Osborne Library

The Osborne-Wright legacy also includes national leadership in Temperance and in the WEIU move- OSBORNE CENTER FOR ment to teach poor women industrial skills needed SOCIAL JUSTICE for their employment. The Osborne-Wright Family, through its D.M. Osborne & Company, were also an important innovator and manufacturer of agriculture mechanization equipment changing the business of agriculture throughout the world.

We propose that the Osborne Library, in the center of Auburn, Cayuga County, New York, be used as a The self-sustaining educational facility to help schools, the public and researchers explore the Osborne- Wright Family and its community's contributions to Osborne Family the human rights movements of the 19th and 20th Centuries.

The Osborne-Wright legacy is part of the historical foundation of Auburn, Cayuga County and the Corri- dor of Conscience between Monroe and Madison counties. However, nothing in Auburn, the family's hometown, remains to house, inform and excite the public of that legacy, so it is nearly forgotten today. The Osborne Library will serve that purpose.

As a research facility and museum that includes Thomas Mott Osborne, the Auburn prison and prison reform movements, the Osborne Library would be an educational tool unique in the world. Its advent was part of the first significant prison reform since the Quakers built the first penitentiary in Phila- delphia soon after the American Revolution.

The Osborne Library will show educators and the public the Osborne-Wright Family’s role in opening OSBORNE CENTER FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE at the the state’s wildernesses for sightseers and sports people. , a son of Thomas Mott 99 South Street Osborne Library Osborne, led the state’s Department of Conserva- Auburn, NY 13021 tion during its formative years. The Abolition Movement spawned the women's rights' In 1913, T. M. Osborne, The Osborne Family’s movement, in which the Osborne-Wright Family was Eliza’s son, volunteered also central. The family helped make Cayuga County a for a week living as an Historical Perspective harbor for freedom seekers. Its financial aid and con- inmate in the Auburn nections settled many of them here. Its factories em- prison. He then wrote ployed former slaves and helped them gain self-respect. a best-selling book The Osborne-Wright Family was Martha Wright's West Genesee Street, Auburn about his experience, instrumental in shaping the most neighbors considered her "a very dangerous woman" propelling himself to the important of America's late 19th and because she entertained Frederick Douglass and put forefront of prison re- early 20th Century struggles. The Osborne him up overnight. Thomas Mott form. Soon he was ap- Library, being all that remains of the magnificent Osborne pointed warden of Sing Osborne mansion complex, is already a part of It was , and Frances Sing and then commander the National Register South Street Historic Dis- Miller Seward, who drew to Auburn, of the naval prison in Portsmouth, New Hamp- trict. Wealthy, erudite and idealistic, the family assuring her that bounty hunters would find Auburn an shire, in both places installing his radical Welfare deeply involved itself in the women's rights' uncomfortable place to capture fugitive slaves. The League system with notable success. movement from its beginning. Martha Coffin family — Martha Wright, Eliza Osborne and finally Jose- (1806-1875) was a Philadelphia Quaker, who phine Osborne, a local niece of Eliza — oversaw Harriet The Auburn prison now called the Auburn Correc- moved to Cayuga County to teach in a Friends Tubman's financial affairs. The family's and the man- tional Facility, was the source of many prison school and married one of New York State's sion's historical significance can be seen in the following reforms. Lock-step, as a way to move prisoners in most prominent lawyers, David Wright. paragraph, which Susan B. Anthony wrote in a letter in silence from cells to mess halls; prison industries 1903: to defray prison costs; prisoners confined to their In 1848 she and her sis- own cells rather in congregated in open spaces ter, Lucretia Coffin “This most wonderful woman - Harriet Tubman - is still and intimidating prison architecture were intro- Mott (1793-1880), alive. I saw her but the other day at duced there. were organizers of the beautiful home of Eliza the Seneca Falls Wright Osborne, the daughter T. M. Osborne also served two terms as Auburn's Convention, the of Martha C. Wright, in com- mayor, mentored Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and world's first pany with Elizabeth Smith is believed to be the man who suggested Roose- formal meeting Miller, the only daughter of velt seek his first political office. As a team Os- about women's Gerrit Smith, Miss Emily borne and Roosevelt worked to rid the state's rights. Martha Howland, Rev. Anna H. Democratic Party of Tammany Hall and patronage Wright's daugh- Shaw and Mrs. Ella Wright before Roosevelt joined the Wilson administration Martha Coffin Wright ter, Eliza Wright Garrison, the daughter of as assistant naval secretary. It was Osborne, who Osborne (1830- Martha C. Wright and the found Louis McHenry Howe, the man who was to 1911), continued the wife of William Lloyd Garri- Eliza Wright Osborne become Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt's closest women's rights' struggle son, Jr. All of us were visiting at friend and political mastermind. until her death. Susan B. Anthony once wrote the Osbornes, a real love feast of that the Osborne Family was among the move- the few that are left and here came ment's most important sources of funding. Harriet Tubman!” OSBORNE CENTER FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE 99 South Street Auburn, NY 13021