This framed portrait of suffragist leader Susan B. Anthony was taken by photographer James Hale in 1905, a year before her death, and was rediscovered in an attic in New York. It's covered in soot from a fire in a neighboring building.
GENEVA, N.Y. — David J. Whitcomb had no idea that the Geneva, New York, building he bought in December 2020 for his law office even had an attic, so he was doubly surprised to find the treasures that have been stashed there for nearly 100 years.
Whitcomb and a friend noticed that the ceiling on the third floor looked odd after going up to change a light bulb.
They saw an access panel and stacked up some chairs so that Whitcomb could climb up and see what was inside, illuminated only by the tiny flashlight on his phone.
"The first thing I saw was a whole bunch of picture frames stacked together and these frames are gorgeous. They're the turn-of-the-century, they're gold, gilded, and they shone really bright and I was like 'Oh my God,'" he said. "I lowered myself and said 'I think we just found the 'Goonies' treasure.'"
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They returned the following day and spent about 12 hours going through stacks of pictures, frames, glass negatives, and photography equipment from the late 1800s and early 1900s.
One of the things they found was a framed portrait of suffragist leader Susan B. Anthony that was taken by photographer James Hale in 1905, a year before her death.
Anthony campaigned tirelessly for women's rights, including the right to vote, and was arrested in 1872 for voting in an election.
Hale gave the copyright to the photo to The Susan B. Anthony Memorial Association, which selected the picture as her official photograph and sold prints and postcards to raise funds. A clipping featuring the photo is in the collection at the Library of Congress.
Whitcomb said they found mail and other documents with Hale's name on it and pieces of the original glass plate negative used to print the photo, broken at some point over the years.
They haven't yet found the section of the negative with her head, but one piece shows the flag pin she wore on her left side in the portrait. Whitcomb is still hoping to find the rest of the negative, but he fears that it might be lost for good.
Most of the people in the photos are not identified, but they believe they've found portraits of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Elizabeth Smith Miller, who were also leaders in the women's rights movement.
Treasures in an attic
It took David J. Whitcomb hours to go through the old portraits and photography equipment he found in the attic of a building he bought in December 2020 for his law office.
The photos are covered in soot from a fire in a neighboring building.
David J. Whitcomb holds a fragment from a glass photographic negative, among the treasures found in the attic of his law office building.
They also found pictures of local sports teams, men in military uniforms and a large burlap sack that was filled with hundreds of prints that appeared to have been thrown away.
Whitcomb found a photographer in Geneva who is going to try to develop prints from many of the glass negatives that they found.
He reached out to the Geneva Historical Society and was referred to the society's former President Dan Weinstock, who has researched Hale and the local photography scene of the era.
Weinstock, a retired doctor, told CNN that Hale had won prizes and recognition for his photography and was known for taking a picture of President Grover Cleveland's fiancé Francis Folsom in 1885.
He said Hale moved to Geneva in 1892 and worked there until 1920, when he sold his photography business to another photographer.
Hale was connected to the women's rights movement, and a collection of his photos of suffragist leaders was showcased at the 1907 New York State Woman Suffrage Association, which was held in Geneva.
Weinstock said he knew that Hale had a studio in the building's second floor, but he'd never heard about the attic.
The man Whitcomb bought the building from didn't know about it either, and previous owners, who had bought it in the 1960s, were dumbfounded by the discovery.
At some point, the third floor was turned into an apartment, and a drop ceiling was installed to hide the space. The apartment hasn't been rented for decades and has been used by the attorneys working in the offices on the first two floors to store documents.
"We don't know how it ended up where it did and why it was just left and sealed off," Whitcomb said. "We'll probably never know the answer to that, but a little mystery is a good thing, I guess."
5 things to know about women’s suffrage
Aug. 18, 2020, marked the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave women in the United States the right to vote. Here's some background on how we got there.
5 things to know about women’s suffrage as the 19th Amendment turns 100
How did the women’s suffrage movement build and finally succeed?
Assistant Professor Cassie Yacovazzi, 36, who teaches American history and women’s history at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee, talked with the Tampa Bay Times about the women’s movement before and since the amendment became law.
In this circa 1913 photo made available by the Library of Congress, demonstrators march in a women's suffrage parade near the Capitol building in Washington. A horse and cart pulls a sign which reads, "We demand an amendment to the constitution of the United States enfranchising the women of this country." (Harris & Ewing/Library of Congress via AP)
It was a 72-year-long campaign that reached all the way back to 1848 (with) the first women’s rights convention (in Seneca Falls, N.Y.), and this was the first time that women’s suffrage was brought up publicly ...
I think what’s interesting about this: One, that it’s so early and so long before Aug. 26, 1920 (the date the 19th Amendment was officially adopted). But also, that this grew out of the abolitionist movement. There were a lot of women involved in the anti – slavery movement, and in their involvement in this, they realized that the same rights that they were campaigning for African Americans they themselves didn’t have ... And so this really jump-started the women’s movement.
The 15th Amendment granted Black men the right to vote, but a lot of those abolitionist women in the movement didn’t support it. Why?
The women’s movement grows out of abolition, and yet with the 15th Amendment, which is a huge breakthrough for civil rights — establishing that voting will not be denied on the basis of race — you have women’s rights advocates opposing it because women aren’t mentioned. And that actually causes a rift within the women’s movement. Some of the big names like (Susan B.) Anthony and (Elizabeth Cady) Stanton opposed... Black male suffrage because they are not going to support it without having women’s suffrage being alongside that. And they actually really move away from fighting for Black civil rights altogether … At the same time, you have a group of women say, “No, no,’' this is what they call the Negro hour, “and women are going to be next, but we have to be patient” ...
The two don’t really make inroads in the next two decades, so by 1890 they join forces in another organization, the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
Had they embraced Black rights by that time?
No, no, they didn’t. And this is one of the lesser known and less admirable facets of the suffrage movement is, overall they really move away from promoting Black civil rights, Black suffrage. Now at this time even Black men in the south — because of Jim Crow – despite the 15th Amendment is being denied the right to vote. And the women’s movement, at least among white women, they’re not really concerned with this …
Even after the amendment in 1920, Black women don’t really get the right to vote or aren’t able to access the vote in greater numbers until 1965 with the Voting Rights Act, because you have Black men and women being denied the right to vote in the Jim Crow South.
An estimated, 1,000 African Americans are in line to vote in the Democratic Primary, the first major Southern Election since the 1965 Federal Voting Rights Act. This picture was taken at 7pm (CST) when polls usually close on May 3, 1966 in Birmingham. All in line got to vote. (AP Photo)
A milestone of the Women’s Suffrage Movement was a parade of thousands of supporters in Washington D. C. in 1913, the day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration as president. You say that it heralded a new push in the suffrage movement, which had stalled.
It’s at this point that two female college graduates, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, get involved. And they kind of shift the focus of the movement to be a little bit more radical. They’re the ones who organize the parade. They also, after Wilson becomes president, stage protests outside the White House ...
They’re protesting in 1917, shortly after the U.S. was getting involved in World War I. Wilson’s big push for the U.S. entering World War I was we would make the world safe for democracy … So the women protesting outside the White House are saying, “Mr. President, you’re trying to make the world safe for democracy. Well, extend democracy to the women in your own country who are supporting this war effort.” And, you know, this gets the attention of the president. And it’s really not long after this kind of in-your-face tactics that the amendment is brought back up before Congress.
Did Wilson, by his endorsement of the 19th Amendment, greatly influence the outcome?
He did, and he really ultimately swayed Congress. I think with him, he just couldn’t ignore these protesters outside the White House much longer, to be honest. He needs the full backing of the country for this war. And he wasn’t necessarily ideologically in favor, but he came around. And I imagine he had a number of conversations with his wife, Edith Wilson, who did support the movement
FILE - In this September 1916 file photo, demonstrators hold a rally for women's suffrage in New York. The Seneca Falls convention in 1848 is widely viewed as the launch of the women's suffrage movement, yet women didn't gain the right to vote until ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. (AP Photo/File)
What events influenced the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s?
During World War II, a lot of women started entering the workforce by necessity, so that opened the eyes of a lot of women who hadn’t worked before. Many of them were expected to leave their positions at the end of the war and open them up for men. So that’s one thing that, I think, started a stirring for the women’s liberation movement is that taste of working outside the home, having those opportunities but then being denied those opportunities …
And another big turning point was kind of the eye-opening nature of Betty Friedan’s book, The Feminine Mystique (1963), which really appealed to women who were comfortable enough economically to be housewives. But it spoke to them. After she wrote that, women wrote in, “This is exactly what I’ve been feeling ...You just described the frustrations that I have.’' Of being a housewife and sort of feeling like, is there something more? And is it wrong for me to ask that? Is my life over now? Is the height of my day making the bed?
Members of the National Women's Political Caucus tell a Washington news conference on July 12, 1971 one of their goals is that women comprise half of the delegates to the 1972 presidential conventions. Seated from left: Gloria Steinem, member of the Democratic National Policy Council; Rep. Shirley Chisholm, D-N.Y.; and Betty Friedan, women's rights advocate. Standing is Rep. Bella Abzug, D-N.Y. (AP Photo/Charles Gorry)
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