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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

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

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

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

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

Zobedia Alleman (1848–1940) Zobedia she served multiple terms as an officer in the Cayuga County Political Equality Club, was a delegate to the State Suffrage Convention, and was the state chair of the School Suffrage Committee of the NYS Woman Suffrage Association (NYSWSA). At the age of 90, Zobedia was still active in community affairs, giving, according to newspaper accounts, a “pleasing senior program” at a meeting of the Sherwood Orange Grange No. 1034, which described her as the oldest Granger in Cayuga County. A side note: Her obituaries misspelled her last name as Allerman; a mistake that perhaps helped to obscure her legacy in the movement. (Ruth Bradley April 2020 auburnpub.com) Maple Grove Cemetery ​ 41 W Main Street, Waterloo, NY 13165 Seneca County Learn More

Romain Hayward Lusk (1859–1945) Romaine, one of the founding members of the Pittsford Political Equality Club, hosted the Club’s meeting at her home on South Main street on December 2, 1902. This meeting memorably followed the sudden death of the Club’s first President, Mary Helen Shepard Light. At the meeting “letters from Mary Anthony (sister of Susan B. Anthony) expressing sympathy for us in our great loss were read and remarked upon. It was cordially agreed that each member would contribute a share of the flowers sent to Mrs. Light’s funeral in the name of the PEC.” Romaine Lusk’s life reflects the hardships women faced at the turn of the 20th century. Her husband died in 1891, leaving her to raise their only surviving child, 5-year old son Stephen, on her own. She supported herself and by working as a housekeeper in various homes in Rochester. Romaine spent her time in a quest for knowledge, taking classes on china painting and physical culture and participating in a Pittsford book club. "I am proud that Romaine Lusk was part of the effort to bring women a voice in the political system, including the right to vote—a right I recently exercised for the first time.”–Riley Jane Lusk (courtesy of www.townofpittsford.org/19thAcentennial) Pittsford Cemetery E 400 38 Washington Road, Pittsford, NY 14534 Monroe County Learn More

Lucy Spicer Shawler (1812–1896) Lucy was noted in the History of Women's Suffrage as having signed a petition to urge voting against Leslie Russell, NYS Attorney General, who opposed women's rights and whose recommendation was blocking women's rights legislation in New York State. He was defeated by 13,000 votes. Lucy also spoke at a Chenango, NY convention regarding the position of the county on the women's suffrage bill. It was reported in the New York Times July 26, 1884. Columbus Corners Cemetery ​ Columbus, NY 13411 Chenango County Learn More

Hannah Francisco Babbitt (1850–1931) Hannah was born in Canada. Her husband was a minister at the Gorham Presbyterian Church and Hannah was active in church affairs until her death. Hannah, along with her daughter and daughter in law, were members of the Ontario County League of Women Voters in 1919. If you know more about her, you can help us tell her story. Please use our Add a Suffragist form to submit your information. Gorham Cemetery ​ Route 245, Gorham, NY 14561 Ontario County Learn More

Chloe Amelia Peckham Sisson (1841–1923) Chloe was a founding member of the Easton Political Equality Club in 1891, along with her sister Emily Peckham, sister-in-law Mary Eddy Peckham and seven others. Additionally Chloe was the first female Washington County delegate to the Republican State Convention following passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. (Information from "Strength Without Compromise", Teri Gay 2009) Easton Rural Cemetery Possibly plot Q-3 Meeting House Road, Easton, NY 12154 Washington County Learn More

Mariane Willets Wright Chapman (1843–1907) In 1884, Mariane attended her first women's suffrage convention held by the Woman Suffrage Association of Brooklyn. At the time, Lucy Stone was president. Shortly after, Mariane became a member of the association and went on to become president herself. Later, from 1897 to 1902, Mariane was president of the New York State Woman's Suffrage Association. Throughout her time leading these organizations, Mariane was frequently in contact with other well-known activists such as Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt. Westbury Friends Cemetery ​ 550 Post Avenue, Westbury, NY 11590 Nassau County Learn More

Ella Cunningham (1878–1945) Ella was an African American activist who worked for black women's suffrage in the early twentieth century. She was especially active in 1917, when suffragists in New York State organized to pressure the state's voters to pass a women's suffrage amendment. Born in South Carolina, Ella spent her adult life in New York City. She married at 19, but it ended in divorce. Despite her busy family and work life, as a domestic servant and laundress, Ella made time for political activism. She had no formal education; still she was literate and was determined to help black women gain the right to vote. During World War I, Ella and other African Americans in New York City contributed $350 to the war fund for the Colored Men's division of the YMCA; remarkable considering her own income. At this same time, Ella was a member of the Colored Women's Suffrage Club of New York, participating in a statewide suffrage convention in August of 1917. The New York Age wrote an article about the event, which met in Saratoga in hopes of garnering support for a suffrage amendment, which was on the November ballot in New York State. Women—black and white—traveled together to Saratoga. While suffragists had separate organizations, for this meeting, they united as affiliates of the New York City Woman Suffrage Party. The governor of New York and the mayor of New York City also attended the meeting. A reporter for The New York Age wrote that woman suffrage is one of the vital issues of the day to be given serious consideration. The State Suffrage party now has one million women enrolled under its banners. The state convention was significant for black women in particular. While black and white women united to garner support for women's suffrage, black women had long been treated as inferiors to their white counterparts. Some black women openly demanded equal treatment, nonetheless, they supported the New York Woman Suffrage Party because it was their best opportunity to gain the right to vote. The efforts of Ella and the other members of the Colored Women's Suffrage Club of New York City paid off. After hosting and attending meetings, sending postcards, knocking on strangers' doors, and even finding transportation for male allies to get to the polls on Election Day, Black women suffragists succeeded as New York voters made women's suffrage the state law in November 1917 three years before the Nineteenth Amendment required all states to grant women the right to vote. Ella continued to live in New York City with her adult children and worked the same jobs that she had before she won the right to vote. But she experienced a significant difference: she was able to—and did—vote. (Bio courtesy Alexanderstreet.com) Holy Cross Cemetery St. Augustine, System: CEM, Section: AUGU, Row: 23, Plot: 42 3620 Tilden Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11203 Kings County Learn More

May Malone Stalter (1858–1915) May was one of the founding members of the Pittsford Political Equality Club, formed in 1902. The first Political Equality Club was formed in 1885 at the Rochester home of Mary Anthony (sister of Susan). These clubs worked not only on securing women the right to vote, but also on other issues of women’s equality. In Rochester that included gaining the right for women to be admitted to the University of Rochester, providing legal assistance to women in need, and improving working conditions for women. While Rochester was the center of suffrage activity in that region, the movement included Political Equality Clubs in Pittsford, Charlotte, Chili, Churchville, Irondequoit, and Geneva. May was one of the five founding members of the Pittsford Club who died before the 19th Amendment was ratified. She, along with nine other founders are buried in Pittsford Cemetery between East Avenue and Washington Road. From her obituary in the Fairport Herald-Mail: Wednesday, June 9, 1915. "She was a very bright woman, keeping up in all the latest literature, and had studied several different languages." (courtesy of www.townofpittsford.org/19thAcentennial) Pittsford Cemetery K 112 38 Washington Road, Pittsford, NY 14534 Monroe County Learn More