Afternoon Tea at The Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum

This past Saturday (9/30) the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum held their monthly Afternoon Tea. This program was started by a summer intern last summer, and is a major draw to the museum. At every one of these events, the museum invites a speaker from the community to discuss their work. For this tea, it was a tad unique as the main draw was a reading of a play entitled “High Tea: A Dialogue on Women’s Suffrage” by one of the museum’s summer interns, Zayne Vance. Two MCLA students, Kathleen Najarian and Del’Or Ehade, were performers in this reading. Sarah Briggs from Sm[ART] Commons worked at the museum over the summer as an intern, returned on Saturday as a volunteer in serving guests.

It was an unexpectedly beautiful day for the event, with warm weather and gorgeous sun that is not usually seen in Massachusetts during this time of year. The event was completely sold out with every place setting being used. At the event tea, sandwiches, and pastries were served outside under a tent with the performers sitting at the head of the table. The characters in the play discuss their views on women’s suffrage as the movement was picking up steam. This dialogue was inspired by actual conversations that would happen at events like this and reasons why people would be for or against, such as how it may jeopardize their position in society or be seen as frivolous whereas some women desperately needed these rights in order to sustain themselves and their children.

An exhibit over the summer opened inside the house entitled “Votes for Women: How Tea Sparked a Suffrage Revolution” that is a wonderful compliment to the tea service. Guests are able to learn about the main inspiration for this event, the famous teas that Alva Belmont would hold to raise awareness for her movement. These teas were important because they were some of the only times that women would be gathered together. Some of the research and installation of this exhibit was performed by Sarah as part of her summer internship.