Rochester, New York

Susan B. Anthony's Grave

The gravestone of the suffragist leader attracted extra visitors during the 2016 election.

At the historic and beautiful Mt. Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York, a modest white gravestone marks the final resting place of Susan B. Anthony, the social reformer who spent decades leading the fight for women’s suffrage, and was even arrested for attempting to vote in Rochester in 1872. She died in 1906, fourteen years before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.

During the 2016 presidential election, when Hillary Clinton ran for the nation’s highest office as the first female nominee, dozens of happily enfranchised voters headed from their polling places to Mt. Hope Cemetery to adorn Anthony’s gravestone with “I Voted” stickers. The cemetery even opted to stay open late on election night to encourage visitors wishing to honor Anthony’s legacy.

One can safely assume Anthony would be pleased to see her gravestone covered in “I Voted” stickers. Throughout her life, she saved trunks’ worth of letters, newspaper clippings, and other voting-related ephemera, which she used to write the six-volume History of Woman Suffrage. She collected so many materials, she nearly collapsed her sister’s attic, which she was using as storage space.

Not far from Mt. Hope, on the west side of the city of Rochester, sits the Susan B. Anthony Museum and House, where Anthony lived for the last 40 years of her life. In 1872, Anthony led 15 other women from this house to a polling place around the corner to demand to be allowed to vote. The house museum also offered an admission special for Election Day 2016.

When first minted (1979-1981), the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin was not very popular for several good or stupid reasons. People said there was a risk of confusion with the quarter, vending machines were not ready for it, some didn’t like a woman’s face on the dollar, its shape was unusual, the greenback was lighter in the pocket… It’s now a collector’s item, with a value of several dollars for some uncirculated coins.