Browse Items (16 total)

Sarah Smith Garnet & Dr. Susan Smith-McKinney Steward were sisters - Sarah the eldest of 10, Susan the 7th. Together, their impact on Brooklyn's African-American community was immense. Their suffrage contributions - Sarah's especially - were…

The National Female Anti-Slavery Convention in 1837 was the 1st convention where women discussed women's rights. Delegates traveled to NYC for 4 days of debate. Lucretia Mott was there, and so were the Grimke sisters. Ira V. Brown describes their…

The story of Black abolitionist Hester Lane features blatant racism and sexism. But it’s also about a subtler version of both: when you’re expected to choose a side because of your identity, and pigeonholed into what someone like you is “supposed to”…

British suffragists got angry and impatient before the Americans did. Their breakaway radical faction became known as “suffragettes” - it was meant as a slur, until they adopted it proudly. [Protest history thread.] Emmeline Pankhurst and her…

When Ida B Wells arrived in Brooklyn, it was still its own city. (The 5 boros consolidated in 1898.) How imposing the massive metropolis must have felt to Ida, forced to flee Memphis in 1892 after publishing “The Truth About Lynching.” Ida’s…

IHO Year of the Rat, a fearless teenager on a horse. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee was only 16 when she led New York City’s 1912 suffrage parade on horseback. She started college @Barnard that fall. She was a media magnet, profiled in the Tribune a month before…

I was prepared to hate Annie Nathan Meyer because of her vehement anti-suffrage views. But it’s hard to hate a woman whose autobiography, published posthumously, is called “It’s Been Fun.” Annie Nathan Meyer founded @BarnardCollege in 1889. Women…

Cities around the country instituted curfews this week to restrict protest, so it’s a good time to recall when suffragists were out after dark. In 1912, New York City suffragists lit the darkest night of the year with a massive nighttime…

These women are being arrested for poll watching while female. It’s New York City, September 1910, the Democratic primary. Before the day is over six women at four different precincts in Hell’s Kitchen have been hauled before the magistrate court.…

Pauline Newman was dykier than Rose. At 16 she led the biggest rent strike in NYC. After scores of friends died in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, she helped write & enforce NY safety laws. Led women in WTUL & ILGWU for decades. There's so much…