Susan B. Anthony was the daughter of Daniel and Lucy Read Anthony, Quakers and political activists in the abolitionist movement. After the family moved to Rochester, New York in 1845, Anthony would meet William Lloyd Garrison as well as anti-slavery activist and escaped slave, Frederick Douglass. Douglass would later join Anthony in the quest for women's equality.

Anthony was a prominent player in the Temperance Movement, going so far as to take an axe into bars to destroy the barrels of alcohol, which got her arrested on several occasions. When she was denied the chance to speak, at a Temperance Movement rally, because she was a woman, Anthony took her attention to a new cause, women's equality.

In those days, women were – for the most part – considered property. To fight against the status que, Anthony joined forces with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the pair became a driving force in the suffrage movement. Under heavy opposition, they traveled across the country giving speeches and inspiring women - and men alike - to support the cause. In 1869, they founded the National Woman Suffrage Association and later, the American Equal Rights Association, an organization for white and black women and men dedicated to universal suffrage.

On November 1st, 1872, Anthony, Stanton and two others, registered to vote at a barbershop in Rochester, NY, becoming the first women to do so. How'd they do it? Well, Anthony threatened to sue the registrars personally if they didn't let them. On Election Day, the ballots were secretly cast (the ladies dressed as men). Two weeks later Anthony was arrested and fined $100, which she refused to pay – and never did. "The only chance women have for justice in this country is to violate the law, as I have done, and as I shall continue to do."
 
"To think, I have had more than 60 years of hard struggle for a little liberty, and then to die without it seems so cruel."  Susan B. Anthony passed away, in 1903, at the age of 86. She would never see the culmination of her life's work. It'll be another 17 years before the 19th Amendment grants women the right to vote in the US. On November 2, 1920, more than 8 million American women exercised that right.
 
We're still working on true equality in this nation but, thankfully, are a far cry from women being considered property. The strides toward equality that have been made are, in large part, thanks to Anthony and the other brave women and men that fought, tirelessly for those strides. Now, every time a woman votes, holds political office or manages her own finances, she is doing so – whether she is aware or not – in the spirit of Susan B. Anthony.

-Nathaniel Grauwelman is the Marketing Manager and a staff writer of the blog for WCHS.

A sold-out crowd (the event sold out a month in advance) played bingo for a chance to win designer handbags! Coach, Kate Spade, Cole Haan, Michael Kors and more were up for grabs.

If you'd like your shot, tickets for our next event are almost sold out. You can purchase them here.

Seventy-eight years ago today, at 7:50 a.m, Sunday, Dec. 7, Japanese aircraft appeared on the horizon over Pearl Harbor. Two hours later, 2,403 American troops were dead at what would remain the largest loss of American life in an attck until the September 11th terrorist attacks. It's one thing to recite facts but another to recall memories. Below is a video of some of the veterans that survived the attacks, recounting their personal experience during the events in their own words.

​For the second year, WCHS is holding its Christmas Tree Decorating Contest and Auction at Harmon Museum. Businesses, organizations and families from all over Lebanon have decorated 53, three-foot artificial trees. The finished trees are on display at the museum and up for auction, December 1st - 10th. The proceeds will go toward Harmon Museum’s children’s education programs. The display will be open during normal business hours but the auctions will be open online, continuously, until they close at at midnight on the 11th.

How many women out there have exercised their right to vote? On this day in 1872, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and two others, registered to vote at a barbershop in Rochester, NY, becomming the first women to do so. How'd they do it? Well, Anthony threatened to sue the registrars personally if they didn't let them. On Election Day, the ballots were secretly cast (the ladies dressed as men). Two weeks later Anthony was arrested and fined $100 (about $2,000 today), which she refused to pay.
​
It'll be more than 40 years before the 19th Amendment will grant women the right to vote in the US. On November 2, 1920, more than 8 million American women will exercise their right to vote.

2020 is all about Women's Sufferage at Harmon Museum with talks and an exhibit featuring the women who fought for the vote in Warren County!

​Kevin Harris teaches at Sinclair Community College where he has led courses in Drawing, Printmaking and Digital Media since the year 2000. Prior to coming to Sinclair, Kevin held teaching appointments at the University of Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky University, the Art Academy of Cincinnati, The University of the Arts, Moore College of Art and Design and Lincoln University.
 
Kevin earned a BA from Hampton University and an MFA from the University of Cincinnati. He has also studied at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia and frequently attends printmaking workshops at Making Art Safely in New Mexico. His work is included in the collection of the Cincinnati Art Museum as well as in many corporate and private collections. He has recently been featured in solo exhibitions at the Dana L. Wiley Gallery, Dayton, OH and at the African American Visual Arts Guild (AAVAG) Gallery at Central State University-West and at Sinclair’s Triangle Gallery where he presented, MULTIPLY, an exhibition of four thematically intertwined bodies of work: MULTIPLY, Angels Tread, Dream Sequence and Urban Wordfare plus The Sticker Snatcher Books.

FOX 19 recently did a focus on Lebanon and our very own John Zimkus was interviewed twice about Harmon Museum. Watch the segments below.

https://www.fox19.com/video/2019/09/16/fox-now-morning-road-trip-harmon-museum/
(this one was filmed at 5am)

https://www.fox19.com/video/2019/09/16/fox-now-morning-road-trip-harmon-museum-with-john-zimkus/

Predominantly a floral painter, Martin Rettig was the younger brother of John Rettig. Born in 1869, Martin studied under Duveneck at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and would later become known as an authority on the works of Duveneck. He was one of the first decorators at Rookwood Pottery, where he stayed from 1882 through 1885. He worked primarily in Limoges, France, in the Japanese style typical of Rookwood at the time. Martin was the president of the Cincinnati Art Club from 1918 through 1920 and passed away in 1956, leaving a large body of floral oil paintings as his legacy.