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Susan B. Anthony
SB Anthony from RoRaWW.jpg
Anthony in 1890
Born
Susan Anthony

(1820-02-15)February 15, 1820
Died March 13, 1906(1906-03-13) (aged 86)
Resting place Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester, New York)
Known for Advocacy of
Relatives Daniel Read Anthony (brother)
Mary Stafford Anthony (sister)
Daniel Read Anthony Jr. (nephew)
Susan B. Anthony II (great-niece)
Signature
Susan B Anthony signature2.svg

Susan B. Anthony (born Susan Anthony; February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement.

Early life

Susan Anthony was born on February 15, 1820, to Daniel Anthony and Lucy Read Anthony in Adams, Massachusetts. She was the second-oldest of seven children.

Her father was a Quaker who had married a Baptist. Anthony's parents raised their children in a more tolerant version of her husband's religious tradition. Their father encouraged them all, girls as well as boys, to be self-supporting, teaching them business principles and giving them responsibilities at an early age.

When Anthony was six years old, her family moved to Battenville, New York, where her father managed a large cotton mill. Previously he had operated his own small cotton factory.

Family

Her family shared a passion for social reform. Her brothers Daniel and Merritt moved to Kansas to support the anti-slavery movement there. Merritt fought with John Brown against pro-slavery forces during the Bleeding Kansas crisis. Daniel eventually owned a newspaper and became mayor of Leavenworth. Anthony's sister Mary, with whom she shared a home in later years, became a public school principal in Rochester, and a woman's rights activist.

Anthony's father was an abolitionist and a temperance advocate.

Susan B. Anthony - Age 28 - Project Gutenberg eText 15220
Headmistress Susan B. Anthony in 1848 at age 28

Education

When she was seventeen, Anthony was sent to a Quaker boarding school in Philadelphia, where she unhappily endured its strict and sometimes humiliating atmosphere. She was forced to end her studies after one term because her family was financially ruined during an economic downturn known as the Panic of 1837. They were forced to sell everything they had at an auction, but they were rescued by her maternal uncle, who bought most of their belongings and restored them to the family.

Teaching job

To assist her family financially, Anthony left home to teach at a Quaker boarding school.

In 1846, Anthony moved to Canajoharie to be headmistress of the female department of the Canajoharie Academy. Away from Quaker influences for the first time in her life, at the age of 26 she began to replace her plain clothing with more stylish dresses, and she quit using "thee" and other forms of speech traditionally used by Quakers. She was interested in social reform, and she was distressed at being paid much less than men with similar jobs. She later explained, "I wasn't ready to vote, didn't want to vote, but I did want equal pay for equal work."

Activism

In 1845, Anthony's family moved to a farm on the outskirts of Rochester, New York, purchased partly with the inheritance of Anthony's mother. There they associated with a group of Quaker social reformers who had left their congregation because of the restrictions it placed on reform activities, and who in 1848 formed a new organization called the Congregational Friends. The Anthony farmstead soon became the Sunday afternoon gathering place for local activists.

When the Canajoharie Academy closed in 1849, Anthony took over the operation of the family farm in Rochester so her father could devote more time to his insurance business. She worked at this task for a couple of years but found herself increasingly drawn to reform activity. With her parents' support, she was soon fully engaged in reform work. For the rest of her life, she lived almost entirely on fees she earned as a speaker.

Anthony embarked on her career of social reform with energy and determination. Schooling herself in reform issues, she found herself drawn to the more radical ideas of people like William Lloyd Garrison, George Thompson and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Soon she was wearing the controversial Bloomer dress, consisting of pantaloons worn under a knee-length dress. Although she felt it was more sensible than the traditional heavy dresses that dragged the ground, she reluctantly quit wearing it after a year because it gave her opponents the opportunity to focus on her apparel rather than her ideas.

Partnership with Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (sitting) with Anthony

In 1851, she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who became her lifelong friend and co-worker in social reform activities, primarily in the field of women's rights. Together they founded the New York Women's State Temperance Society after Anthony was prevented from speaking at a temperance conference because she was female.

During the Civil War they founded the Women's Loyal National League, which conducted the largest petition drive in United States history up to that time, collecting nearly 400,000 signatures in support of the abolition of slavery.

After the war, they initiated the American Equal Rights Association, which campaigned for equal rights for both women and African Americans. They began publishing a women's rights newspaper in 1868 called The Revolution.

A year later, they founded the National Woman Suffrage Association as part of a split in the women's movement. The split was formally healed in 1890 when their organization merged with the rival American Woman Suffrage Association to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association, with Anthony as its key force. Anthony and Stanton began working with Matilda Joslyn Gage in 1876 on what eventually grew into the six-volume History of Woman Suffrage.

In 1878, Anthony and Stanton arranged for Congress to be presented with an amendment giving women the right to vote. Introduced by Sen. Aaron A. Sargent (R-CA), it later became known colloquially as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. It was eventually ratified as the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.

The interests of Anthony and Stanton diverged somewhat in later years, but the two remained close friends.

Trial

Susan-b-anthony-house
The house that Susan B. Anthony shared with her sister in Rochester. She was arrested here for voting.

In 1872, Anthony was arrested in her hometown of Rochester, New York for voting in violation of laws that allowed only men to vote. She was convicted in a widely publicized trial. Although she refused to pay the fine, the authorities declined to take further action.

Anthony traveled extensively in support of women's suffrage, giving as many as 75 to 100 speeches per year and working on many state campaigns. She worked internationally for women's rights, playing a key role in creating the International Council of Women, which is still active. She also helped to bring about the World's Congress of Representative Women at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

Later life

When she first began campaigning for women's rights, Anthony was harshly ridiculed and accused of trying to destroy the institution of marriage. Public perception of her changed radically during her lifetime, however. Her 80th birthday was celebrated in the White House at the invitation of President William McKinley. She became the first female citizen to be depicted on U.S. coinage when her portrait appeared on the 1979 dollar coin.

Having lived for years in hotels and with friends and relatives, Anthony agreed to settle into her sister Mary Stafford Anthony's house in Rochester in 1891, at the age of 71. Her energy and stamina, which sometimes exhausted her co-workers, continued at a remarkable level. At age 75, she toured Yosemite National Park on the back of a mule.

She remained as leader of the NAWSA and continued to travel extensively on suffrage work. She also engaged in local projects. In 1896, she spent eight months on the California suffrage campaign, speaking as many as three times per day in more than 30 localities. In 1900, she presided over her last NAWSA convention.

During the six remaining years of her life, Anthony spoke at six more NAWSA conventions and four congressional hearings, completed the fourth volume of the History of Woman Suffrage, and traveled to eighteen states and to Europe. As Anthony's fame grew, some politicians (certainly not all of them) were happy to be publicly associated with her.

Personal life

Portrait of Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony

As a teen, Anthony went to parties, and she had offers of marriage when she was older, but there is no record of her ever having a serious romance. Susan B. Anthony never married. She remained single all her life and received two or three proposals of marriage but declined, saying that she didn't want to give up her independence.

Anthony loved children, however, and helped raise the children in the Stanton household.

Death

Susan B. Anthony died at the age of 86 of heart failure and pneumonia in her home in Rochester, New York, on March 13, 1906.

She was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester. At her birthday celebration in Washington, D.C., a few days earlier, Anthony had spoken of those who had worked with her for women's rights: "There have been others also just as true and devoted to the cause—I wish I could name every one—but with such women consecrating their lives, failure is impossible!" "Failure is impossible" quickly became a watchword for the women's movement.

Anthony's death was widely mourned.

Susan B. Anthony quotes

  • “Woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself.”
  • “Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.”
  • “There never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers.”
  • “Failure is Impossible.”
  • “I don't want to die as long as I can work; the minute I can not, I want to go.”

Interesting facts about Susan B. Anthony

Legacy

Anthony did not live to see the achievement of women's suffrage at the national level, but she still expressed pride in the progress the women's movement had made.

At the time of her death, women had achieved suffrage in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Idaho, and several larger states followed soon after. Legal rights for married women had been established in most states, and most professions had at least a few women members. 36,000 women were attending colleges and universities, up from zero a few decades earlier." Two years before she died, Anthony said, "The world has never witnessed a greater revolution than in the sphere of woman during this fifty years".

Part of the revolution, in Anthony's view, was in ways of thinking. In a speech in 1889, she noted that women had always been taught that their purpose was to serve men, but "Now, after 40 years of agitation, the idea is beginning to prevail that women were created for themselves, for their own happiness, and for the welfare of the world." Anthony was sure that women's suffrage would be achieved, but she also feared that people would forget how difficult it was to achieve it, as they were already forgetting the ordeals of the recent past.

The Nineteenth Amendment, which prohibited the denial of suffrage because of sex, was colloquially known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. After it was ratified in 1920, the National American Woman Suffrage Association, whose character and policies were strongly influenced by Anthony, was transformed into the League of Women Voters, which is still an active force in U.S. politics.

Commemoration

Hester Jeffrey
Hester C. Jeffrey, who spoke at Anthony's funeral and arranged the creation of a stained glass window as Anthony's first memorial.
  • In 1950, Anthony was inducted into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans. A bust of her that was sculpted by Brenda Putnam was placed there in 1952.
  • In 1973, Anthony was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
  • The first memorial to Anthony was established by African Americans. In 1907, a year after Anthony's death, a stained-glass window was installed at the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church in Rochester that featured her portrait and the words "Failure is Impossible".
Marble statue of three suffragists by Adelaide Johnson in the Capitol crypt, Washington, D.C.
Portrait Monument, a statue of Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building. Created by Adelaide Johnson in 1920.
Leila Usher with bas-relief of Susan B. Anthony
Leila Usher, next to the bas-relief of Susan B. Anthony she donated to the National Woman's Party.

Banknotes, coins and stamps

Susan B Anthony 3c 1936 issue
Commemorative stamp of Susan B. Anthony issued in 1936.
  • The US Post Office issued its first postage stamp honoring Anthony in 1936 on the 16th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which ensured women's right to vote. A second stamp honoring Anthony was issued in April 1958.
Anthony dollar coin
U.S. dollar coin with image of Susan. B. Anthony
  • In 1979, the United States Mint began issuing the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin, the first US coin to honor a female citizen.

Names of awards and organizations

  • Since 1970, the Susan B. Anthony Award is given annually by the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women to honor "grassroots activists dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls in New York City."
  • New York Radical Feminists, founded in 1969, was organized into small cells or "brigades" named after notable feminists of the past. The Stanton-Anthony Brigade was led by Anne Koedt and Shulamith Firestone.

Other

Susan B. Anthony Gravestone
Susan B. Anthony's gravestone with “I voted” stickers on it

Susan B. Anthony Day is a commemorative holiday to celebrate the birth of Anthony and women's suffrage in the United States. The holiday is February 15—Anthony's birthday.

See also

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