Thornell Road Elementary School
Mrs. Stevens-Oliver's 4th Grade Class 2019-2020
Pittsford's Political Equality Club
This is a letter from Mary Anthony, who is Susan B. Anthony's sister, and the president of the Rochester Political Equality Club. In this letter she asked if everyone that is coming to the Pittsford Political Equality meeting at Mary Austin Agate's house could bring a friend. The reason she did this is so more people can come to the meeting to stand up for what they believed in.
Photos used with permission from the Office of the Pittsford Town Historian.
Photos used with permission by the Office of the Pittsford Town Historian.
In the Pittsford's Political Equality Club's minutes from 1902, kept by Mary Agate, she wrote what Miss Anthony talked about at one of their meetings. Miss Anthony asked the ladies to protest when they paid their taxes. She wanted them to protest against the injustice of, "taxes without the privilege of the Ballot." This means why are they paying taxes if they don't get to choose their representative. This was a lot like the quote, " No taxation without representation!" This quote was from the Revolutionary War, it is like what Mary Anthony said because they both don't have a representative. Also the ladies had marches for political equality. They did this to recruit more people to their cause. They also marched so the men in charge would listen to them. This shows that what the ladies were doing meant a lot to them. We know this because they were doing so many things for what they believed in and they wouldn't give up.
This is the flyer for the Monroe County Political Equality Club Convention. This convention was held at The Pittsford Town Hall on Monday, October 6th, 1902. Every Political Equality Club sent representatives. One of these representatives was Mary Agate. This meant Mary was probably very active in the club and that this was very important to her.
Photos used with permission by the Office of the Pittsford Town Historian.
Program and Delegate's Ribbon from Convention. Mary Austin Agate would have had items like these because she was a delegate at the convention.These artifacts are at the Library of Congress.
Susan B Anthony fought for women's rights. She was born in Massachusetts in 1820. Susan worked as a teacher and wanted to end slavery and was an abolitionist and wanted to ban alcohol. She tried to tell others about her ideas so they could support them, but no one would listen, it was like she was not allowed to. Many men did not listen to women's ideas, but that does not mean women would not listen to her. Many people who believed in what Susan did listened to her and because of this she became famous and because of this more people listened to her ideas in her speeches and supported her. Mary Austin Agate was one of these people who believed in what Susan did. As a member of the Political Equality Club, Mary Agate was chosen to attend the convention that was held at Hornellsville, in October of 1903. The program from the convention listed the people who were speaking, one of them was Susan B Anthony. We think this was probably a big deal to Mary because Susan believed in women's rights and had the courage to stand up for herself and others.
