by Jeanne Gehret
by Jeanne Gehret
Please read to the end for a special invitation to an upcoming appearance!
Before Kansas newspaperman Daniel Read Anthony ever married Anna Eliza Osborn of Martha’s Vineyard, he crossed paths with another young woman from Massachusetts—one whose life would eventually connect not only with his, but with that of his sister, Susan B. Anthony.
Her name was Harriet Goodhue Hosmer, and she was unusual by any standard of the day.
I first came across Hosmer while reading a letter from Susan B. Anthony in which she described her family’s 1845 move from eastern New York State to Rochester, near the state’s western border. She said, her brother Daniel was “still in Lenox playing with Harriet Hosmer.”
“Playing with?” Hmmm! Susan’s odd phrasing made more sense when I discovered that both Daniel and Harriet were energetic, fearless, and physically confident. And they both loved pranks!
Fearless pranksters
That year Daniel (aka D.R.) was twenty and working as a shopkeeper while fifteen-year-old Harriet was studying at the Sedgwick School in Lenox, Massachusetts. It would be another decade before he moved to Kansas to make his mark as a rampant abolitionist and outspoken publisher. Even after a serious injury to his arm, D.R. was still feared for his sharpshooting ability. One day, after being ordered not to carry a gun, he went around town conspicuously displaying a revolver-shaped object in a bag. When arrested, he gleefully unwrapped his “Quaker gun” made out of wood.
For her part, Harriet had a lot to learn before she could display her talent as the first woman sculptor in the America. According to her biographer Kate Culkin, she once “piloted a hand truck down a railroad track, almost colliding with a train.” Fearless wasn’t a pose for her—it was a habit.
Breaking into a man’s field
That same fearlessness carried her into art, where the barriers were far more rigid. Art schools excluded Harriet from formal classes because women were not permitted to study from live models. Instead of giving up, she found workarounds: anatomy classes, private lessons, and intense self-directed study. Her most important decision came when she moved to Rome, where she opened her own studio, ran her own business, and became a well-known sculptor with multiple commissions.
Her first independent sculpture, Daphne, quietly tells that story. The neoclassical marble bust shows the water nymph Daphne at the moment just before she is transformed into a laurel tree to escape Apollo’s pursuit. Harriet chose the instant of resistance—when a woman acts to save herself. Carved from a single block of marble, the work announced that she had both the technical skill and the artistic voice to stand on her own. It would later be considered one of the most important sculptures by a woman in the nineteenth century.
A strong woman
Success didn’t end the skepticism. When Harriet exhibited Zenobia in Chains—a seven-foot-tall marble figure—at London’s Crystal Palace in 1862, critics accused her of claiming a man’s work as her own. They argued that a sculpture requiring such strength could not possibly have been carved by a woman.
By then, Harriet understood that these limits weren’t just artistic—they were political. Her experiences shaped her support for woman suffrage and led to her friendship with Susan B. Anthony. Both women believed deeply in independence: economic, intellectual, and moral. Harriet summed it up this way: “I honor every woman who has strength enough to step outside the beaten path when she feels that her walk lies in another; strength enough to stand up and be laughed at, if necessary.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne once remarked that Harriet seemed entirely herself—nothing affected, nothing performed—free to live as her “inner woman prompts.” Seen in that light, her connections to both Daniel Read Anthony and Susan B. Anthony feel less like coincidence and more like alignment. In youth, she shared a moment with D.R., marked by energy and daring. In adulthood, she stood with Susan, her life and work offering quiet, marble-carved proof of why women needed not just opportunity, but rights.
Please pin and share!
Updated from post on 8/22/14, Early D.R. Love Interest?
You’re invited…
Jeanne Gehret portraying Susan B. Anthony
On February 15, 2026 (Susan B. Anthony’s birthday), I’ll be re-enacting Susan in costume and presenting with archival slides at the Penfield Public Library at 2 PM. If you’re in the Rochester, NY vicinity that day, come and say hello!
What: “Born to Lead: Susan B. Anthony and the Family Behind Her” – Presentation by me, Jeanne Gehret
When: Sunday, February 15, 2026 from 2 to 3 p.m. ET
Where: Penfield Public Library, Rochester, NY
Register and get more information on the Penfield Library website. Hope to see you there!
Want to read more about Daniel and Susan? Check out my historical women’s fiction Dauntless series!
Share
Related Articles
One of the hazards of writing historical fiction is the research rabbit hole. These detours can last minutes or entire days, and they pull you away from the story you [...]
Here’s something no one tells you about writing a historical novel series: the research never really ends. Neither, apparently, does the writing. This fall will mark the publication of Songs [...]
Recently I found a journal I had written thirty years ago. There’s something grounding about reading your own past struggles and the insights you gathered along the way, whether from [...]
Jennifer Chiaverini has written a historical novel on the Women’s March of 1913. Ordinarily, this would be an ideal combination of my favorite author and a favorite topic. But this [...]