Susan B. Anthony speaks on the rights of women during interview at Lincoln Heritage Museum

[March 10, 2017]   LINCOLN - The Lincoln Heritage Museum recently opened a new exhibit entitled “Lovers of Liberty, Take Courage.” In order to highlight the theme of personnel courage, the Museum has begun a series of interviews of nineteenth century figures who exhibited courage in the face of hostile and entrenched attitudes of the general populace. The first of these interviews was held at the museum on Saturday. The person featured was Susan B. Anthony.

Susan B. Anthony was an icon of the nineteenth century suffragist movement, women who demanded equal status with men with the right to vote as their primary impetus. Miss Anthony’s courage in the face of threats and derision from the male power structure of the 19th century makes her an appropriate figure to start off the series of interviews.

Along with her friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony toured the country speaking out about the unfair treatment of women. Women were not allowed to vote or own property and were in every way treated as inferiors by the male population. In essence, they were not treated as citizens of the United States.

Jean Gossett served as moderator for the interview. “I wanted to model my interview after the television program ‘You are there’ that was popular in the early days of television entertainment. The program was moderated by Walter Cronkite and brought historic figures to a national audience in an interview format,” said Gossett. The historic figures for the program were portrayed by many of the greatest actors during this time.

Anne Moseley, Assistant Director of the Lincoln Heritage Museum, portrayed Miss Anthony complete with attire appropriate to the era. Moseley is a Certified Interpretive Guide and Trainer with a focus on living history. She remained in the first person during the interview, meaning that her responses were in character as the person she portrayed.

In this case, Moseley portrayed Susan B. Anthony as a real person whose only frame of reference was mid-19th century America. When she was sometimes asked questions that contained a more modern reference, she appeared stumped and could not respond. “My goal is to make my audience remember that these were real people living in historic America dealing with events that were contemporary with their real lives. I want to bring history forward to our time, and give insight into the life of this courageous person,” said Anne Moseley.

The Lincoln Heritage Museum plans two more interviews with courageous persons from the 19th century to accentuate the new display “Lovers of Liberty, Take Courage.” The next will be Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant. The series will end with Noah Brooks, a journalist and friend of President Lincoln.

[Curtis Fox]