Carolyn Cowles Richards turned ten years old today, Nov. 21st, in 1852 and decided to start her diary. Here’s an excerpt from the forthcoming second edition of “Girls: A History of Growing Up Female in America” about the day Susan B. Anthony came to Canandaigua, NY, the small village where Carolyn and her siblings lived with their grandparents: “Over her grandmother’s objections, Caroline and her friends went to Susan B. Anthony’s lecture, where they signed a pledge “to do all in our power to bring about that glad day when equal rights should be the law in the land.” Rebuking Caroline for embracing equality, her grandmother said “she guess Susan B. Anthony had forgotten that St. Paul said the women should keep silence.” “No, she didn’t,” Caroline replied, “for she spoke particularly about St. Paul and said if he had lived in these times. . . . he would have been as anxious to have the women at the head of government as she was.”
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