This coming week is an election week and I turn to thoughts of Susan B. Anthony, without whom women might still not have the right to vote. About six months ago, I asked myself a simple question, “Did Susan B. Anthony make quilts, and if she did make them, where are they now?”

All good research starts with a question like that, or so it seems. My inquisitiveness led me to read her officially biography of hundreds of pages, written at her Rochester, New York home that is now a museum called the Susan B. Anthony House. Her biographer knew her well, and had access to all of her letters, speeches and other ephemera filed in boxes in an attic space. The first volume of the book was published during her lifetime, but the second half of the book did not appear in print until years later.

I had been fortunate, a year or so ago, to listen to a re-enactor’s presentation of Susan B. Anthony’s life at a University of New Hampshire presentation. It only fueled my interest and indirectly spawned my current article in magazine about the life, the words, and the quilts of Susan B. Anthony.

In the meantime, we were in contact with folks from three different museums, traveling out of state to see her birthplace, for ourselves. We have been in touch with a quilt club that reproduced two of her quilts. We have viewed a video about her life and work. This task of research was all-consuming, for months.

Susan B. Anthony liked to have her photo taken in profile as her eyes were somewhat crossed from childhood, a condition she blamed on forced reading lessons from a very early age

Susan B. Anthony was strong-willed, opinionated, and downright stubborn. Good for us! It is unfortunate that she did not live to see the date of November 2, 1920 when the first women were allowed to vote in the United States. I learned so much in the course of researching this project. I read three or four other complete biographies, each of which added a little more insight and some of which had conflicting information to her “official” biography.

That is all I shall say, for now. I hope you have a chance to pick up a copy of (January 2011 issue, available now). I do my best to bring well-researched articles to the publication.

P.S. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was Susan B. Anthony’s friend and long time associate. I have been alerted by a reader that Elizabeth’s first name is misrepresented in the magazine as “Harriet.” I am sorry for any inconvenience. I am not quite sure how this error crept in. Any student of history will know the difference, but for those who do not, the correct name should be “Elizabeth Cady Stanton.” I hope that everyone enjoys the article. I went to a great deal of trouble, travel, trials and tribulations to create it.

Patricia Cummings, independent researcher, book author (with a soon to be announced new book title), quilt historian

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