Today in 1872 Susan B Anthony & 14 other women dared to attempt to vote in New York in the Presidential election. A U.S. Marshal came to her house & arrested her 2 weeks later. She was fined $100 (around $2,060 today) but she never paid.
This is my ancestor Charle Fox Hovey!
The Hovey Fund was created by a bequest from Charles Fox Hovey (1807-1859), a Boston merchant who supported a variety of social reform movements. Hovey left $50,000 to support abolitionism and other types of social reform, including "women's rights, non-resistance, free trade and temperance."[1] Hovey appointed a committee of trustees to administer the fund, headed by abolitionist Wendell Phillips. Hovey specified that the funds should be spent at the rate of $8,000 per year to meet immediate needs.[2]
Charles Fox Hovey
The fund paid Susan B. Anthony's salary ($12 per week) while she coordinated the Women's Loyal National League's massive petition drive asking Congress to approve an amendment that would abolish slavery.[3] With 400,000 signatures, it was the largest petition drive in the nation's history up to that time, gathering signatures from approximately one out every twenty-four adults in the Northern states and significantly contributing to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[4]
Hovey was one of a group of Boston businessmen who had provided most of the funding for the American Anti-Slavery Society in the years prior to the American Civil War.[5] During and after the war the Hovey fund helped to sustain the Anti-Slavery Society as fund-raising became more difficult and the cost of publishing abolitionist newspapers increased sharply. After slavery in the U.S. was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment, the fund's continued support assisted the Anti-Slavery Society's campaign for the political rights of the newly freed slaves, playing a crucial role in the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment and Fifteenth Amendments, which secured citizenship and voting rights for African Americans.[6][7]
A controversy over the fund developed after the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified. Hovey's will stipulated that if slavery was abolished before the fund's money was exhausted, the remainder was to be channeled to other specified reform movements, including the women's rights movement. Despite the fact that the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, Phillips declared that slavery would not truly be abolished until African Americans secured the right to vote, and he continued to channel much of the fund's money to that cause.[8] Leaders of the women's movement were furious at being denied money that rightfully belonged to them, especially when they desperately needed it to finance what they had hoped would be a pivotal campaign in Kansas by the American Equal Rights Association to achieve suffrage for all state citizens regardless of race or sex.[9]
Susan B. Anthony was born on February 15, 1820, in Massachusetts to Daniel Anthony and Lucy Read. She was the second eldest of seven siblings. Her father was a Quaker and her mother was a Methodist.
Susan did not receive a middle name at birth, but she and her sisters chose middle initials during their youth due to the popular trend of having middle initials. Susan chose the initial "B" for Brownell, her aunt's married surname, but she never used it as part of her official name, which remained as "Susan Anthony" or "Susan B. Anthony".
Throughout her life, Susan was deeply involved in the fight for civil rights and women's suffrage. She was inspired by her family's Quaker background, and most of her siblings became involved in social activism, with one of her brothers fighting alongside John Brown.
In 1848, the Anthony family joined a Quaker organization called "Congregational Friends", which led to Susan's friendship and partnership with ex-slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglas. Susan never married, but she formed a close friendship with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was married with seven children. The two women became inseparable and worked together towards their common goal of women's suffrage and civil rights.
Susan B. Anthony was a leader in several organizations dedicated to the cause of civil rights and women's suffrage, including the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Anti-Slavery Society. She dedicated her life to the cause, giving speeches and organizing events to raise awareness and gain support.
Despite facing opposition and arrests for her activism, Susan continued to fight for the rights of women and minorities. She died on March 13, 1906, at the age of 86 from heart failure and pneumonia in her home in Rochester, New York. Her legacy lives on, as she is remembered as a pioneering figure in the fight for women's suffrage and civil rights.
For further information about her life, see March 13, 1906 Obituary New York Times.
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This account is shared by Community Support (Kathy Pinna & Daniel Pinna & Lizzie Kunde) so we can quickly answer any questions you might have.
Please reach out and message us here if you have any questions, feedback, requests to merge biographies, or just want to say hi! 2020 marks 20 years since the inception of AncientFaces. We are the same team who began this community so long ago. Over the years it feels, at least to us, that our family has expanded to include so many. Thank you!
I'm a Founder of AncientFaces and support the community answering questions & helping members make connections to the past (thus my official title of Founder & Content and Community Support ). For me, it's been a labor of love for over 20 years. I truly believe with all of my heart that everyone should be remembered for generations to come.
I am 2nd generation San Jose and have seen a lot of changes in the area while growing up. We used to be known as the "Valley of Heart's Delight" (because the Valley was covered with orchards and there were many canneries to process the food grown here, which shipped all over the US) - now we have adopted the nickname "Capital of Silicon Valley" and Apple, Ebay, Adobe, Netflix, Facebook, and many more tech companies are within a few miles of my current home in San Jose (including AncientFaces). From a small town of 25,000, we have grown to 1 million plus. And when you add in all of the communities surrounding us (for instance, Saratoga, where I attended high school, living a block from our previous Mayor), we are truly one of the big cities in the US. I am so very proud of my hometown. For more information see Kathy - Founder & Content and Community Director My family began AncientFaces because we believe that unique photos and stories that show who people are/were should be shared with the world.
I want to build a place where my son can meet his great-grandparents. My grandmother Marian Joyce (Benning) Kroetch always wanted to meet her great-grandchildren, but she died just a handful of years before my son's birth.
So while she didn't have the opportunity to meet him, at least he will be able to know her.
For more information about what we're building see About AncientFaces. For information on the folks who build and support the community see Daniel - Founder & Creator. My father's side is full blood Sicilian and my mother's side is a combination of Welsh, Scottish, German and a few other European cultures. One of my more colorful (ahem black sheep) family members came over on the Mayflower. He was among the first to be hanged in the New World for a criminal offense he made while onboard the ship.