Susan B. Anthony

Read about Susan B. Anthony, a leader in the fight for women's suffrage in America.
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Susan Brownell Anthony
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs

Susan Brownell Anthony

1820-1906

  • American reformer and leader of the women's suffrage movement
  • Born in Adams, MA
  • Daughter of Daniel Anthony, Quaker abolitionist
  • Teacher in rural New York state at 17 years old
  • Fought for equal pay for women teachers, for coeducation, and for college training for girls
  • Organized the first woman's temperance association, the Daughters of Temperance
  • Met Elizabeth Cady Stanton at a temperance meeting in 1851 and became a close personal friend
  • Until Stanton's death in 1902, Anthony and Stanton were leaders of the women's suffrage movement in the U.S.
  • Lectured on women's rights and abolition from 1851 to 1860
  • Helped to pass the first laws (with Stanton) in the New York state legislature to guarantee women rights over their children and control of property and wages
  • In 1863 Anthony co-organized the Women's Loyal League to support Lincoln's government, especially his emancipation policy
  • After the Civil War, she opposed granting suffrage to freedmen without also giving it to women (division existed among women's suffrage sympathizers on this issue)
  • Anthony and Stanton organized the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869
  • National Woman Suffrage Association united with the American Woman Suffrage Association to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1890
  • Anthony was President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1892 to 1900
  • She led a group of women in 1872 to vote in Rochester, NY, to test their rights under the terms of the 14th Amendment
  • Anthony was arrested, tried, and sentenced to a fine (which she refused to pay)
  • Other women followed her example until the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case against them
  • Beginning in 1869, she traveled and lectured throughout the U.S. and Europe
  • Anthony possessed superior intellect, a strong personality, and unswerving commitment to the suffrage movement
  • With Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage, she compiled Volumes I, II, and III of the History of Woman Suffrage (1881-1886)
  • She used her own financial resources to buy most of the first edition
  • She presented the History of Woman Suffrage to colleges and universities in the U.S. and Europe
  • The History of Woman Suffrage was completed by Ida Husted Harper (Vol. IV, V, and VI, 1900-1922; Anthony contributed to Vol. IV)

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