In celebration of “Women’s History Month,” we are featuring a photograph of Abigail Bush and a letter she wrote to Susan B. Anthony chronicling the historic contribution Bush made to the emergence of women into public life.
The first Women’s Rights Convention was held July 19-20, 1848 in Seneca Falls, NY. At the meeting, which was chaired by James Mott, resolutions were passed to address the civil, political, and economic rights denied to women. On August 2, the convention reconvened in Rochester, NY where the resolutions were again discussed. Susan B. Anthony, who was teaching in Canajoharie, NY at the time, did not attend the conventions, but her parents and her sister Mary were present at the Rochester meeting.At the Rochester convention, Abigail Bush was elected to preside over the sessions. This was a true departure from tradition, and Bush became the first woman to chair a public meeting attended by both men and women. For the observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the Rochester Convention, Bush wrote Susan B. Anthony that her action “ended the feeling with women that they must have a man to preside at their meetings." The letter is housed in the First Unitarian Church Papers.
To Susan B. Anthony, Greetings You will bear me witness that the state of society is very different from what it was fifty years ago when I presided at the woman's Rights Convention. I had not been able to meet in council at all with the friends, on account of sickness in my family untill I met them in the hall as the congregation were gathering & then fell into the hands of those who urged me to take part with the supporters of a woman serving as the president of the meeting. They had James Mott, a fine-looking man, to preside at Seneca Falls, but his head fell at the hands of my old friends Amy Post, Rhoda DeGarmo and Sarah Fish, who at once commenced laboring with me to prove the hour had come when a woman could preside and led me into the church. Amy proposed my name as president. It was accepted at once, and from that hour I seemed endowed as from on high to serve through two day's meetings and three sessions per day. On my taking the chair Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton left the platform and took seats in the audience, but this did not move me from performing all of my duties; and at the close of the first session Lucretia Mott came forward, folded me tenderly in her arms and thanked me for presiding. The Unitarian Church was open for us. I do not suppose another church in the city would have been. When I found that my labors were finished, my strength seemed to leave me and I cried like a baby. But that ended the feeling with women that they must have a man to preside at their meetings. From that day to this, in all the walks of life, I have been faithful in asserting that there should be no taxation without representation. It has seemed a long day in coming, but I think it draws nearer and that woman will be acknowledged as an equal with man. Heaven grant the day may come soon! With kind love to all the workers. Affectionately, Abigail Bush
88 years old 
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