by Evelyn Bailey
By Evelyn Bailey
This month begins a series of articles on our early history – pre-Stonewall to the ‘90’s.
Question: What is it about Rochester that has created such a welcoming community for lgbt men and women?
Answer: Other questions – Is it the water? Is it the influence of the
Iroquois nation, of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglas? Is it the
number of institutions of higher learning in a relatively small
geographic area? Is it the diversity policies of corporations? Is it
the open and welcoming churches in Rochester?
The truth is that it is not any one of these but the
interconnectedness of all. Rochester, in the 1800s, was the crossroads
between the east and the new frontiers to the west and south, a melting
pot of cultures, social and political ideas, intellectual understanding
and religious tolerance.
In the beginning there was the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) nation, a
matriarchal or matrilinear society. The influence of the Iroquois
nation’s Great Law of Peace and cultural traditions on the “Founding
Fathers” – Jefferson and Franklin at least — can be seen in a careful
reading of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. These
two documents show the merging of two concepts very peculiar and unique
to the Iroquois: that of God (The Great Spirit) and that of freedom and
individualism. The Iroquois (although their land and culture were
brutally taken over by the white invaders) provided Upstate New York
with its first influence of liberation and equality, and these roots
would grow, as when Frederick Douglass advocated for the abolition of
slavery.
Following excerpt from Jeff Lehigh’s article in the Dec. 1989 issue
of The Empty Closet: The Rochester area has a unique history, as does
the Rochester gay community. It is difficult to trace gay history prior
to the Stonewall riots, since there is very little concrete evidence to
prove who in Rochester’s early history really was gay. There are many
rumors, but little if any physical or documented proof to confirm that
these people were truly gay or lesbian.
George Eastman is one of many Rochestarians rumored to have been gay.
Eastman was born in Waterville, New York on July 12, 1854. He was
educated in Rochester public schools and started Kodak in 1888.
There are abundant rumors about Eastman and the identity of his
supposed lover, but no printed evidence of his homosexuality. Regardless
of George Eastman’s sexual preference, he nurtured the human spirit and
its unquenchable thirst for freedom – intellectual, social, economic,
and political (with the exception of unions and workers’ rights which he
opposed). The Social Gospel Movement of Walter Rauschenbush in
Rochester was supported by George Eastman’s generous philanthropy.
Susan Brownell Anthony was born on Feb. 15, 1820, in Adams, Mass.,
and was brought up a Quaker. Her family moved to Rochester in 1845.
Susan B. Anthony published a weekly women’s suffrage newspaper called
The Revolution. The Revolution’s motto was “The true republic—men, their
rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.”
Susan B. Anthony wrote four love letters to Anna Elizabeth Dickenson,
an anti-slavery orator and lecturer for women’s rights. Dickenson
represented the new generation of young women who were able to do
political work because of the precedent set by Anthony and the women’s
rights movement. In the second letter, dated March18, 1868, Susan closed
her letter to Anna, “your loving friend. Susan.” In one letter, Susan
B. wrote “To tell the truth, I want to see you very much indeed, to hold
your hand in mine, to hear your voice, in a word I want you — I can’t
have you? Well, I will at least put down a little fragment of my foolish
self and send it to look up at you.” Susan B. Anthony’s final letter to
Anna Dickenson was written 26 years later, and dated Nov. 5, 1895.
Susan closed, “Lovingly, your old and best friend — Susan B. Anthony.”
There is no clear-cut way to tell whether Susan and Anna were
actually lovers, but in reading the letters, one can only conclude that
their relationship was deeply loving, central, and committed, and
therefore essentially lesbian, whether or not genital sexuality was
involved.
Both George Eastman and Susan B. Anthony were far ahead of their time
in terms of thinking outside the box. Susan B. Anthony’s influence on
women’s liberation and therefore the liberation of all remains far
reaching. The spirit that resides within us to be free – to be who we
are – to live with equality – could not and cannot today be held back.
We see this happening all over the world. Liberation – gay, political,
social – is ingrained in Rochester and its history.
The foundation for gay liberation – for our struggle for equality and
justice, to be who we are — was begun many years ago and continues
today, for we are not yet there. Shoulders To Stand On is proud of
Rochester’s “liberation” history, and these early pioneers – the
Iroquois Six Nations, Frederick Douglass, George Eastman, and Susan B.
Anthony.