I grew up in the suburbs of Rochester, New York and never knew that Frederick Douglass worked in the city most of his life. I knew some about Susan B. Anthony but never knew that they were close friends and colleagues.

I mentioned this to our docent at the Susan B. Anthony House yesterday, opining that a field trip would have gone a long way toward improving my sense of local history. As a former history teacher herself, she was somewhat protective of the profession, acknowledging that teachers have so little time to get in all the "key" points of history, and that they often have to practice "subversive omission" - deciding what to cover and what to skip. 

I get that, I guess. I was also somewhat surprised to learn that the Susan B. house was not yet a museum most of the time I was in school, which may explain the lack of field trips. Not so surprising is that the Frederick Douglass museum, just down the block, is still very much a work in progress.

Anyway, I loved the tour and especially loved the sculpture, in a little park midway between the Anthony house and the struggling Douglas Center, depicting Susan B. and Frederick having tea. Go see it some time.