Jean Brooks Greenleaf

With her death in 1918, there passed the last of a small group of devoted suffragists who received their first inspiration from Susan B. and Mary Anthony.

Mrs. Brooks was domestic in her taste, caring well for her household, and, although disabled, actively involved in alleviating the wants of those less fortunate in life than herself.

At the age of seventeen, the mother's disability necessitated the ending of school life, and from that time until her marriage, three years later, she assumed largely the duties of her father's household.

Her interests in the rights and wrongs of woman was awakened early on while listening to the spirited remonstrance of a widowed aunt, Mrs. Willard, against paying taxes upon property that she had acquired by her own exertions, when she had no representation at the polls, while a miserable drunkard in the neighborhood, who was supported by his wife and daughters, and who owned no property, was allowed to vote in opposition to what both she and the wife and daughters of the drunkard believed to be for the best interests of the community.

The changes brought about by the civil war made a residence in Louisiana necessary for a few years, but the couple moved to Rochester, New York in 1867, and remained there, with the exception of time spent in Washington, D.C. when Mr. Greenleaf served as a member of Congress.

In December, 1890, she was elected to succeed Lillie Devereux Blake as the president of the New York State Woman's Suffrage Association,[5] and held the position till 1896.