Lucy Elmina Anthony


Lucy Elmina Anthony was an internationally known leader in the Woman's Suffrage movement. She was the niece of American social reformer and women's rights activist Susan B. Anthony and longtime companion of women's suffrage leader Anna Howard Shaw.

Biography

Lucy Elmina Anthony was born on October 24, 1859, the oldest child of Jacob Merritt Anthony, of Fort Scott, Kansas, and Mary Almina Luther.
After graduation from the Rochester Free Academy in 1883, she worked for the suffrage movement, acting also as assistant to the committee organizing international meetings. For many year she served as secretary for her aunt, Susan B. Anthony. In the 1890s Lucy Anthony met Anna Howard Shaw, to become her longtime companion. Lucy Anthony served as manager for Susan B. Anthony and Shaw in their world tours.
In 1891 Anthony, together with Shaw and Alice Stone Blackwell compiled The Yellow Ribbon Speaker, a collection of writings on women's suffrage.
In 1903 Anna Howard Shaw built a home at 240 Ridley Creek Rd., Media, during her tenure as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and lived there with her companion, Lucy Anthony, until her death. Anthony and Shaw were together for thirty years, and Anthony was by Shaw's bedside when she died. Lucy Anthony was the executrix of both her aunt and Shaw's estates.
Anthony died on July 4, 1944, at the home of a friend, Julia C. Kent, in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and in her will, she left the bulk of her estate to the National League of Women Voters and Philadelphia League of Voters.