Dr. Susan B. Anthony papers

Dr. Susan B. Anthony (also referred to as Susan B. Anthony II), the great-niece and namesake of the women's rights leader Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), was born in Easton, Pennsylvania in 1916. Her father Luther Burt Anthony was the son of the suffragist's younger brother Jacob Merritt Anthony.

Anthony attended the University of Rochester, graduating in 1938. In 1938-39 she worked as a research assistant in the office of the National Youth Administration in Washington, DC. While an undergraduate she was involved in the peace movement, but learning of the plight of anti-fascists forces in the Spanish Civil War, she lobbied in 1938 to lift the arms embargo against the Spanish Republic. During this same period she was involved in the civil rights movement, becoming a sponsor of the National Negro congress. In 1941 she received a master of arts degree in Political science from American University.

Anthony was a city desk editor for the Washington Star from 1939 to 1944. She also published articles on women's issues and migrants in The New York Times Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, and other periodicals. Her first book, Out of the Kitchen-Into the War was published in 1943.

In 1940 Anthony married political activist Henry Hill Collins, Jr. (1904-1961). During the war, she worked with Ann Shyne at Bryn Mawr College to compile a comprehensive study of "Women During the War and After." A summary of the results were published by the U.S. Women's Bureau and provided Anthony with material for several articles and lectures. In 1946 she hosted five times a week a radio program, "This Woman's World," over New York station WMCA. After nine months it was canceled for being "too controversial to be commercially feasible." The program was picked up by the New York Post station WLIB, but canceled six weeks later. In 1948, she and Henry Collins were divorced.

In 1945 she co-founded with Helen Snow the Congress of American Women. Anthony represented the Congress and its affiliate, the Women's International Democratic Federation, at the United Nations Status of Women Commission in 1948.

In 1949 or 1950, Anthony married Clifford Thomas McAvoy (1904-1957). McAvoy had been the deputy commissioner of Welfare in New York City from 1938 to 1941. In 1941 he was appointed legislative and political action director of the Greater New York Congress of Industrial Organizations Council, and in 1944 became the legislative representative in Washington for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. At the time of their marriage he was the New England Director of the Progressive Party Labor Committee, an organization he had founded to support the Presidential bid of Progressive Party candidate, Henry A. Wallace.

Now living in Boston, Anthony broadcast a radio program on which she discussed the problems of alcoholism and interviewed alcoholics. Because of her husband's associates, she was mentioned as a "fellow traveler" in a Life magazine article. In 1951 she divorced Clifford McAvoy and moved to Key West, Florida where she became a newspaper reporter for the Citizen.

In 1954 she married Aubrey John Lewis, a British citizen living in Jamaica. Lewis was a Religious Science practitioner and owner of an allspice plantation. In Jamaica Anthony became a reporter for The Gleaner, writing several articles on celebrities who visited the island.

Beginning in the early 1950s, Anthony's espousal of liberal causes brought her to the attention of the U. S. Justice Department, who requested her to come to Washington, D.C. to testify before a Congressional committee investigating communism. When, for health reasons, she refused to return to the United States, she became subject to extradition. After being served a subpoena in December, 1954, she took out British citizenship. Her lawyers advised her that this action would give her dual citizenship, and not jeopardize her American citizenship. This proved not to be the case.

In 1960 Anthony divorced John Lewis and left Jamaica. She arrived in the United States on a visitor's visa, her passport having been confiscated by the U. S. Consul in Kingston. In 1967 Congressman John Bardemas introduced a bill to restore her citizenship. It was voted down by the House Immigration Subcommittee, who ordered her immediate deportation. She won a stay of deportation, and the case was reheard before the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals in 1969. The Board reversed all former Immigration and Naturalization Service and Justice Department actions against her and restored her citizenship.

In 1960 Anthony underwent a religious conversion and was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church in 1961. She entered St. Mary's College, Notre Dame, and in 1965 received a Ph.D. in theology. She was one of the first fifteen Catholic laywomen to receive this degree. She taught theology at Marymount College in Boca Raton, Florida from 1965 to 1969.

A recovered alcoholic, Anthony dedicated much of her professional and personal life to helping others overcome alcoholism. She wrote articles and traveled extensively giving presentations on the issue. In 1973 she was a substance abuse coordinator at South County Mental Health Center in Florida. In 1975 she founded Wayside House, a rehabilitation center for chemically dependent women, in Delray Beach, Florida. The United States Senate Committee on Alcoholism and Drugs honored Anthony for her work with alcoholics at a reception in 1976.

Having found strength in contemplation and prayer, Anthony often wrote and lectured on these subjects. For nine months in 1976 she was a novice at a Cenacle convent drawn by their emphasis on prayer and teaching.

In 1978 Anthony appeared on the television game show, "$124,000 Question" as a women's rights expert. In five appearances she won $16,000. The publicity helped launch her national lecture tour. Her topics included women, alcoholism, feminism, and prayer. In 1977 she attended the National Women's Conference in Houston, Texas, where she endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment. When the Susan B. Anthony dollar was issued in 1979, Anthony participated in many of the celebrations, culminating in a reception at the White House hosted by Rosalyn Carter.

During the 1980s, Anthony traveled throughout the country giving lectures on substance abuse, feminist issues, and prayer. In 1983 she participated in the Seneca Falls Women's Peace Encampment marching in the protest against nuclear weapons stored in the Seneca Falls army depot.

In 1971, Anthony published her autobiography The Ghost in My Life (New York: Chosen Books). It was reprinted by Bantam Books in 1973. Her other books include Survival Kit (New York: New American Library, 1972), and Sidewalk Contemplatives (New York: Crossroad, 1987).

Dr. Anthony died in 1991.