Greetings from Jeanne Gehret!
2017 has been a wonderful year with the publication of two books about Susan B. Anthony and her family.
I first became interested in Susan when I visited her Madison Street home in Rochester, New York. There I soon became a docent and availed myself of all that homestead had to offer. They have a multitude of books, artifacts, and unwritten lore.
That home, where she went for refreshment before embarking on new battles, seeped into my imagination. With reverence I handled and read all the Anthony correspondence in the archives of the Rochester Museum & Science Center. And later, I curated an exhibit at that museum on the family’s memorabilia.
Having witnessed school tours of her home, I realized that there was no comprehensive children’s biography of her and set out to write it. This resulted in the 1994 publication of my book Susan B. Anthony And Justice for All, which was revised in 2017 as the Suffrage Centennial Edition.
Since my stature, features, and coloring resemble Susan’s, I have given costumed portrayals of her since 1996 in schools, libraries, museums, and public fairs. Updating these presentations became easier and more interesting as the internet made more information available.
Walking in Susan’s Footsteps
And whenever we took a trip anywhere in the Northeast, we visited places she would have frequented, including homes of people like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, and many others and cities like Albany, Washington, and Philadelphia. (My kids, teenagers at the time, used to groan, “Oh, are we going to visit another dead person’s home?) Her birthplace in Adams, Massachusetts provided a wonderful glimpse of her roots.
In 2012 I presented Susan numerous times in Leavenworth, Kansas, where Susan’s brother Daniel settled with his bride. One of those was the Leavenworth County Historical Society, which has continued to provide valuable information for my SBA projects. Join me on this blog to explore people and places that were memorable to the Anthonys. My discovery of Susan’s larger-than-life brother led to the publication of The Truth About Daniel, first in the Dauntless Series of historical novels.
When I’m not reveling in nineteenth-century treasures, I work as a licensed massage therapist and enjoy English Country Dancing almost every week, sometimes in costume. My husband and I have logged almost six thousand miles on a tandem bicycle. Stoker power!
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Great job and a long time in the planning! Congratulations!!!