Anna Harbottle (Whittic) was born in Ossining, New York, and she attended Syracuse University. There she joined the Beta Tau chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma. Graduating in 1895, she earned a master’s degree from Syracuse the following year. She won a scholarship to Columbia University. According to a write up in The Key of Kappa Kappa Gamma, she was a “great student” and had a broad knowledge of “all world movements — in politics, economics, religions and education.”
She taught briefly in upstate New Yor and was president of the Syracuse University Alumnae Club for three years. On February 20, 1903 she married Lieber E. Whittic, a Syracuse lawyer. She devoted herself to suffrage working in civic and political affairs. Whittic was the founder of the Women’s Congress of Syracuse. She campaigned for women’s rights before the state legislature and worked to get women the right to serve on juries. She opposed labor laws which discriminated against women. Whittic served as the Vice President and Chairman of the Syracuse branch of the National Woman’s Party.
After women won the right to vote, she kept up her efforts to get women equal rights. In a 1939 interview, she said, “At present, only five states of the Union give women equal right with fathers over children and in less than half the states may women be tried by a jury of their peers.” She added “With all the great democracies backed to the wall, it is time that this country reaffirmed its ideals by giving all people, male and female, equal rights of citizenship under the Constitution.”
Anna Harbottle Whittic died on January 24, 1947 at the age of 72.
