuasive writer, Eliza was also active in promoting education and the arts. Among those she inspired to public service were her son, prison reformer Thomas Mott Osborne, and her grandson Lithgow Osborne, a diplomat and environmentalist. She held leadership positions in women's suffrage organizations until her death at age 81, nine years before the passage of 19th Amendment that granted American women the right to vote. Bio by: Nikita Barlow Fort Hill Cemetery Section: Morning Side, Lot 21-22, Grave 8 19 Fort Street, Auburn, NY 13021 Cayuga County Learn More

Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage (1828-1918) Olivia as she liked to be called was born in Syracuse, NY to a prosperous family. Well educated, Olivia became a teacher when her father’s fortune dwindled. Early on, Olivia embraced the benefit of supporting charitable causes and education. Married to Russell Sage at the age of 41, he had the opposite view. When Olivia was widowed in 1906, she was determined to invest in positive social change. While she was not an active suffragist, Olivia lended financial support to the movement and used her public standing to speak for women’s economic emancipation as well as the right to vote. Olivia lived her philosophy, “While one woman is working for bread and butter, the other must devote her time to the amelioration of the condition of her laboring sister. This is the moral law.” In addition to her financial support of suffrage, Olivia established the Russell Sage Foundation and opened Russell Sage College in Troy, NY. She made sizable donations to many colleges in the Northeast. Olivia was a patron of E. Lillian Todd, the first woman to design airplanes. She supported the Children’s Aid Fund of NY and purchased Marsh Island in the Gulf of Mexico to establish a bird sanctuary. Olivia spent her summers in Sag Harbor, NY, and contributed the money to build a high school and a library for the town. Today her former home is the Whaling Museum. A marker outside of the museum notes her suffrage work. Oakwood Cemetery Section 3, Plot 7 940 Comstock Avenue, Syracuse, NY 13210 Onondaga County Learn More

Dorothy Kenyon (1888–1972) Dorothy was a New York attorney, judge, feminist and political activist who worked and fought in support of civil liberties. She was a charismatic speaker and she regularly travelled throughout the U.S. lecturing about civil liberties. During the era of McCarthyite persecution, she was falsely accused of being affiliated with 28 communist front organizations. Dorothy graduated from Horace Mann School in 1904, and studied economics and history at Smith College, graduating in 1908. In reflection Dorothy felt that she "misspent" the years 1908 to 1913 as a "social butterfly." After spending a year in Mexico and observing poverty and injustice at a close range, she decided to focus on social activism. She graduated from New York University School of Law in 1917, one of just a handful of U.S. law schools enlightened enough to enroll women. Dorothy gained national prominence as a feminist activist in 1938 when she was named the U.S. representative to the League of Nations Committee for the Study of the Status of Women, a group of seven lawyers charged with studying women's legal status internationally. Although World War II interrupted the committee's work and it was never completed, Dorothy resumed her commitment to improving women's status around the world through her work as the U.S. delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women from 1946–1950. Dorothy had lengthy and intense romantic relationships with various men throughout her adult life. Fiercely independent, she made a conscious decision not to marry. She participated in various aspects of President Johnson's War on Poverty and at age 80, she worked tirelessly and almost single-handedly to establish legal services for the poor on the Lower West Side of Manhattan. A 2018 article in The Washington Post ran with the headline "Ruth Ruth Bader Ginsburg was inspired by a forgotten female trailblazer"; referring to Dorothy Kenyon. Woodlawn Cemetery ​ 4199 Webster Avenue, Bronx, NY 10470 Bronx County Learn More

Mary Jane Austin Agate (1849–1933) Born in Glens Falls, NY, Mary Jane was a mother of three children. Notably she was first secretary and treasurer of the Pittsford Political Equality Club, which was organized September 6, 1902 in Pittsford, NY. In 2019 Mrs. Stevens-Oliver's 4th Grade Class at Thornell Road Elementary School created a site in honor of Mary, based up the 1881 diary she kept, which is in the Town Historian’s collection. The students focused on the malt business John ran with his brother William, the Agate’s historic house, and Mary’s interest in woman suffrage. A quote from their project: "In the Pittsford's Political Equality Club's minutes from 1902, kept by Mary Agate, she wrote what Miss Anthony talked about at one of their meetings. Miss Anthony asked the ladies to protest when they paid their taxes. She wanted them to protest against the injustice of, "taxes without the privilege of the Ballot." This means why are they paying taxes if they don't get to choose their representative. This was a lot like the quote, " No taxation without representation!" This quote was from the Revolutionary War, it is like what Mary Anthony said because they both don't have a representative. Also the ladies had marches for political equality. They did this to recruit more people to their cause. They also marched so the men in charge would listen to them. This shows that what the ladies were doing meant a lot to them. We know this because they were doing so many things for what they believed in and they wouldn't give up. " Pittsford Cemetery L 179 38 Washington Road, Pittsford, NY 14534 Monroe County Learn More

Phoebe Hathaway (1819–1902) Phoebe was a member of a Quaker family with deep roots in the Farmington community. As Quakers they were staunch abolitionists; family homes were stops on the Underground Railroad. Phoebe was an organizer of the Cazenovia Convention on Antislavery where Frederick Douglass spoke. She was the first president of the Western New York Female Antislavery Society. In addition, she helped establish a Bird's Nest school in her town to educate black women. Being raised in the Quaker belief where men and women were thought to be equal — where women had a “voice” — plus being surrounded by strong-willed, ambitious and hard-working family members and reformers, it is of little wonder how Phoebe’s life was influenced and how she gained the confidence and freedom to pursue her interests. Upon her father’s death, Phoebe inherited property in her own name. In 1857 Phoebe suffered a stroke limiting her mobility. She continued to write in support of the issues she cared about; temperance, abolition and women's rights. Evidence of her life's work is found in her letters to and from Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Emily Howland. Phoebe's will stated that if she died without descendants 'it is my wish that a fund shall be expended for the education of such needy women.' North Farmington Friends Cemetery ​ 250 Sheldon Road, Farmington, NY 14425 Ontario County Learn More

Catherine (Kate) Gleason (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. Riverside Cemetery ​ 2650 Lake Avenue Rochester, NY 14612 Monroe County Learn More

Harriet Pratt (1853–1938) Harriet was an educator and active in civic affairs in Manchester and the surrounding area. She was a member of the Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Church, and a lead member of the Shortsville Political Equity Club (established in 1915). They hosted the well-attended Ontario County Political Association Convention. While her exact contributions were not documented, it appears that Harriet dedicated herself to suffrage and serving her community. If you know more about her, you can help us tell her story. Please use our Add a Suffragist form to submit your information. Manchester Village Cemetery ​ 64 South Main Street, Manchester, NY 14504 Ontario County Learn More