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REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN OF NEW ENGLAND


life. At Battenville the Anthony children, two boys and four girls, were taught in a private school at home. At the age of fifteen Susan was a teacher in that school. At seventeen she taught in a family at Easton, N.Y., receiv- ing her board and one dollar per week. The next summer she taught a district school and "boarded round, '^ her wages being a dollar and a half per week. Following that, she attended successively a boarding-school, Miss Deborah Moulson's, at Hamilton, near Philadelphia, and a private school at home taught by Daniel Wright. Here ended, 1839, her school-da5'^s proper. From the first she had shown herself precociously intelligent, ambitious to learn, and fond of mastering difficult problems.

The winter had brought business reverses to Mr. Anthony. With characteristic honesty he turned over his property to his creditors, reserving only the bare necessities allowed by law, and in March removed to Centre Falls, two miles away. For some time after, Susan's energies were devoted to domestic concerns, such as washing, cooking, spinning, and weav- ing, with quilting bees, apple bees, sleigh rides, and other rural diversions, not to mention eligible offers of marriage at this period and later on to keep life from being dull and pleas- ui'eless. Her next school was at New Rochelle, N.Y. For teaching a summer term of fifteen weeks she was paid thirty dollars.

The final migration of Daniel Anthony and his household, now depleted by the marriage of two daughters, was in 1845, the journey being made by railroad and canal to a farm three miles west of Rochester, N.Y. For three years from May, 1846, Susan was an assistant in the Canajoharie Academy, the principal of which, Daniel B. Hagar, failed not in after life to express high appreciation of her ability and services as a teacher. In 1850 and 1851 she was at home, managing the farm, her father attending to his business in Syracuse. After one more brief term of school, in the spring of 1852 she gave up teaching, to devote herself henceforth with singleness of purpose and rare continuitv of effort to the strenuous ft activities of her "fifty years of noble endeavor for the freedom of women," activities thus summed up and circumstantially set forth in her authorized biography (happily not finished), "The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony," by Ida Husted Harper, published in 1898. In these well-filled volumes, two in number, the leading; facts and events, together with numerous stir- ring incidents and amusing episodes in her public career, are recorded in chronological order, passages from letters and from her (liarj' revealing more intinat^ experiences of joy and of sorrow, bearing witness to strong family affections and a large capacity for friendship. The work is carefully indexed, and each volume prefaced by a copious table of contents, with conspicuous headings, marking various turning-points and stages in the life journey therein set forth. For example may be cited: Chapter V. Entrance into Public Life (1850- 52); VI. Temperance and Teachers* Conven- tions (1852-53); X. Campaigning with the Garrisonians (1857-58); XIV. Women's Na- tional Loyal League (1863-64); XVII. Cam- paigns in New York and Kansas (1867) ; XVIII. Establishing the Resolution (1868); XIX. Founding the National Suffrage Society (1869); XX. Fiftieth Birthday (1870); XXI. End of Revolution (1870); XXIII. Firet Trip to the Pacific Coast (1871); XXV. Trial for Voting under Fourteenth Amendment (1873); XXX. Writing the History; XXXI. The Legacy — Nebraska Campaign (1882) — Off for Europe (18&3); XXXV. Union of Associa- tions — International Council (1888); XL. Made President of National Association, 1892; XLI. World's Fair — (Congress of Representative Women (1893); XLV. Second Visit to Cali- fornia (1895); Anthony Reunion at Adams (1897).

While teaching at Canajoharie, Miss Anthony served as secretary of the local society of the Daughters of Temperance; and at a supper on March 1, 1849, to which they invited the people of the village, she made the principal address, reading it from her manuscript. It was her first platform utterance.

It may here be mentioned that the Woman's Rights Convention that met at Seneca Falls in July, 1848, and adjourned to meet in Roches- ter, August 2, had been attended by her father, mother, and sister Mary, and that they had signed its declaration. Reading with interest