Mary (Minnie) Sutherland True (1856–1924) Mary “Minnie” was elected one of the vice- presidents of the Pittsford Political Equality Club at their first meeting in September 1902 and attended the state suffrage convention in Buffalo that year. The Club’s second and third meetings were held in her home at 42 Monroe Avenue. Minnie’s involvement with suffrage reflected the close ties between suffrage and temperance. The first suggestion to form the Club was made at a meeting of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Women particularly suffered from alcohol abuse when it contributed to domestic violence. Women had no legal recourse and no right to custody of their children, their own wages, or to own property. The right to vote was seen by many as a way to establish legal protections for women and their children. Although Mary died in Washington, D.C., she was buried in Pittsford, NY. (*courtesy of www.townofpittsford.org/19thAcentennial) Pittsford Cemetery A 66 38 Washington Road, Pittsford, NY 14534 Monroe County Learn More

Rose Schneiderman (1882–1972) Rose was a star orator among New York suffragists. Beginning in 1907, she lectured all over New York City and New York State as a leader of the Equality League for Self-Supporting Women (later called the Women's Political Union), the Women's Trade Union League, and the Wage Earners League for Women's Suffrage. And yet, Rose is most famous as a labor organizer. She was president of the Women's Trade Union League for decades, an advisor to FDR & Eleanor Roosevelt, and one of few women who played a key role in shaping the landmark legislation of the New Deal: the National Labor Relations Act, the Social Security Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act. Years before that, she was also a suffragist. Beginning in 1907, Rose Schneiderman and Leonora O'Reilly were featured speakers at National American Women's Suffrage Association conventions. The white, middle-class and upper-class leaders of the suffrage mainstream were initially wary of working class Jews and Irish, but they warmed up when they saw these fiery activists ignite the crowds. Rose Schneiderman's biographer Annelise Orleck says: "In an age when political oratory was a leading form of entertainment, many contemporaries described her as the most moving speaker they had ever heard." Bio by Rachel B. Tiven . Maimonides-Elmont Cemetery Path B30, Lot 390 (near the fence) 90 Elmont Road, Elmont, NY 110039 Nassau County Learn More

Mary E. Tallman (1827–1924) Mary 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. She also appears in a History of Education publication. Mary was censured for criticizing a superintendent of schools. Forest Hill Cemetery 27B, Lot 1296 2201 Oneida Street, Utica, NY 13501 Oneida County Learn More

Ruth Woolsey Johnson Mott (1881–1971) Ruth served as a director of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association in 1913 and marched in the woman suffrage parade in Washington, D.C. on March 3. Her husband, Luther Mott, was US Representative from New York's 28th (later the 32nd) congressional district (1911-1923), an early proponent of women's suffrage, and an ardent prohibitionist. On his death in 1923, former speaker, Thaddeus D. Sweet, was backed by party leaders over Ruth Mott as a candidate to replace her husband in Congress. At the same time, Ruth's supporters suggested that she be offered the position of Oswego's postmaster, which she accepted. Ruth served as the postmaster in Oswego from 1923 to 1936. While many supporters of women's suffrage were wives or daughters of successful professional men or business leaders, Ruth achieved those roles in her own right. *Courtesy alexanderstreet.com Riverside Cemetery Section X, Lot 10 4024 County Rte 57, Oswego, NY 13126 Oswego County Learn More

Portia Willis Fitzgerald (1886–1970) Portia was said to be educated, beautiful, well connected and daring--making her participation in suffrage publicity events fodder for press coverage. Her father was distinguished for his Civil War record and later became a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Her mother was a prominent socialite. The press dubbed her "The Prettiest Suffragette in New York State.” Portia was deeply involved in the New York State suffrage involvement from 1911 to 1917. In 1911, she and five other suffragists (including Harriet May Mills of Syracuse, President of the New York State Women’s Suffrage League) conducted a fourteen county tour of the state to organize local suffrage clubs as branches of the state’s organization. Portia was the youngest of the group. In the following years she extended her lecture tour to New Jersey, Washington, DC, and Massachusetts. In addition to her lectures, she participated in other highly visible events. She worked with the New York State Suffrage Association to organize an aviation rally and parade in Hempstead, New York. Nearly 200 women and eight men participated. She encouraged the young participants to demonstrate their courage by taking a ride in a bi-plane piloted by a female suffrage aviator, Ruth Law. In 1914, she drove an elephant carrying a Suffrage Plank at the head of a parade leading up to the Republican Convention in Chicago, IL. That same year, she was the Grand Marshal of the Women’s Peace Parade, which was a World War I anti-war protest. After the passage of the 19th Amendment, Portia continued to demonstrate her commitment to civic engagement. She was an advocate for the League of Nations as a member of the Women's Pro-League Council. She helped to found and manage the Greater New York branch of the League of Nations Association. She chaired the United Nations Round Table from 1950-53, where she served with Eleanor Roosevelt. Portia's name was entered into New York State's suffrage honor roll in 1931. Woodlawn Cemetery Lot W 5162, Section 65 (Poplar) 4199 Webster Avenue, Bronx, NY 10470 Bronx County Learn More

Katrina Brandes Ely Tiffany (1875–1927) Katrina was an 1897 graduate of Bryn Mawr College and a fierce advocate for women's rights—much to the dismay of her husband, Charles Lewis Tiffany. She was not deterred. Katrina served as president of the New York Collegiate Equal Franchise League for five years. She was the recording secretary of the Woman Suffrage Party of New York. Katrina chaired the War Service Committee of the NAWSA during World War I. Donations of knitted items to sailors was one of their many projects. In 1916, she joined others to welcome President Wilson to the Atlantic City Suffrage Convention. 1917 found her marching down Fifth Ave in Manhattan as pat of a suffrage parade. Katrina was an Executive Committee member of the NY Infirmary for Women and Children as well as the Sunnyside Day Nursery. Carrie Chapman Catt spoke at her memorial service stating " The life of Katrina Ely Tiffany was the best example of what a good citizen should be". Memorial Cemetery of St. John's Church ​ 1704 Route 25-A, Syosset, NY 11724 Nassau County Learn More

Margaret Ashley Bellinger (1846–1929) Margaret, born in Ilion, was inspired by Susan B. Anthony and Dr. Anna H. Shaw, who spoke at the nearby Herkimer Opera House in 1894. They were seeking support for a women’s suffrage amendment to be added to New York State’s constitution. Shortly thereafter, Margaret was one of 50 women who met at the Ilion YMCA to form a Political Equality Club. Susan B. Anthony spoke at that meeting. Margaret was elected Corresponding Secretary. At the same meeting the group formed the Herkimer County Political Equality Club and she was elected Recording Secretary. Political Equality Clubs were organizations within the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). These local clubs were intended to broaden suffrage support in small towns and rural areas. Even though the 1894 suffrage amendment to the state constitution was defeated, the women leading these local clubs continued their work. In 1914, Margaret trained other women in suffrage campaign strategies in a Suffrage School in Syracuse, New York. In 1915, Ilion participated in the Suffrage Liberty Torch relay that started in Long Island and ended in Buffalo. Ilion club member, Maria Louisa Haughton, carried the bronze suffrage torch from Little Falls to Utica. In 1917, the Ilion club hosted the annual Herkimer County Women’s Rights Convention at Wilcox Hall in Ilion. In addition to her suffrage work, Margaret was recording secretary in the Women's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.) dedicated to prohibiting alcohol, labor laws, prison reform, and suffrage. The Herkimer County organization had over 300 members in 1900. Margaret died at the age of 83. Armory Hill Cemetery Section 3, Lot 113 Benedict Avenue, Ilion, NY 13357 Herkimer County Learn More

Caroline A. Bassett (1882–1926) Caroline attended several of the National Women's Rights Conventions in the 1850s. She signed a petition to urge voting against Leslie Russell, a New York State Attorney General—who opposed women's rights and whose recommendation was blocking women’s rights legislation in New York State. He was defeated. Caroline served as Michigan's state superintendent of the Women's Temperance Union for three years. Frances Willard, later president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, spoke of the problem in a 1874 speech known as “Everybody’s War:” “There is a war about this in America, a war of mothers and daughters, sisters, and wives.” Frances described how a man goes to a bar and “loiters away his time” and “fritters away his earnings” and then goes home, “to the house where he is best loved…he inflicts atrocities which imagination cannot picture and no tongue dare describe.” As Anthony put it in 1899, “the only hope” for Prohibition was, “putting the ballot into the hands of women.” In that way, Prohibition and women’s suffrage went hand in hand, with the latter actually happening when the 19th Amendment was ratified seven months after Prohibition went into effect on August 18, 1920. In addition to her Temperance work, Caroline trained as a teacher at Albany Normal School. Later she became the second woman to be an ordained minister in the Free Baptist Church and ministered in West Fall, NY, near East Aurora. Bio by Mary Ellen Capineri. Pine Hill Cemetery Plot C-29 Cemetery Hill Road, Gowanda, NY 14070 Erie County Learn More

Lucy Wooster Chapman (1875–1962) Lucy was an active member of the Political Equality Club of Glens Falls. In 1915, she was Fourth Ward supervisor helping to coordinate the canvassing of Glens Falls to ascertain how many men and women in the city were in favor of granting women the right to vote. This local canvass committee was part of the Empire State Campaign of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association. Glens Falls was in the 11th campaign district led by Katharine Notman. If you know more about Lucy Wooster Chapman, you can help us tell her story. Please use our Add a Suffragist form to submit your information. Pine View Cemetery ​ 21 Quaker Road, Queensbury, NY 12804 Warren County Learn More

Jessie Ashley (1861–1919) A devoted Socialist, suffragist, and feminist, Jessie was the daughter of a railroad magnate and descended from the Mayflower. She sought to use her resources to make the country more just. Jessie bridged worlds: she was national treasurer of the very mainstream National American Woman Suffrage Association while also an active member of the International Workers of the World (the Wobblies) - not a common combination. Jessie was a 1902 graduate of NYU Law School, and she encouraged the handful of elite women who were gaining traction in the clubby world of New York lawyers. At the same time she was devoted to labor: she was a mainstay of support for striking workers in New York and beyond, notably women striking in Lawrence & Lowell, Massachusetts to Patterson, New Jersey. Her suffrage and feminist activities began with leadership of the College Equal Suffrage League and continued with co-founding, with Margaret Sanger and Ida Rauh, the National Birth Control League in 1915. She was arrested for violating the Comstock Law distributing literature about birth control at a rally in Union Square. In her memoirs, Anarchist Emma Goldman called Jessie Ashley a “valiant rebel.” Jessie died of pneumonia in 1919 at age 57 or 58. Woodlawn Cemetery Section 70, Lawn Plot, Lot 1059 4199 Webster Avenue, Bronx, NY 10470 Bronx County Learn More

Delia A. Phillips (1928–1920) Delia’s place in history was first told in 1918 in the Daily News of Batavia with the headline, “Woman Aged 91 Voted in Le Roy.” Delia received the honor of voting first even though she was joined by fifty-seven other women for the first vote in Le Roy at the Municipal Building. It is assumed she was the leading woman to cast her vote due to her age and standing in the community. Delia joined the Presbyterian Church when she moved to Le Roy at the age of 61, teaching Sunday school there as well. She was active in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union co-leading the evangelistic and Sabbath observances. Her gravestone lists her name and years of birth and death. It doesn’t indicate her place in Le Roy history. The historical marker in Le Roy now fills in that gap. If you know more about Delia, you can help us tell her story. Please use our Add a Suffragist form to submit your information. Old Baptist Cemetery (aka Old Briggs Cemetery) ​ 2719 Plank Road, Lima, NY 14485 Livingston County Learn More

Eleanor Weatherhead Higley (1872–1958) Eleanor was a founding member of the Political Equality Club of Hudson Falls serving as Vice President in 1915, then president 1916–1917. She also served as Chairman of the 1915 Washington County Suffrage Convention. In 1916 she was elected secretary of the Washington County Branch of the New York State Woman Suffrage Party. Chester Rural Cemetery C-G70, Row 4, Grave 9 US Route 9, Chestertown, NY 12817 Warren County Learn More

Hannah I. Talcott Howland (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. Howland Cemetery ​ Sherwood Road (42A), Aurora, NY 13206 Cayuga County Learn More

Catherine Noyes Lee (1900–1967) Catherine was the first woman to be named partner in a major Wall Street law firm - and was notably one of the original twelve women to be admitted to the New York State Bar Association in 1937. She remained an active Partner in in Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, in downtown Manhattan, until her death. If you know more about Catherine, you can help us tell her story. Please use our Add a Suffragist form to submit your information. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery ​ 540 North Broadway, Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591 Westchester County Learn More

Horace Greeley (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. Green-Wood Cemetery Section 35, Lot 2344 500 25th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232 Kings County Learn More

Eliza Robertson Gifford (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. Lake View Cemetery Highland Section, Lot 24 907 Lakeview Avenue, Jamestown, NY 14701 Chautauqua County Learn More

Isaac Post (1798 –1872) An abolitionist, Isaac, along with his wife Amy, is credited with assisting the largest number of escaped slaves across the border to Canada from his home, which was an important stop on the Underground Railroad. He was a close friend of Frederick Douglass, and his home was a frequent meeting place for reformists such as Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Sojourner Truth and Susan B. Anthony. Isaac was also known as an early supporter of women’s rights who actively attended women’s rights conventions. In 1853, he signed “The Just and Equal Rights of Women,” a call and resolution for the Woman’s Rights State Convention held in Rochester, New York on November 30 and December 1, 1853. Mount Hope Cemetery Range 2, Lot 121 1133 Mount Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620 Monroe County Learn More

Ella Hastings (1856–1924) Ella was an innovative thinker and social reformer. She served on the executive board of the New York State Federation of Women’s Clubs. In 1908, she led an effort to lobby the New York State legislature to pass a suffrage amendment to the New York State constitution. Ella was a member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and served on the Peace and Arbitration Committee. She was active in the New York State Woman Suffrage Association (NYSWSA) and served on their committees for legislation and education. She addressed the issue of child labor by founding the Society for the Study of Child Nature, an organization dedicated to gaining an understanding of child labor and its impact in childhood development and education. Following World War I, New York Governor Al Smith appointed Ella and five other women to a commission tasked with planning the reorganization of state government as it reconverted to peacetime. (Source: Alexander Street) Green-Wood Cemetery Section 174, Lot 19749 500 25th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232 Kings County Learn More

Clara Lemlich Shavelson (Goldman) (1886–1982) "The manufacturer has a vote; the bosses have votes; the foremen have votes, the inspectors have votes. The working girl has no vote." - Clara Lemlich, 1912 Clara is most famous as a labor organizer—in 1909 she was the first to call for the strike that became known as the garment workers' Uprising of 20,000. A founder of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, Clara fought sexism among labor union men. She explained to them that they would never succeed without engaging women workers. She was also a committed suffragist. She and Leonora O'Reilly cofounded the Wage Earners Suffrage League in New York City, which contributed to organizing working women to finally win the vote in New York in 1917. Clara was a devoted Communist, and a radical leader throughout her entire life. In 1917 she led a kosher meat boycott in New York City, then a rent strike in 1919. In 1929 she cofounded the United Council of Working-Class Women, which later separated from the Communist Party and changed its name to the Progressive Women's Councils. Annelise Orleck, her biographer, writes: "With Clara Shavelson as its president, the Progressive Women's Councils mounted a meat boycott that shut down forty-five hundred New York City butcher shops. Though in New York the strike was centered in Jewish and African-American neighborhoods, it soon spread to Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Cleveland, and several towns in Pennsylvania, involving women of all races, religions, and ethnic backgrounds." Clara lived her last years in a nursing home in California, where she organized the orderlies. Bio by Rachel B. Tiven. New Montefiore Cemetery Block: 8 Row: D Grave: 9 Section: 3, Society: IWO 1180 Wellwood Avenue, West Babylon, NY 11704 Suffolk County Learn More

Mary Garrett Hay (1857–1928) A suffrage activist who worked closely with Carrie Chapman Catt, Mary was also a temperance worker with the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. She became President of the New York Equal Suffrage League (1910-1918), New York City Woman's Suffrage Party (1912-1918), and the New York City League of Women Voters (1918-1923). Mary was one of the founders of the National American Women's Suffrage Movement (1910-1918) and, along with Carrie Chapman Catt, was instrumental in obtaining legislation for women's right to vote. Her papers are housed at the Harvard University Library in the Women's Rights Collection. She and Carrie Chapman Catt are buried side by side marked by a single monument inscribed in block letters: "Here lie two, united in friendship for 38 years through constant service to a great cause." Woodlawn Cemetery Primrose Plot, along Laurel Avenue 4199 Webster Avenue, Bronx, NY 10470 Bronx County Learn More