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Florence H. Stewart (1893–1983) Florence graduated from Buffalo State Teachers College, Columbia University, and took courses at Harvard in education, psychology. She was active in founding the Ontario County League of Women Voters, and served on the Board of Ontario County Mental Health. Florence founded Lochland School for disabled children, in Geneva, and was widely recognized as a pioneer in the education of children with developmental disabilities. She remained Executive Director for over fifty years until her death in 1983. Woodlawn Cemetery Section 13, Lot 244 130 N Pearl Street, Canandaigua, NY 14424 Ontario County Learn More

Susan Hunt Dixwell Miller (1845–1924) Susan began her activism as a founding member of the Banks Brigade when she was still a teenager. Founded in 1861, the Banks Brigade was a group of daughters from elite Cambridge and Boston families who met weekly to sew clothing and bandages for Union soldiers. After the Civil War, the group continued their social and charitable activities renaming the club The Bee. In 1867, Susan Dixwell married Gerrit Smith Miller, grandson of abolitionist Gerrit Smith, first cousin to Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Susan, through her social activism, was an active participant of the women's suffrage movement. Peterboro Cemetery ​ Peterboro Road, Peterboro, NY 13134 Madison County Learn More

Emma J. Skiff Becker (1859–1937) Emma was a proud member of the Easton Political Equality Club, the first suffrage club in Washington County. From 1891 to 1917 the Easton Political Equality Club had a mission- to prove to people that women, as citizens of the United States of America, deserved the right to vote. Like the "good wives" they were, Lucy Allen, Chloe Sisson, Emma J. Skiff Becker and the ladies of the Easton PEC used their influence as wives & mothers, neighbors & friends, to convince many men in the area to vote in favor of female suffrage. This tireless effort culminated on November 6, 1917 when male voters all across New York approved the measure guaranteeing the right to vote to citizens of the state regardless of sex. The measure passed statewide by about 80,000 votes, in Washington County by 188 votes & in Easton by 18 votes. It would be another 3 years before the 19th Amendment would be ratified. The women of the Easton PEC continued to serve their communities through the library, the grange, the school board, and a book club. Emma was superintendent of press work for the EPEC for a number of years. Woodlands Cemetery Possibly Sec F 75-77 7 Cemetery Avenue, Cambridge, NY 12816 Washington County Learn More

Elnora Monroe Babcock (1852–1934) In 1889, Elnora helped to found the Political Equality Club of Dunkirk and was voted its first president. She was later elected president of the Chautauqua County Political Equality Club. Under her leadership, the county suffrage club expanded to more than 1,400 members, making Chautauqua County the best organized county in the nation for women’s suffrage. Babcock also was noted for convincing the Chautauqua Institution’s management to “proclaim the one day a year that they devoted to discussions of political rights as Political Equality Day.” In 1894, she was instated as the New York State suffrage association’s Chairman for Press Work and in 1899 she rose to the position of Superintendent of Press Work for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). In announcing her appointment to the national post, a NAWSA publication pointed to the “wonderful results” she had achieved in her parallel responsibilities in the “conservative state” of New York. It also extolled her “courage, persistence, consecration, tact and level-headed judgment.” *Compiled by Sara Kibbler Levant Cemetery Lot 2, 14E Falconer, New York 14733 Chautauqua County Learn More

Alice May DuBois Deal (1872–1956) Alice was active in Ontario County in the Unity Club, the Equal Suffrage League, and the Women's Christian Temperance Union. She had been active in musical circles, as an Organist at Methodist Church for 50 years, and as a teacher beginning at the No. 8 school in Victor. Alice transferred to the high school department in 1895. If you know more about her, you can help us tell her story. Please use our Add a Suffragist form to submit your information. Boughton Hill Cemetery Old Ground, Section D, Row 7, Lot 18, Grave 3 1518 NY-444, Victor, NY 14564 Ontario County Learn More

Helen Miles Rogers Reid (1882–1970) A distinguished woman of the 19th century in large part for her position as President of the New York Herald Tribune, Helen is featured in a book with the title Notable American Women, where we learn of her women’s suffrage involvement. She was the state treasurer for the New York suffrage campaign, raising more than half a million dollars for the passage of New York State women’s suffrage legislation in 1917. In speeches throughout her life, she advocated that women should work and be economically independent from their husbands and that men should take greater responsibility in the home and for raising their children. After her husband died in 1947, she took over the presidency of the New York Herald Tribune until 1953. She was a well-regarded individual who received accolades and honors and was an accomplished manager and role model for women when there were few women in leadership roles. Helen was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1950. An active supporter of her alma mater, she served for nine years as chairman of the board of trustees, and in 1963, she helped raise funds for a dormitory at Barnard, which was then named for her. She was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, active in the New York Newspaper Women's Club, and was president of the Reid Foundation, an organization funded and established by her husband to give journalists fellowships to study and travel abroad. Her funeral, presided over by The Right Rev. Paul Moore Jr., the Bishop of New York, was attended by over 300 people including John Hay Whitney, who purchased The Herald Tribune, August Heckscher, the Parks Commissioner who was chief editorial writer, Mayor John Lindsay, David Rockefeller, Robert Moses, former head of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, Andrew Cordier, the president of Columbia University, and Kingman Brewster Jr., the president of Yale University. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery ​ 540 N Broadway, Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591 Westchester County Learn More

Mary Elizabeth Eato (1844–1915) Mary Elizabeth was an African-American social justice advocate and women’s suffrage leader. At sixteen she started teaching in the New York City Public School system where she was said to have been an exceptional teacher and an inspiration to her students. Mary taught at Grammar School No. 3 on West 41st Street, later moving to Grammar School No. 80 on 42nd Street. She retired in 1904, after a career that spanned forty-four years. Mary Elizabeth also led a number of social justice programs, including St. Mark’s Mutual Aid Society, the New York African Society for Mutual Relief, and the Hope Day Nursery for Colored Children. She became a member of the Colored Women’s Equal Suffrage League of Brooklyn, New York and served as its Vice President in 1908. During her tenure she was noted for inviting a diverse range of suffrage speakers including white women suffragists and men. Cypress Hills Cemetery ​ 833 Jamaica Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11208 Kings County Learn More

Asenath Carver Coolidge (1830–1915) Asenath was a well known author who lived in Watertown, NY, serving as a representative to New York State Woman Suffrage Association. She applied her writing skills to drafting letters in support of or against those running for office, and she promoted women continuing to be able to vote in their local school elections. Hillside Cemetery ​ 12 Maple Avenue, Antwerp, NY 13608 Jefferson County Learn More

Lucretia Dillingham Holbrook (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. Resthaven Cemetery (AKA Phelps Village Cemetery) ​ 10 Resthaven Drive, Phelps, NY 14532 Ontario Learn More

Vida Milholland (1888–1952) Vida contributed far more to gaining suffrage for American women than has been recognized. She joined her more famous sister, Inez, at Vassar as a co-conspirator against the college's anti-feminist President James Taylor. After Inez's death, Vida gave up her singing career and threw herself into suffrage work. She had a fine voice and sang at suffrage meetings. She joined the picketing of the White House. One of the most common banners one sees in photos is one showing the last words of Inez before she collapsed in Los Angeles: "How Long, Mr. President, Must Women Wait for Liberty." Vida was one of the first to be arrested for picketing, on July 4, 1917. She served three days in the District of Columbia Jail, during which time she sang every night for the benefit of her fellow prisoners.In 1919 she toured the United States as part of the "Prison Special" tour of NWP speakers and sang at all the meetings. After suffrage was won in 1920, Vida worked on peace issues with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She had a partner in this work, Peg Hamilton. With other well-known female couples, they were an early lobbying group not only for peace but for same-sex partnerships. *courtesy SuffragistMemorial.org Lewis (Center) Cemetery Pines: Go to the top of the hill 933 Fox Run Road, Elizabethtown, NY 12932 Essex County Learn More

Katharine Bowden Cunningham (1890–1972) At just 23 years old, Katharine reforms the dormant Political Equality Club of Glens Falls in 1914, and is elected President. She is then elected Vice Leader of Warren County Suffrage under Susan M. Bain, former president and co-founder of the original PECGF. In 1915, Katherine was vice president, and served on the finance committee. Meetings were often held at the Bowden family home on Maple Street, where her mother, Margaret McEchron Bowden was also active in the cause. Under Katharine’s leadership, the club participated in the June 1914 Suffrage Parade in Albany. “The Political Equality Club of Glens Falls had the largest delegation in line in the big suffrage procession in Albany Saturday. The local suffragettes led by Miss Catharine Bowden, president of the club, made a fine showing. More than 500 women marched in the parade, the first of its kind in the Capital district, and later a mass meeting was held in Odd Fellows’ hall, during which addresses were delivered by Mrs. [Gertrude] Brown, president of the New York Suffragette [sic] association; Miss Elsie Lincoln Vandergift, of Colorado, Mrs. [Harriet Burton] Laidlaw, George Foster Peabody, James Less Laidlaw, president of the National Men’s League; and Miss Florence Roberts. Mrs. Katherine H. Gavit presided.” Post-Star (Glens Falls, NY Warren County). June 8, 1914. P.5. Bio by Tisha Dolton. Pine View Cemetery Wah-tah-wah, Row 1C, Plot 64 21 Quaker Road, Queensbury, NY, 12804 Warren County Learn More

Oreola Williams Haskell (1875–1953) Oreola was an American activist for suffrage, author, and poet in the early twentieth century. Devoted to the suffrage cause, she worked alongside famous suffragists such as Carrie Chapman Catt and Mary Garrett Hay. Ida Husted Harper, who wrote the introduction to Banner Bearers, commended Oreola for her modesty and lack of interest in the limelight, which was very much in line with the self-sacrificing attitude that Haskell attributed to suffragists in her works. Her quiet, efficient, hardworking attitude was also noted in an interview she had with the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1915, as a prime example of the faceless army of diligent suffragists who worked behind the scenes. Alongside her suffrage activism and high society work (predominantly philanthropy), Oreola was an auditor and recording secretary of the New York Federation for Women's Clubs. Though her contributions to the suffrage movement in New York have not garnered much attention from historians, her plethora of appearances in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper suggest that she was a well-known and respected figure of the time. Green-Wood Cemetery Lot 8862 Section 33 500 25th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232 Kings County Learn More

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

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

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

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