The Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum is a

historic house museum A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that is preserved as a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a variety of ...

at 67 East Road in

Adams, Massachusetts Adams is a town in northern Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 8,166 at the 2020 census. History Nathan Jones purchased the township of ...

. It is notable as the birthplace of suffragist Susan B. Anthony in 1820 and for its association with early educators and industrialists in Adams. The property was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1985. The house is now a learning center and museum dedicated to showcasing Susan B. Anthony's early years. One room is dedicated to Anthony's later activist life.

House architecture

Built in 1817, the house is a conventional, center hall, 2.5-story colonial in the Federalist style. Twin chimneys rise from the building's center line. A modest 1.5-story ell was added onto the rear of the house, and a porch, added onto the side of the rear ell in the 1950s, was enclosed in the 1960s. A barn on the property was replaced by a modern garage, which houses the museum's gift shop. Inside the house, the original floorplan has been retained, with a central hall flanked by large public rooms in front of the house and smaller service rooms in the rear. The rear ell contains two small rooms. Most of the original woodwork has been retained, although one fireplace has been bricked up.

Museum displays

The museum shows Susan B. Anthony's daily family life and influences, such as her Quaker background, in the early 19th century and how the house was restored in 2006-2009 and museum consists of permanent and changing exhibits. The rooms include Kitchen and Heath, Daniel Anthony's store, the Birthing Room, the Portrait Gallery and the Legacy Room. Kitchen and Hearth depicts the main gathering space for the Anthony family and their dependents, approximately 23 girls who worked in Daniel Anthony's 26-loom mill on Tophet Brook, across East Road. Daniel Anthony's store, which Susan's father ran out of the northeast room of the family home to supply the needs of his textile workers and neighbors, has been recreated the way it may have been in 1817. The Birthing Room is where the first five of the Anthony children were born. The Portrait Gallery holds reproductions of Anthony family members and friends. The Legacy Room contains a timeline from 1820 to 1906 with the major events of Anthony's life and important world events; an artifacts collection with period pieces; and ephemera, including suffrage postcards and meeting notices, which provide insight into the issues for which early feminists advocated, such as: *

Abolitionism Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world. The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France in 1315, but it was later used in its colonies. ...

. Anthony was raised by anti-slavery Quakers. Slavery was among the most pressing moral question of the mid-19th century, and the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

resulting from disputes around it, tore the nation apart. Anthony fought against slavery in her early adult years. *The

Temperance movement The temperance movement is a social movement promoting Temperance (virtue), temperance or total abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and ...

. Anthony became deeply involved in temperance, one of the great reform movements of the 19th century. In her temperance work, she experienced the relative voicelessness of women in the political process. She began advocating for suffrage as a means to influence moral and social reforms. *

Suffrage Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

. After the Civil War, Anthony devoted her life to women's suffrage. Others continued the work after her death, and the 19th amendment was passed in 1920, giving women the right to vote.

History

The first of the Anthonys to arrive in

, was David Anthony, the great-grandfather of Susan B. Anthony, in the years before the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

. He came as part of a more general migration of

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

s to the area from

Rhode Island Rhode Island ( ) is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Connecticut to its west; Massachusetts to its north and east; and the Atlantic Ocean to its south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Is ...

and southeastern Massachusetts. He established a cider mill that remains in the Anthony family to this day. His grandson, David Anthony, built this house in 1817 as a gift to his son, Daniel Anthony, the father of Susan B. Anthony. David was a strong proponent of education, teaching at the East Road School, and joining with others in the tightly knit Quaker community to found the Adams Academy in 1825 on land owned by his father. Daniel Anthony also continued the family interest in mills, establishing a cotton yarn-producing mill, known as the Pump Log Mill, in 1822. It is in this house that his second child, Susan Anthony, was born on February 15, 1820. In 1827 he was lured by financial interests to Battenville, New York. The house remained in Anthony family hands until 1895, after which it went through a succession of owners. The Society of Friends Descendants acquired the property in 1926, and established a museum. The building was returned to private hands in 1949. It underwent restoration from 2006 to 2009. It is now home to the nonprofit Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum, showcasing Susan B. Anthony's early years and her legacy as a tireless advocate of women's right to vote. On October 9, 2019, ''

The Berkshire Eagle ''The Berkshire Eagle'' is an American daily newspaper published in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and covering all of Berkshire County, as well as four New York communities near Pittsfield. It is considered a newspaper of record for Berkshire Coun ...

'' reported that Colleen Janz, the director of the museum from 2012 to 2018, was fired on July 23, 2018, for allegedly stealing $31,000 from the museum through falsified transactions.

Susan B. Anthony abortion dispute

One of the exhibits is about Restellism, a name for

abortion Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. Abortions that occur without intervention are known as miscarriages or "spontaneous abortions", and occur in roughly 30–40% of all pregnan ...

that was first heard in a popular lecture, portions of which were reprinted on March 4, 1869, by editors

Elizabeth Cady Stanton Elizabeth Cady Stanton ( Cady; November 12, 1815 – October 26, 1902) was an American writer and activist who was a leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. during the mid- to late-19th century. She was the main force behind the 1848 ...

and Parker Pillsbury in the pages of Anthony's newspaper '' The Revolution''. The display describes how suffragists took a stance opposing the practice of restellism, the term used at the time for abortion. It shows 122 references taken from Anthony's newspaper—mentions of Restellism which offer insight into how the women's rights activists came to oppose this practice. The owner of the museum is Carol Crossed who is an anti-abortion feminist. The museum's initial mission statement included "raising public awareness" of Anthony's "wide-ranging legacy" including her being "a pioneering feminist and suffragist as well as a noteworthy figure in the abolitionist, ''opposition to restellism'' and temperance movements of the 19th century" (emphasis added.) A local paper reported that the exhibit about Restellism implies that the rejection of advertisements shows Anthony's personal views about abortion. Three opening day protesters said the museum's leadership was "inferring upon nthonyan unproven historical stance." They also said that the directors were pushing an anti-abortion agenda. Answering this assertion, Crossed said, "the pro-life views expressed in Anthony's newspaper, ''The Revolution'', will not be excluded from the exhibition."

References

External links