The Lesser-Known Anthony: Mary S. Anthony, Part 2

The previous post in this series discussed Mary Anthony’s career as a woman’s rights-minded educator. But it is as a suffragist and partner of her famous sister Susan, rather than her feminist forays in the field of education, for which Mary Anthony is best remembered.

Susan B. Anthony (L) and Mary Anthony (R). From: The Collection of the Rochester Public Library’s Local History & Genealogy Division.

Susan B. Anthony testified to her sister’s devotion to the suffrage cause in an 1897 interview with the Union and Advertiser: “She attended the first equal rights convention ever held in Rochester. When I came home from school, I found Mary full of it. I found nothing but equal suffrage talk … I didn’t believe in it then and made fun of it.”

When Susan joined the woman’s rights movement, the two became partners. While Mary rarely spoke in public, she looked after the “great mass of details” connected with the suffrage movement, allowing Susan to travel frequently. “Without her,” Susan claimed in the aforementioned interview, “I never could have done what I have for the women of America. She is the unseen worker who shares equally in whatever reward and glory I may have won.”

The Anthony sisters’ home at 17 Madison Street. From: City Hall Photo Lab.

Mary displayed her impressive organizational skills during the New York State Constitutional Convention (May 8, 1894–September 29, 1894). The convention was charged with proposing a new constitution for the state, and Mary and Susan were determined to have a woman’s suffrage provision included.

Mary was responsible for distributing petitions that resulted in 500,000 signatures in support of equal suffrage. She also directed the distribution of campaign literature on the subject. Unfortunately, the effort fell short. New York State did not give women the vote until 1917.

Unlike her sister, Mary was not known as a public speaker, but she could make her views known when roused. In 1896, the Rev. Algernon Crapsey, rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, preached a sermon at which Mary took umbrage.

Dr. Algernon Sidney Crapsey (1847–1927),
Rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Rochester. From: The Albert R. Stone Negative Collection, Rochester Museum & Science Center, Rochester, N.Y.

In his address, Crapsey detailed the “evil results” arising from women and girls selling the woman’s edition of the Rochester Post-Express newspaper on public streets and streetcars.

According to Crapsey, it was “contrary to good manners and good morals for women to approach men on the streets, or in other public places, for any purpose whatsoever.” He further alluded to them as “mannish women.” Mary replied to him as follows:

Is it not an insult to the hundreds and thousands of women who are today earning an honest livelihood – oftentimes supporting aged parents or young brothers and sisters or both? If members of his own family were thus forced, through adverse circumstances, to earn their daily bread, would he not wince to hear them spoken of as unwomanly and unrefined?

Mary did not long survive her more famous sister. After Susan’s death in March 1906, she filled in for the suffragist at previously scheduled rallies and meetings. Upon returning from a speaking tour in Oregon eleven months later, she suddenly fell ill and passed away on February 5, 1907. She was two months shy of her 80^th birthday. She lies buried next to Susan in Mount Hope Cemetery.

Mary S. Anthony’s grave in Mount Hope Cemetery. From: Emily Morry, 2020.

 

– Christopher Brennan

For Further Information:

Finn, Michelle. “The Other Anthony Girl,” LocalHistoryRocs! (March 25, 2013). Available here:

https://rochistory.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/the-other-anthony-girl/

Harper, Ida Husted. Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (1898-1908; reprint, New York, Arno Press, 1969).

“Anthony Reception: Rochesterians Will Celebrate Miss Mary’s 70^th Birthday,” Rochester Union and Advertiser, March 31, 1897.

“Death Comes to Mary S. Anthony,” Democrat and Chronicle, February 6, 1907.

“Her 70^th Birthday: Many Friends Congratulate Miss Mary S. Anthony,” Rochester Union and Advertiser, April 3, 1897.

“Miss Anthony’s Reply to Dr. Crapsey’s Statement from the Pulpit,” Rochester Union and Advertiser, March 24, 1896.

 

 

 

The Lesser-Known Anthony: Mary S. Anthony, Part 1

If one were to walk down Main Street in Rochester, stop 100 people at random and ask them who Susan B. Anthony was, it is likely that every person polled would know the answer. If one tried the same exercise substituting the name Mary S. Anthony, one would most likely receive 100 blank stares.

The difference in name recognition is due in part to the relative visibility of their roles in the woman’s rights movement, but Susan and her sister were equally committed to the cause. By Susan’s own admission, “She [Mary], not I, is the pioneer suffragist in our family … My brother-in-law used to tell me that I could preach woman suffrage, but it took Mary to practice it.”

Mary S. Anthony (left) and Susan B. Anthony (right)
From: The Collection of the Rochester Public Library’s Local History & Genealogy Division

Mary Stafford Anthony (April 2, 1827-February 5, 1907) was born in Battenville (Washington County), New York, the fifth of seven children born to Daniel Anthony (1794–1862) and Lucy Read (1793–1880). Her father operated a cotton mill. He also ran a private school in the family home, and it was there that Mary received her initial schooling. She later attended a boarding school, most likely the same one to which her sister was sent.

After the Anthony family moved to Rochester in 1845, Mary went to work teaching, first at “the Old Red School House on Rapids Road” (now Brooks Avenue), and then at the “Old Stone School House on the Chili Road” (now Chili Avenue). After a yearlong stint in Easton (Washington County), she returned to Rochester, where she taught at Schools 14 (Scio Street), 16 (North Street), and 2 (King Street).

In addition to teaching, Mary had served as an assistant to Principal John R. Vosburgh at School 14 in 1859. When Vosburgh became ill and could not continue his work, another man was hired from out of town, but he was unable to impose discipline on the pupils, who became unruly, throwing books and other objects out the windows. Eventually the Superintendent and representatives from the Board of Education paid a visit to the school to assess the situation.

The principal admitted that he could not impose order, and the officials offered the position to Mary. She accepted, but only under the stipulation that she would receive the same salary as any man in the same position.

The officials agreed to her terms. It was the first time a woman had served as a principal in Rochester, receiving the same salary as a man. She left that position shortly thereafter to become the principal of School 16. She eventually retired in 1883, after 26 years as an educator.

School No. 2 (Madison Park School, 1921) Note: The school building was built 1873-1874, when Mary Anthony was principal.  From: Rochester School Buildings Scrapbook, Local History & Genealogy Division, Rochester Public Library.

While Mary Anthony lobbied for gender equality on her own behalf, she also contributed significantly to the woman’s rights movement. The second part of this series will explore Anthony’s activism.

–Christopher Brennan

For Further Information:

Finn, Michelle. “The Other Anthony Girl,” LocalHistoryRocs! (March 25, 2013). Available here: https://rochistory.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/the-other-anthony-girl/

Harper, Ida Husted. Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (1898-1908; reprint, New York, Arno Press, 1969).

“Anthony Reception: Rochesterians Will Celebrate Miss Mary’s 70^th Birthday,” Rochester Union and Advertiser, March 31, 1897.

“Death Comes to Mary S. Anthony,” Democrat and Chronicle, February 6, 1907.

“Her 70^th Birthday: Many Friends Congratulate Miss Mary S. Anthony,” Rochester Union and Advertiser, April 3, 1897.

“Miss Anthony’s Reply to Dr. Crapsey’s Statement from the Pulpit,” Rochester Union and Advertiser,March 24, 1896.

Frightening Death Away: Criticism of Susan B. Anthony by Her Contemporaries

August 26, 2020 is the centennial of certification of the 19^th amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the amendment that extended voting rights to all “regardless of sex.” It is also the bicentenary of the birth of Susan B. Anthony (February 15, 1820-March 13, 1906), Rochester’s most famous and most honored citizen, who led the fight for women’s suffrage.

Given the overlap of both events, it would behoove a blogger to reflect on the contributions Anthony made toward the passage of the amendment, yet what can one say that hasn’t been said myriad times already? Perhaps how she came to the struggle, as well as the opposition she faced.* It might surprise readers to learn that contemporary opposition to Anthony and her activist efforts could be downright nasty.

Susan B. Anthony ca. 1884
(From: The Collection of the Rochester Public Library’s Local History & Genealogy Division)

Susan Brownell Anthony was born in Adams, Massachusetts. She was the second of seven children born to Daniel Anthony (January 27, 1794 – November 25, 1862) and Lucy Read (December 2, 1793 – April 3, 1880). While still a child, Susan and the family moved to Battenville (Washington County), New York, where her father operated a cotton mill. While in school she assisted her mother with domestic chores and in the summers she worked as a governess for nearby families.

She was later sent to a Quaker boarding school, but after one year there her father declared bankruptcy, which forced her to terminate her schooling and go to work as a teacher to support the family. The Anthonys moved to the Rochester area in 1845, purchasing a farm in the town of Gates. In 1846, Susan took a teaching position at Canajoharie Academy in Montgomery County, but left the position when she discovered she was paid less than her male colleagues.

Parents of Susan B. Anthony: Daniel Anthony and Lucy Read ca. 1854.
(From: The Collection of the Rochester Public Library’s Local History & Genealogy Division)

By 1849, Anthony had returned to Rochester, where she became involved in temperance activities, as well as an anti-slavery group that met frequently at the Anthony farm. She did not attend the 1848 Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention, as she was still teaching in Canajoharie at the time.

Her career as a social reform activist was spurred by an 1851 visit with Amelia Bloomer (May 27, 1818 – December 30, 1894) in Seneca Falls, through whom she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902). In 1852, Stanton helped Anthony organize the New York State Temperance Society, but the resistance of men in the movement to letting women organize and speak at temperance meetings led her to change her primary focus to women’s rights.

A circa 1873 political cartoon that was recently reprinted in a City Newspaper article by David Andreatta gives some indication of the opposition to her efforts. The cartoon depicts the artist’s view of society if women ever got the vote.

Graphic statues, no. 17 “the woman who dared.” Illustration by Thomas Wust, cover of The Daily Graphic, v. 1, no. 81 (1873 June 5). From: //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.55836 (accessed March 6, 2020).

The image implies that social roles would be reversed–men would have to tend to domestic duties, while women would assume public roles.

The critique was rooted in the then-common assumption of “separate spheres” for men and women, often based on biblical principles. The central argument can perhaps best be seen in a letter the Rev. A. C. George wrote to the Rochester Union & Advertiser in 1853. In it, the pastor of the First Methodist Episcopal Church says:

     The true principles of right for all are laid down in the volume of revealed truth. … We find it expressly declared therein that “man is the head of the woman.” … This figure evidently implies that man is to take the lead. That in all matters of government especially, he is to have the ascendancy. Now, for as to assume the right of making our laws, filling public offices, &c. is to disregard not only this but many other texts of scripture, and thereby come “wise above what is written.”

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton ca. 1900
(From: City Hall Photo Lab)

But criticism of Anthony wasn’t just limited to her views on gender equality.  Much of it was personal.

In 1884, a number of “rude wood-cut portraits” of Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton appeared in several papers, which Susan called “too horrible to have our names written under them.” Susan was often described as a “masculine woman,” “masculine in build,” a “young man,” and the like. Journalists could also be quite condescending towards Anthony. The editor of the Buffalo Express, for instance, opined, “although she strives to make something more than a woman of herself [emphasis added], we shall treat her as such and allow her to have pretty much her own way.”

One critic went on at length describing her as having “ungovernable prejudices … a victim of singularities and freaks, [who] has no small amount of arrogance and pride [and] is aristocratically inclined in spite of her democratic views.” But the degree of antipathy toward Susan and her efforts can perhaps best be seen in a letter sent by an anonymous reader in response to an article about her brother, Colonel Daniel Read Anthony (August 22, 1824 – November 12, 1904). He had been ill and recovered after Susan cared for him. The reader responded:

It is said that the careful nursing of Colonel Anthony by his sister Susan is what saved his life. Careful nursing! Indeed! It was the awful presence of Susan in that chamber that frightened Death away.

The author’s contention that Death itself would be frightened of Susan paints her as an almost demonic figure. But, like a more contemporary figure, “nevertheless she persisted” with the struggle until failure was impossible!

-Christopher Brennan

*At the time that this blog post topic was first conceived, David Andreatta’s article, “The Woman Who Dared,” City Newspaper, February 19, 2020, had not yet been published.

Susan B. Anthony House, 17 Madison Street, Rochester ca. 2009.
(From: City Hall Photo Lab)

 

For Further Information:

David Andreatta, “The Woman Who Dared,” City Newspaper, February 19, 2020.

“Anthony, Susan B.,” in The Encyclopedia of New York State, ed. Peter Eisenstadt (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005), 88-89.

Judith E. Harper, Susan B. Anthony: A Biographical Companion (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio Inc., 1998).

“Home News from Abroad,” Union and Advertiser, September 14, 1857.

“Local Matters: Items in Brief,” Union and Advertiser, June 17, 1875.

“Neighborhood items,” Union and Advertiser, April 8, 1870.

Christine L. Ridarsky and Mary M. Huth, eds., Susan B. Anthony and the Struggle for Equal Rights (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2012).

Lynn Sherr, Failure is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words (New York: Times Books, 1995).

“The Strong Minded Brethren at Buffalo,” Union and Advertiser, January 14, 1860.

“Susan B.,” Union and Advertiser, January 10, 1867.

“Susan B. Anthony,” Union and Advertiser, February 9, 1869.

“Thumb-Nail Sketches,” Union and Advertiser, January 5, 1884.

“Women’s Temperance Convention,” Union and Advertiser, March 29, 1853.

The Other Anthony Girl

Don’t get me wrong, Susan B. Anthony deserves her proper respect. Ardent abolitionist, temperance worker, women’s rights advocate, education crusader, labor activist, suffragist, public speaker, writer, leader—her legacy is lasting; her praises duly sung. That said, I thought it fitting this Women’s History Month to pay tribute to another woman from Rochester’s past who is equally deserving of our admiration, if not as privy to our attention: Susan’s younger sister, Mary Stafford Anthony.

Overshadowed in both life and death by her famous older sibling, Mary S. Anthony was a worthy character in her own right. Born on April 2, 1827, in Battenville, NY, Mary moved to Rochester with her family when she was eighteen. Well-educated, she eventually became a teacher. She taught in the city’s public schools for 27 years, retiring from her position as principal of School No. 2 in 1883. In testament to her intellect, a friend noted that Mary was “an excellent mathematician, a natural philosopher and…history was also one of her specialties” (“Death Comes to Mary S. Anthony”).

Close with her sister, Mary shared Susan’s devotion to social justice. In fact, she was the first of the two to enlist in the crusade for sexual equality, attending the second women’s rights convention held in Rochester in August 1848, two weeks after the historic first meeting in Seneca Falls. Mary, unlike Susan, actually signed the Declaration of Sentiments. In November 1872, both Mary and Susan, along with their two other sisters and 10 other Rochester women, challenged state law by registering and voting in the presidential election. Six years later, Mary represented Monroe County at the Rochester convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association. In 1885, she organized and hosted the first meeting of the local Women’s Political Club (later renamed the Political Equality Club); she served as its president from 1892 to 1903. She became corresponding secretary for the New York State Woman Suffrage Association in 1893 and helped run a suffrage campaign headquarters out of the family home at 17 Madison Street.

Mary Anthony was the family breadwinner, caregiver, and household manager. It was she who held down the fort, enabling Susan to devote her time and energy to the cause. Both morally and financially supportive of her sister’s work, Mary helped to fund Susan’s journal, The Revolution, and contributed significantly to Susan’s drive to sexually integrate the University of Rochester in 1900. Mary traveled with Susan to Europe in 1899 and again in 1904 to attend meetings of the International Council of Women. Both sisters were in Berlin when the International Woman Suffrage Alliance was formed; Susan became its first member, Mary its second.

The last trip Mary and Susan Anthony took together was to attend the National American Woman Suffrage Association convention in Baltimore in 1906. A little over a month later, Susan died in their home with Mary at her side. Less than a year after that, on February 7, 1907, Mary, too, passed away in her home, two months shy of her 80th birthday. Sadly, neither sister lived to see their shared dream of woman suffrage come to fruition with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. While Susan’s contribution to this effort has been appropriately noted, Mary’s remains largely and undeservedly obscured.  

The Anthony sisters are buried beside each other in Rochester’s historic Mount Hope Cemetery. Should you happen to be in the neighborhood, consider paying your respects to them both.

~Michelle Finn, Deputy Historian

Mary Stafford Anthony and Susan Brownell Anthony, n.d.
From the collection of the Rochester Public Library Local History Division.

Sources:

“Miss Mary S. Anthony is Dead at Her Home.” Post Express, February 5, 1907. In Tengwall scrapbook no. 1: 196, Rochester Public Library Local History Division.

“Death Comes to Mary S. Anthony.” Democrat & Chronicle, February 6, 1907. In Peck scrapbook v. 2:61½, Rochester Public Library Local History Division.

Western New York Suffragists. “Mary Stafford Anthony.” Accessed March 23, 2013. http://winningthevote.org/F-MAnthony.html    

Total Eclipse of the Trivia

The last time Rochester witnessed a total solar eclipse was 99 years ago on January 24, 1925. Perhaps not surprisingly, the weather was not ideal. Though the chilly day started out with some sun, the skies clouded over by the time of the eclipse, leaving many photographers greatly disappointed.

^{The front page of the Democrat & Chronicle reporting on the previous day’s eclipse. From: Democrat & Chronicle, January 25, 1925.}

While frequent overcast days in January (and April!) remain a constant in Rochester, the city has changed considerably since our last total solar eclipse. Think you know what the city was like in 1925? Try testing your knowledge with the following 1925 trivia quiz!

^{Boys reading the newspaper in 1925. From: the Albert R. Stone Negative Collection, Rochester Museum & Science center, Rochester, N.Y.}

1. What was the population of Rochester in 1925?[i]
2. What was the last section of the subway constructed in the fall of 1925?[ii]
3. What new job title did George Eastman assume that year?[iii]
4. What dance craze was sweeping Rochester and the rest of the country in 1925?[iv]
5. How many wards was the city divided into?[v]
6. How many high schools were in the city?[vi]
7. Where was the Rochester Athenaeum & Mechanics Institute (RIT’s predecessor) located?[vii]
8. How many hospitals took care of the sick in Rochester circa 1925?[viii]
9. Where were the administration offices of the Rochester Public Library located?[ix] 
10. How many women officers were in the Rochester Police Department?[x]
11. Clarissa Street had a different name in 1925. What was it?[xi]
12. What was the name of Rochester’s baseball team in 1925?[xii]   
13. Where was the newly opened National Clothing store located?[xiii] 
14. Who was the mayor of Rochester in 1925?[xiv] 
15. What 14-floor church building opened in downtown Rochester on September 7, 1925?[xv]  
16. Who was the only African American physician in Rochester in 1925?[xvi]
17. What was the name of Rochester’s NFL team in 1925?[xvii] 
18. What was the price of gasoline on Eclipse Day, 1925?[xviii]
19. What was the price of a share of Eastman Kodak stock on Eclipse Day?[xix] 
20. Where was the University of Rochester located in 1925?[xx] 
21. How many breweries were active in Rochester in 1925?[xxi]
22. Which ethnic group comprised Rochester’s largest foreign-born population in 1925?[xxii]
23. In 1925, social reformer Helen B. Montgomery penned a letter to the D&C calling for local women’s societies to purchase what Rochester residence?[xxiii]
24. What Rochester-born musician graduated from Frederick Douglass High School (in another city) in 1925?[xxiv]
25. What U of R history professor, who taught at the university for 52 years and served as the namesake of one of its buildings, was laid to rest the same day as the total solar eclipse on January 24, 1925?[xxv]

-Daniel Cody (and Emily Morry)

^{A bugler at the Four Corners in November 1925. From: the Collection of the Rochester Public Library’s Local History & Genealogy Division}

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[i] 295,750 people. Rochester was larger than Syracuse but smaller than Buffalo.

[ii] The section from Oak Street to Mt. Read Blvd. 

[iii] Chairman of the Board. The position was created specifically for Eastman.

[iv] The Charleston

[v] 24. Wards were political divisions of the City.

[vi] Four: East High, West High, Kodak High, and Charlotte High.

[vii] 55 Plymouth Ave South. It stood where the Rochester City School District office parking lot is located in 2024.

[viii]  Six: Highland Hospital, Homeopathic (Genesee) Hospital, Rochester General Hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital, Municipal Hospital, and the Infant’s Summer Hospital in Charlotte.

[ix] 9 Edgerton Park. The Rundel Building wasn’t constructed until the mid-1930s.

[x] Two: Nellie L. McElroy and Rose C. Knobles. They made $2,000 per year.

[xi] Caledonia Avenue

[xii] The Rochester Tribe

[xiii] The corner of Stone Street and East Main Street. The building houses the Hilton Garden Inn in 2024.

[xiv] C.D. Van Zandt

[xv] The Baptist Temple Church. Today’s Temple Building.

[xvi] Dr. Charles T. Lunsford

[xvii] The Rochester Jeffersons

[xviii] 23 cents per gallon

[xix] $115

[xx] On University Avenue between Prince and Goodman Streets.

[xxi] None! The country was in the midst of Prohibition in 1925. Some breweries did manufacture other products during this period, however. Bartholomay Brewery, for instance, switched to dairy products.

[xxii] Italians. Newark, New Jersey and Providence, Rhode Island were the only American cities that boasted larger percentages of Italian-born residents at the time.

[xxiii] Susan B. Anthony’s former house at 17 Madison Street

[xxiv] Cab Calloway

[xxv] William Carey Morey

99 Scores but a Hit Ain’t One: Surprising Discoveries in our Sheet Music Collection

Do you have a favorite song about Rochester? Most Flower City residents would probably be hard-pressed to think of one in the first place.[1] Rochester has never inspired an iconic anthem along the likes of “New York, New York,” “Sweet Home Chicago,” or “Straight Outta Compton,” but as our 99-song local Music Score Collection reveals, the city did figure into an assortment of tunes written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Several of them were included in the 1910 volume, the Rochester Song Book, which was allegedly the first such city song book printed in the United States.

^{The Rochester Song Book (1910) features a series of songs relating to Rochester. It was the first book of its kind published in the country. From: the Collection of the Rochester Public Library’s Local History & Genealogy Division.}

While some songs like “Dear Old Rochester,” pre-dated the book’s publication, others, such as “Put Me Down at Kodak Town,” and “Rochester Maid Means Quality,” were written expressly for the collection, in an attempt to bolster Rochester’s bid to become known as a convention city, and serve as a soundtrack of sorts for the Rochester Industrial Exposition of 1910. (The latter title was a variation of the Chamber of Commerce’s slogan, “Rochester Made Means Quality.”)

^{Ah yes, that unforgettable classic, “Put Me Down at Kodak Town.” One of many songs included in the Rochester Song Book (1910). From: the Collection of the Rochester Public Library’s Local History & Genealogy Division.}

Possibly seeking to capitalize on the convention-promoting trend, Harry Abramson penned “Rochester is Grand Old City” in 1912.

^{The sepia-toned cover art for “Rochester is a Grand Old City,” depicts a bustling Main Street circa 1912. From: the Collection of the Rochester Public Library’s Local History & Genealogy Division.}

Abramson’s chorus not only directly quotes the Chamber of Commerce slogan, “Rochester Made…means Quality with Me,” but also includes the following lines in its first verse:

I have been in New York City, Chicago Ill-a-nois

I have been in Boston, Massachusetts and Quaker town

But I did not feel at home there,

So I thought of my home town

The City of conventions where they make you feel to hum

Abramson concludes his tribute by claiming: “The lights of old Broadway, they certainly do persuade, a fellow to forget his thoughts when he’s home from away, but the mem’ries they do come back. So my trunk I’ll quickly pack. And take the first train leaving. For Rochester my home.”

As it happens, Abramson quickly packed his bags after writing the song. The composer and music publisher moved to Chicago, Ill-a-nois in 1913.

The same year, Scottish-born Margaret Shanks wrote a more genuine ode to her adopted hometown, “The City By the Dear Old Genesee.”

^{The opening bars of Margaret Shanks’ circa 1913 ode to Rochester. From: the Collection of the Rochester Public Library’s Local History & Genealogy Division.}

The song relays the experience of a Rochester woman whose partner has gone off to war:

I am lonely here today

Since my laddie went away

To serve his country’s flag and keep it free

Still I know he can’t forget

Those sweet words when last we met

In the Flower City on the Genesee

Shanks lauds Rochester throughout the song, referring to its parks as “dreams of beauty,” and noting that “there never was a fairer place for happy birds to sing,” before concluding that she prays her lover will return:

When our flag shall set him free

Nevermore our lives to sever

From the dear old Genesee

^{The cover art depicting Shanks’ idyllic City by the Genesee. From: the Collection of the Rochester Public Library’s Local History & Genealogy Division.}

Somewhat prophetically, Shanks wrote the song at the close of 1913, half a year before WWI broke out. She may have drawn inspiration from her own experience serving soldiers during the Spanish-American War in 1898. A registered nurse by profession, Shanks also attended to both Susan B. Anthony and Mary S. Anthony in their final days.

Of her composition, Shanks later recalled, “the thing crept up on me, words and music—I had to get it out of my system.” Shortly after the inspiration struck, she sought out the orchestra leader of the Temple Theater, who jotted down her melody, line by line.

Shanks noted that when she told her peers she had written a song about Rochester, “they looked askance at me as if I was doing something for which I should be jailed,” but the piece nevertheless sold well locally, with the sheet music becoming prominently featured on family pianos across the city in the year it was released.

Neither Shanks’ song nor the other Rochester-themed tunes in the library’s collection made any inroads beyond the city limits. Shanks herself opined in 1943 that “cities, as well as people are jealous of each other and that Syracuse would never sing of Rochester, neither would Buffalo.”

Whether these songs’ lack of commercial success was owing to innate inter-city rivalries or the fact that the “Rochester Made Means Quality,” slogan perhaps did not hold true for its tunesmiths, is a matter of debate. Interested parties can decide for themselves by perusing the Music Score Collection located in the Local History & Genealogy Division.

-Emily Morry

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[1] Bonus points awarded if you thought of “Rochester Blues,” by Son House.

“Not on the Basis of Sex”: Rochester’s First Congresswoman

Pop Quiz Time: Name the first woman elected to Congress from Monroe County. If you answered “Louise Slaughter,” think again. While Louise was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986, another woman held that distinction nearly thirty years earlier. Her name was Jessica “Judy” Weis (July 8, 1901-May 1, 1963).

U.S. Rep. Jessica M. Weis (1901-1963). From: the Collection of the Local History and Genealogy Division.

She was born in Chicago as Jessica McCullough, the younger of two daughters of Charles H. McCullough (1868-1920) and Jessica “Jessie” Martin (1878-1961). Her family called her “Judy” to distinguish her from her mother.

Charles served as the Superintendent of the Illinois Steel Works before the family’s relocation to Buffalo in 1905, where Charles assumed the mantle of Vice President (and later, President) of the Lackawanna Steel Company.

In 1921, his daughter Judy wed Charles W. Weis, Jr. (1894-1958), who was beginning his rise through the ranks at the Stecher-Traung Lithograph Corporation at 274 North Goodman Street (now Village Gate). He eventually became the firm’s president. As a woman of privilege, Judy settled into what she expected would be the quiet life of a society matron.

Fate had other plans.

Weis’ political life began in 1935 when Monroe County Republican Chair Thomas Broderick recruited her to serve as Vice Chair of the party’s Finance Committee. Two years later, she became the county party’s Vice Chair, as well as Chair of the Women’s Division. In 1943, she was named to the National Republican Committee from New York and subsequently served on its Executive Committee.

From 1940 onward Weis was a delegate to every Republican National Convention. She was a manager for Thomas Dewey’s presidential campaign in 1948, and seconded his nomination at the convention–the first woman ever to do so. She achieved another first in 1956 when she became Chair of the national convention’s Program Committee.

Standing ovation for Jessica Weis as she accepts the nomination for the 38^th Congressional District
From: Democrat and Chronicle, September 12, 1958.

In 1958, Congressman Kenneth Keating vacated the seat he had held for 12 years to run for the U.S. Senate. That same year, Judy’s husband died, and with her children grown, she decided to throw her hat in the ring to run for the 38^th Congressional District (Wayne County and the eastern portion of Monroe County). Running for a safe Republican seat, Weis defeated her Democratic opponent 58% to 42%.

By her own admission, she was a practical, not an ideological, politician. As a fiscal conservative, she refused her $600 stationary allowance, believing that congressional expenses had become bloated. She voted against domestic spending initiatives for airports, power plant construction, water pollution control, and veterans’ housing.

Keeping her constituency in mind, she did, however, support agricultural interests, voting for agricultural subsidies and against increasing parcel post rates that would have caused mail order nurseries in her district to suffer.

In her second term, Weis served on the Committee on Science and Aeronautics, the first woman to do so. The body supervised NASA and the Apollo Program. In debates, she urged her colleagues to vote for funding NASA’s budgetary allocation for meteorological and communications satellites.

Campaign postcard from Weis’ 1960 Re-Election Campaign. From: the Collection of the Local History and Genealogy Division.

Weis was also a strong advocate of women in politics. She was one of the founders of the Susan B. Anthony Republican Club, dedicated to the political education of women. She helped raise funds for the preservation of Anthony’s home on Madison Street and encouraged young women to “get started early in politics and be noisy about it.”

She supported the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution and championed women’s equality in the workplace, taking the House floor in 1959 and 1962 to support the proposed Equal Pay Act. “Mental capacity, talent, imagination, and initiative are not parceled out on the basis of sex,” she observed.

Six months after being sworn in for her second term, Weis was diagnosed with cancer. She completed her term but chose not to run for a third. Jessica “Judy” Weis succumbed to her illness on May 1, 1963. Her remains are buried in Mount Hope Cemetery. Following her death, her papers were donated to the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College (today part of Harvard University).

– Christopher Brennan
For Further Information:

Barnes, Joseph W. “Rochester’s Congressmen, Part II, 1869-1979,” Rochester History, 41 no. 4 (October 1979).

Beeney, Bill. “Addenda,” Democrat and Chronicle, May 13, 1963.

“Charles H. McCullough, Jr.” The Iron Age, 105, no. 15 (April 8, 1920), 1070.

“Jessica M. Weis,” Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_M._Weis).

“Judy Weis, GOP Leader, Passes at 61,” Democrat and Chronicle, May 2, 1963.

Knitter, Mary (“Mrs. Harold E. Knitter”), “Judy Weis Showed That She Cared,” Democrat and Chronicle, May 9, 1963.

“Weis, Jessica McCullough,” United States House of Representatives, History, Art and Archives. (https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/23524).

Women in Congress, 1917-2006: Prepared under the Direction of The Committee on House Administration of the U.S. House of Representatives (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2006), 389-391.

 

“Last of the Heretics”: The Controversial Career of Algernon Crapsey, 1847-1927

A previous post on LocalHistoryRocs! discussed Mary S. Anthony’s feud with Reverend Algernon Crapsey, Rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. Anthony was not the only Rochesterian who took issue with the priest. In 1906, Rev. Crapsey was tried for heresy, found guilty, and defrocked. This is his story.

Algernon Sidney Crapsey. From: the Albert R. Stone Negative Collection, Rochester Museum & Science Center, Rochester, N.Y.

Algernon Sidney Crapsey (June 28, 1847-December 31, 1927) was born in Fairmount (Hamilton County), Ohio, the fifth of nine children born to attorney Jacob Tompkins Crapsey (1808-1882) and Rachel M. Morris (1818?-1881).

The family fortunes were favorable in Algernon’s early years, but a financial downturn set in when he was 11, forcing him to leave school and work a number of odd jobs. Three years later, during the Civil War, he enrolled in Company B of the 79^th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, but contracted pneumonia and was honorably discharged.

After the war, Crapsey attended St. Stephen’s College (now Bard College), in Annandale, New York, graduating in 1869. He then completed a degree at the General Theological Seminary in New York City in 1872.

Following his priestly ordination, he served as assistant rector of Trinity Church in New York before becoming Rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Rochester in 1879. During his tenure, he transformed the “little chapel with only two-score [40] sheep” into a large and thriving parish.

Social ministry was at the heart of everything Crapsey did. He organized the men of the parish into St. Andrew’s Brotherhood, whose members were encouraged to participate in various charitable activities and education programs.

He also established a formal training program for kindergarten teachers–the first in Rochester—and a night school with courses in “domestic science and mechanical arts.” He engaged in mission work among the African American community in Rochester and elsewhere in the United States as well.

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church at the corner of Averill Avenue and Ashland Street circa 1920-1930. 
From: the Albert R. Stone Negative Collection, Rochester Museum & Science Center, Rochester, N.Y.

During his time at St. Andrew’s, Crapsey’s thinking underwent a revolutionary change as he encountered the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin and the socio-economic philosophies of Karl Marx. In February 1905, he began a series of sermons in which he denied the historic doctrines of Jesus’ divinity and the Virgin Birth (i.e., that Jesus had no earthly father). That year, he published his views in a book entitled “Religion and Politics.”

As his declared opinions were contrary to the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds (foundational to Christian thought in general, and Episcopal teachings in particular), many religious Rochesterians became outraged.

Bishop William Walker (1839 – 1917) called for a committee to investigate the controversy. The committee was split 2 to 3 with the minority favoring a trial for heresy. Bishop Walker was inclined not to pursue the matter, but pressure from diocesan clergy forced him to bring charges.

Bishop William D. Walker (at center) ca. 1911. From: the Albert R. Stone Negative Collection, Rochester Museum & Science Center, Rochester, N.Y.

The trial began on April 17, 1906, in the rectory of St. James’ Church in Batavia, New York, and concluded on May 9th with the guilty verdict. Crapsey’s attorneys filed for appeal, but the church’s Court of Review upheld the verdict and he was formally deposed on December 4, 1906.

Following his deposition, Crapsey continued to write and lecture on religious and social issues. He briefly joined the Socialist Party, but left upon realizing he was not wholly comfortable with the organization. In his 1924 autobiography, Last of the Heretics, Crapsey justified his beliefs:

I am a heretic because I believe in the teachings of Jesus and do not believe in the doctrine of the Christ. A heretic is one who thinks and gives voice to his own thought, chooses his own way, does not submit easily to authority. God has never troubled me. I have taken him for granted.  It was the humanity of Jesus and not his divinity that won and held my allegiance.

Algernon Sidney Crapsey died on December 31, 1927. He was 80 years old. His mortal remains are buried in Mount Hope Cemetery.

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church ca. 1990. From: City Hall Photo Lab.

– Christopher Brennan

For Further Information:

Crapsey, Algernon Sidney.  Last of the Heretics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1924).

Neese, Stephen T.  Algernon Sidney Crapsey: Last of the Heretics (Newcastle, England: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007).

Swanton, Carolyn. “Dr. Algernon S. Crapsey: Religious Reformer,” Rochester History, 42:1 (January 1980).

“Text of the Charges Preferred Against the Rev. Dr. A. S. Crapsey,” Democrat and Chronicle, March 5, 1906.

“Dr. Crapsey’s Former Curate Appears to Testify Against Him,” Democrat and Chronicle, April 26, 1906.

“Algernon Sidney Crapsey, Religious Liberal, Scholar and Humanist, Dies, Aged 80,” Democrat and Chronicle, January 1, 1928.

 

 

Heavily Historic Parking Lot: the Rise and Fall of Corinthian Hall

A historic parking lot. From: Googlemaps 2020

The parking lot beside the Holiday Inn might not be the first place that comes to mind when one thinks of historic sites in Rochester, but as it happens, one of the city’s most significant buildings once stood at that very location.

In the 1840s, when Rochester was still in its infancy, the neighborhood surrounding what is now Corinthian Street was one of the dirtiest and most neglected areas in the city.

Work Street was the former name of Corinthian Street. The street on the left hand side is State Street and Main Street lies at the bottom of the image. From: Plan of the City of Rochester, 1851.

The same area today. The unmarked road is Corinthian Street. From: Googlemaps, 2020.

In 1848, seeking to remedy this situation, William A. Reynolds decided to build an edifice for the Athenaeum and Mechanics Association (the predecessor of RIT) directly behind his eponymous Reynolds Arcade building.

Reynolds, who became president of the Association in 1847, had initially conceived the structure as a library and reading room until his architect, Henry Searle, convinced him to add a third story to the building for a concert hall.

A circa 1866 engraving of Corinthian Hall. From: the Collection of the Rochester Public Library’s Local History & Genealogy Division.

Completed in 1849, the edifice was dubbed Corinthian Hall for the impressive columns that adorned its interior. In addition to its namesake architectural features, the venue was also outfitted with grand chandeliers and a ceiling paneled with Grecian moldings.

An engraving of the interior of Corinthian Hall, circa 1851. From: the Collection of the Rochester Public Library’s Local History & Genealogy Division.

Upon Corinthian Hall’s opening on June 28, 1849, the Rochester Daily Democrat raved that the building was, “…at once an ornament and one of the most desirable edifices for the purposes to which it is to be devoted, that can be found in the State. It might be too great praise to say that it has not its equal in the Union; but we venture the assertion that there are not many like it, or that combine its elegance, appropriate construction, in principle and detail, and commodiousness.”

The third floor concert hall that had been an architectural afterthought soon took precedence over the building’s original bibliophilic function.

Over the course of several decades, the venue welcomed some of the most significant artistic, literary, and political figures of the nineteenth century.

One of the first major artists to grace the Corinthian stage was world-renowned opera singer, Jenny Lind, who gave two concerts at the hall in July 1851.

Swedish songstress, Jenny Lind by Edward Magnus, 1862. From: Wikipedia Commons (image in public domain). Accessed March 18, 2020.

Lind, known as “The Swedish Nightingale” for her sweet soprano stylings, was so impressed with the venue that she reportedly called the hall the best she had seen in America.

An advertisement for the second night of Lind’s stint at Corinthian Hall. From: Rochester Union and Advertiser, July 23, 1851.

Other famous acts that performed at the hallowed hall included Wild West showman Buffalo Bill, humbugger and circus pioneer P.T. Barnum, and esteemed actor Edwin Booth. Booth, brother to the infamous actor and assassin, John Wilkes Booth, wowed Rochester audiences in 1873 with his stirring portrayal of Hamlet, prince of Denmark.

Edwin Booth as Hamlet. From: Library of Congress. Accessed: March 18, 2020.

Wordsmiths such as transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, newspaper publisher Horace Greeley, and author Charles Dickens spoke at the venue as well. The latter drew some 800 people, though local reviews of the event suggested that Dickens’ talents as a writer vastly surpassed his skills as an orator.

Beyond serving as Rochester’s unparalleled entertainment venue for many years, Corinthian Hall was also the primary local meeting place for a number of religious and reform movements in the nineteenth century.

One of the first notable events the hall held, on November 14, 1849, was the first public séance of the Fox Sisters. That evening the siblings attempted to demonstrate the existence of ghosts via a series of mysterious noises, or, “rappings” that permeated the hall in their presence. Many in the 400-person audience remained skeptical following the séance, but the soiree nevertheless helped spark the Spiritualist movement.

The Spiritualist Fox Sisters. From: the Collection of the Rochester Public Library’s Local History & Genealogy Division.

Corinthian Hall was more associated with social reform than spiritualism, however. Temperance, suffrage, and anti-slavery activists all held meetings, lectures, and conferences at the site. Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass frequented the venue often, and the latter gave perhaps the most famous oration of his career, “What to the Slave is the 4^th of July?” at the hall on July 5^th, 1852.

Pamphlet of Frederick Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?” speech. From: the Collection of the Rochester Public Library’s Local History & Genealogy Division.

The esteemed establishment, which was rebranded the Corinthian Academy of Music in 1878, became increasingly known for its entertainment offerings in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Plays, concerts, and various forms of amusement took their turns on its stage until a devastating fire leveled the structure on December 2, 1898.

The interior of the lavish Corinthian Hall circa 1894. From: Rochester Union & Advertiser, September 8, 1894.

The day after the conflagration, Rochester resident George M. Elwood aptly summed up the lost landmark’s stature when he opined to the Democrat & Chronicle, “I very much doubt if anywhere in the world, certainly not in America, there are four walls standing, within which, at one time or another, have been seen and heard so many people distinguished in every branch of art, science, letters.”

The hall reopened in 1904 as the Corinthian Theatre, but operated largely as a burlesque destination, and–according to the Democrat and Chronicle, “a place of masculine entertainment”–until its closure in 1928.

The Corinthian Theatre in the last decade of its existence. From: Democrat and Chronicle, February 21, 1928.

The once incomparable venue was razed in 1929. Its former location has been used as a space to park cars ever since.

-Emily Morry

Down on the Corner: Taverns and Transformations in the Bull’s Head Neighborhood

Bull’s Head Plaza (Googlemaps, 2019)

Bull’s Head Plaza, which has stood on the southeast corner of West Main and Genesee Streets since the early 1950s, will soon undergo a transformation as part of an Urban Renewal plan designed to revitalize one of Rochester’s oldest neighborhoods.

The Plaza and the surrounding Bull’s Head neighborhood. City of Rochester Map, 2019

The Plaza has been a fixture in the area for over half a century, but the corner on which it stands is no stranger to change, having experienced a number of metamorphoses over the past 200 years, going back to when it housed the very tavern that gave the Bull’s Head neighborhood its name.

According to the 19^th century reminiscences of Rochester resident George W. Fisher, “In the early settlement of the country before Rochester was a village, an old wood building stood at the intersection of Genesee Street and Buffalo Road, kept as a country tavern. Suspended from a post on the road side hung the ponderous tavern sign, lettered on both sides ‘Bull’s Head Tavern.’”

Sources vary on the tavern’s establishment date, but it was likely erected sometime between 1808 and 1813, when Buffalo Street (now West Main Street) was a crude, forest-enveloped stage road leading westward to Batavia and points beyond. Genesee Street and  Brown Street, also well traveled thoroughfares at the time, provided passage to developing settlements to the north and south.

The Bull’s Head Tavern thus became a popular stopping point for travelers heading to and from Rochester, and served as the namesake of the nascent neighborhood surrounding the crossroads.

The advantageous location was not lost on Derrick Sibley and Joseph Field, two settlers from New England, who envisioned the hub as a bustling cattle market on Rochester’s outskirts, akin to the Brighton Market just outside of Boston. In 1827, the pair purchased several acres of property at the tavern site and replaced the old wooden frame building with a three-story stone structure.

A sketch of the stone version of the Bull’s Head Tavern (From: Bull’s Head Economy-Aide, February 6, 1936, Vol. 1, No.2)

Legend has it that a salt-laden spring in the area was reserved for bovines bound for Rochester, and that the quadrupeds were encouraged to drink from it handsomely, thus inflating their weight (and value) by the time they reached the market scales.

Though the enterprise attracted additional settlers to the Bull’s Head neighborhood, the cattle market did not prove successful, and by 1831, Sibley and Field had decided to pursue other ventures (Field went on to become Mayor of Rochester in 1848).

From: Rochester Republican, May 10, 1831.

The tavern didn’t stay on the market long. In 1832, new proprietor John Masury posted an advertisement painting the Bull’s Head Tavern as an idyllic getaway for Rochester residents and passers through alike. The ad boasted:

“This establishment has lately been fitted up as a pleasant retreat from the noise and bustle of business—about one mile from the center of attraction—on the Buffalo Road. It is hoped that the present occupant will receive encouragement suitable to his exertions.”

The stone building would go on to house a different kind of retreat the following decade, when it was purchased by Dr. Hatfield Halsted.

Halsted, who billed himself as a “Magnetic Physician,” had previously operated a drug store on Buffalo Street for a number of years, where he sold “electric pills” and three different varieties of “Magnetic Ether.” In 1844, Dr. Halsted purchased the tavern property with the intent to transform it into a “Motorpathic Institute and Water Cure,” taking advantage of the nearby sulphur spring and ample supply of rock water.

As Halsted explained in a Rochester Daily Advertiser promotional article from 1846,  “I have become convinced that I can have access to as good, and all things considered, better water at this location, for treating all kinds of disease in the most successful manner, than can be obtained in any other situation.”

A circa July 1852 advertisement for Halsted’s practice featured in the Rochester Daily Democrat.

Halsted claimed that by combining Hydropathy (water therapy) with his “Magnetic Remedies,” he could help cure a host of ailments including gout, dyspepsia, St. Anthony’s Fire, St. Vitus’ Dance, nervous diseases and “female difficulties.”[1]

The doctor welcomed patients at Halsted Hall until 1854, after which he moved on to a new water cure practice in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Bull’s Head area circa 1851, featuring Halsted Hall on the southeast corner of Buffalo (now West Main) and Genesee Streets. From: Plan of the City of Rochester, N.Y./surveyed & drawn by Marcus Smith & B. Callan. New York: M. Dripps, 1851.

The building Halsted left behind served as a quasi-medical facility once again in the 1860s, as it housed the overflow of wounded Civil War soldiers seeking care at St. Mary’s Hospital.

Following the war, the edifice was remodeled as St. Mary’s Boys’ Orphan Asylum. In 1871, a new orphanage building was constructed beside the former tavern, which was repurposed as a branch of St. Patrick’s Parochial School.

St Mary’s Boys’ Orphan Asylum, including the stone tavern structure on the left and the new orphanage building on the right, circa 1875. From: City of Rochester Plat Map, 1875.

The historic tavern building remained at the corner of West Main and Genesee Streets until 1909, when it was torn down to make room for the orphanage’s expansion.

The expanded St. Mary’s institution, along with St. Patrick’s Orphan Girls’ Asylum, in 1910. From: City of Rochester Plat Map, 1910.

The orphanage met its fate a few decades later, when it too was razed, making way for the much anticipated Bull’s Head Plaza.

 

-Emily Morry

 

[1] St. Anthony’s Fire, in addition to being a stellar potential band name, refers to poisoning by ergot, a fungus grown on rye grass. St. Vitus’ Dance, also a decent candidate for a band name, is an antiquated term for Sydenham’s Chorea, a neurological disorder characterized by rapid movements of the limbs and face. “Female Difficulties” (not recommended by this author as a band name), may have referred to any number of gynecological conditions.