# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A biography of Susan B. Anthony, and her lifetime work to allow women the right to vote.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Alligator Purse Susan B. Anthony & Nursing Suffragist Timelines Dollar Coin Links to Suffrage Movement

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Documented Rights Section III - This Land Is Your Land

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
With an unprecedented wave of immigration occurring in the late 19th and early 20th century, the face of America changed. New immigrants and long-term residents struggled to assimilate as well as overcome social inequalities and injustices.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Born on Feb. 15, 1820, in Adams, Mass., Susan B. Anthony was a pioneer crusader for the woman suffrage movement in the United States and president (1892-1900) of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Her work helped pave the way for the Nineteenth Amendment (1920) to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote.

Born on February 15, 1820, in Adams, Massachusetts, Anthony grew up in a politically active family. They worked to end slavery in what was called the abolitionist movement. They were also part of the temperance movement, which wanted the production and sale of alcohol limited or stopped completely. Anthony was inspired to fight for women's rights while campaigning against alcohol. She denied a chance to speak at a temperance convention because she was a woman. Anthony later realized that no one would take women in politics seriously unless they had the right to vote.

Along with activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anthony founded the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. Around this time, the two created and produced The Revolution, a weekly publication that lobbied for women's rights. Later the pair edited three volumes of History of Woman Suffrage together.

Anthony was tireless in her efforts, giving speeches around the country to convince others to support a woman's right to vote. She even took matters into her own hands in 1872 when she voted in the presidential election illegally. Anthony was arrested and tried unsuccessfully to fight the charges. She ended up being fined $100 - a fine she never paid.

When Anthony died on March 13, 1906, women still did not have the right to vote. It wasn't until 1920, 14 years after her death, that the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving all adult women the right to vote, was passed. In recognition of her dedication and hard work, the U.S. Treasury Department put Anthony's portrait on one dollar coins in 1979, making her the first woman to be so honored.

Biography courtesy of BIO.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Born on Feb. 15, 1820, in Adams, Mass., Susan B. Anthony was a pioneer crusader for the woman suffrage movement in the United States and president (1892-1900) of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Her work helped pave the way for the Nineteenth Amendment (1920) to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Susan B. Anthony Facts

Born

February 15, 1820, Adams, Massachusetts

Died

March 13, 1906, Rochester, New York

Accomplishments

Teacher
Staunch advocate of women's rights, workers rights, and equality
Pioneer in the women's suffrage movement
Co-founder of the Women's State Temperance Society
Co-founder of the Woman's National Loyal League Co-founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association Publisher of women's rights newspaper The Revolution

Susan B Anthony Articles

Explore articles from the History Net archives about Susan B. Anthony

" See all Susan B Anthony Articles

Susan B. Anthony summary: Susan B. Anthony was one of the driving forces of the women's suffrage movement, a staunch equal rights advocate, and social activist. She devoted her life to not only fighting for women's equality but for the equality of all people. She was deeply self-conscious of her looks and speaking abilities, but because her Quaker upbringing had placed her on equal footing with the male members of the family and encouraged to express herself, she overcame these fears to more effectively fight for equal rights. Wary of not being taken seriously, she rarely smiled in photographs, appearing stern and severe. She spent much of her adult life traveling the country, speaking about equal rights, circulating petitions, and helping to organize local women's rights and labor organizations. She was the first actual woman printed on a circulating U.S. coin (as opposed to the iconic female figure of Liberty); the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin was minted in 1979-1981 and again in 1999.

Susan Brownel Anthony was born February 15, 1820, to Daniel Anthony and Lucy (Reed) Anthony in Adams, Massachusetts, the second of eight children. The Anthony family was Quaker-her great-grandfathers on her father's side were first settlers and founders of the Friends Meeting in Adams. The community believed in morality as a necessary underpinning of society, simplicity, humility, and the equal treatment and opportunity for everyone, regardless of gender or skin color. The Quaker community had a strong tradition of abolition; slavery was abolished in Massachusetts in 1790 but it wasn't until 1826 that neighboring New York followed suit. In the intervening years, the Quakers in Adams helped fugitive slaves from New York and a few even settled in Adams.

Anthony learned to read at an early age. After the family moved to Battensville, New York, when Anthony was around seven years old, she attended the district public school until the teacher refused to teach her long division. Her father founded a home school where she, her sisters and brothers, and neighborhood children were educated. She began teaching at the school but in 1837 enrolled at Deborah Moulson's Female Seminary in Philadelphia to advance her own education. She only attended it briefly before going back to teaching to help pay her father's debts; the Panic of 1837 had forced him to declare bankruptcy.

In 1838, she joined the Daughters of Temperance, which focused on the dangers of alcohol and its negative effect on families, and campaigned for stronger liquor laws. She also began to move away from the Quakers and organized religion in general after witnessing hypocritical behavior, such as drinking alcohol, by preachers and member of the community.

Anthony taught in various schools in the early 1840s. While working as a teacher in Canajoharie, New York, she discovered the huge difference in salary for male and female teachers-$10.00 a month versus $2.50 a month-and joined the teachers union to fight for equal wages. Anthony continued to be active in the teacher's unions even after she stopped teaching and in 1853, at the state teacher's convention, called for better pay, professional recognition, and deeper involvement of women in the union.

In 1845, her family had moved to a farm in Rochester, New York, and in 1849 she joined them to run the farm while her father started an insurance business. She continued her work with the temperance movement while becoming more active in the abolitionist movement, which her father had taken a role in since their time in Adams, Massachusetts. Their farm in Rochester became a meeting place for abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass.

In 1851, Anthony met Elizabeth Cady Stanton at an anti-slavery meeting in Seneca Falls, New York. Stanton had begun campaigning for women's rights in 1848 and was already a key figure in the suffrage movement. Although Anthony did not immediately become active in the suffrage movement, she and Stanton became life-long friends, inspiring each other to fight for change and equality. In September, 1852, Anthony gave her first public speech at the National Women's Rights Convention in Syracuse, New York.

At the 1853 Sons of Temperance state convention in Albany, Anthony was refused the right to speak-she was told that the women had been invited to listen and learn-so she left the meeting to call her own. That same year, she and Stanton founded the Women's State Temperance Society, which eventually petitioned the New York state legislature to pass a law limiting the sale of liquor. Their petition was rejected on the grounds that the 28,000 signatures on the petition were mainly from women and children. This spurred Anthony and Stanton to focus so intently on the suffrage movement as a means of gaining more political sway that they were harshly criticized and resigned from the society.

Throughout the 1850s and 1860s, Anthony honed her speaking and organizing skills, continuing her involvement with the temperance movement, fighting for equal wages, abolition of slavery, and suffrage. In 1856 she became an agent for the American Anti-Slavery society, which involved organizing meetings, speeches, putting up posters, distributing leaflets, and encountering sometimes violent opposition. She dealt with angry mobs and armed threats; objects were thrown at her, she was hung in effigy, and her image was dragged through the streets. She and Stanton also increasingly tied female suffrage and black suffrage together, forming the Woman's National Loyal League in 1863 to support the Thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery and campaigning for full citizenship for blacks and women.

In 1868 Anthony started publishing the weekly newspaper The Revolution, with the masthead "THE TRUE REPUBLIC-MEN THEIR RIGHTS, AND NOTHING MORE; WOMEN, THEIR RIGHTS, AND NOTHING LESS," which provided a strong counterpoint to the prejudices evident in most other newspapers of the day, arguing for equal rights, suffrage, and equal pay. Publishing the paper brought Anthony into contact with women working in the printing trade. She encouraged them and the working women in the sewing trade to form trade unions since they were excluded from men's trade unions. She was even accused of strikebreaking in 1869 after encouraging New York printers to hire women during a printers strike, having hired women to print The Revolution.

Also in 1869 Anthony and Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association, splitting the suffrage movement into two factions: Anthony and Stanton campaigned for a constitutional amendment for universal suffrage in America while the American Woman Suffrage Association, founded by Lucy Stone, focused on winning the right to vote state-by-state. Anthony appeared before every Congress from 1869 to 1906, the year of her death, to ask for passage of a woman's suffrage amendment.

Following the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868-which stated, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdictions thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside" and prohibited limiting the rights of any citizen-Anthony argued that it gave women the constitutional right to vote in federal elections and planned on voting in the 1872 presidential election. Anthony and 14 other women were arrested for violating election laws in Rochester, New York, although only Anthony was indicted, in January 1873. In the four months between her indictment and trial, 52-year-old Anthony traveled to towns throughout Monroe County, New York, giving a talk titled "Is it a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to Vote?" to garner support for her position.

At her trial in June 1873, following arguments from both the prosecution and defense, Judge Ward Hunt read an opinion, presumably prepared before the trial, concluding that Anthony was guilty and ending the opinion with "the jury should be directed to find a verdict of guilty." Just before sentencing the next day, Hunt provided Anthony with the opportunity to speak, during which she argued, as her lawyer had, that her rights as a citizen had been violated. Hunt fined her $100 and the cost of the prosecution, which Anthony refused to pay, saying "not a penny shall go to this unjust claim." Judge Hunt ended the trial by announcing, "Madam, the Court will not order you committed until the fine is paid," preventing her from appealing to a higher court unless she paid the fine-she never did.

In 1887, the two suffrage organizations came back together, forming the National American Woman Suffrage Association with Stanton and Anthony serving as its first two presidents. This organization combined the strategies of its two predecessors-fighting for suffrage at both a state and federal level. This organization was finally successful in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, 14 years after Anthony's death in 1906.

In 1900, at age 80, Anthony retired as President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She presided over the International Council of Women in Berlin and became honorary president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. She died March 13, 1906 at her home on Madison Street in Rochester, New York. In her last public address before her death, she spoke the now famous words: "Failure is impossible."

Articles Featuring Susan B. Anthony From History Net Magazines

Articles 1

Articles 2

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
February 15, 1820, Adams, Massachusetts March 13, 1906, Rochester, New York Teacher Staunch advocate of women's rights, workers rights, and equality Pioneer in the women's suffrage movement Co-founder of the Women's State Temperance Society Co-founder of the Woman's National Loyal League Co-founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association Publisher of women's rights newspaper The Revolution Explore articles from the History Net archives about Susan B.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
th century. Partnering with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anthony traveled the country delivering speeches (many of them written by Stanton) and risking arrest in the name of women's suffrage by attempting to vote.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Susan B. Anthony, c, 1855
Library of Congress

Susan B. Anthony(1820-1906) is perhaps the most widely known suffragist of her generation and has become an icon of the woman's suffrage movement. Anthony traveled the country to give speeches, circulate petitions, and organize local women's rights organizations.

Anthony was born in Adams, Massachusetts. After the Anthony family moved to Rochester, New York in 1845, they became active in the antislavery movement. Antislavery Quakers met at their farm almost every Sunday, where they were sometimes joined by Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. Later two of Anthony's brothers, Daniel and Merritt, were anti-slavery activists in the Kansas territory.

In 1848 Susan B. Anthony was working as a teacher in Canajoharie, New York and became involved with the teacher's union when she discovered that male teachers had a monthly salary of $10.00, while the female teachers earned $2.50 a month. Her parents and sister Marry attended the 1848 Rochester Woman's Rights Convention held August 2.

Anthony's experience with the teacher's union, temperance and antislavery reforms, and Quaker upbringing, laid fertile ground for a career in women's rights reform to grow. The career would begin with an introduction to Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

On a street corner in Seneca Falls in 1851, Amelia Bloomer introduced Susan B. Anthony to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and later Stanton recalled the moment: "There she stood with her good earnest face and genial smile, dressed in gray silk, hat and all the same color, relieved with pale blue ribbons, the perfection of neatness and sobriety. I liked her thoroughly, and why I did not at once invite her home with me to dinner, I do not know."

Meeting Elizabeth Cady Stanton was probably the beginning of her interest in women's rights, but it is Lucy Stone 's speech at the 1852 Syracuse Convention that is credited for convincing Anthony to join the women's rights movement.

In 1853 Anthony campaigned for women's property rights in New York State, speaking at meetings, collecting signatures for petitions, and lobbying the state legislature. Anthony circulated petitions for married women's property rights and woman suffrage. She addressed the National Women's Rights Convention in 1854 and urged more petition campaigns. In 1854 she wrote to Matilda Joslyn Gage that " I know slavery is the all-absorbing question of the day, still we must push forward this great central question, which underlies all others."

By 1856 Anthony became an agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society, arranging meetings, making speeches, putting up posters, and distributing leaflets. She encountered hostile mobs, armed threats, and things thrown at her. She was hung in effigy, and in Syracuse her image was dragged through the streets.

At the 1856 National Women's Rights Convention, Anthony served on the business committee and spoke on the necessity of the dissemination of printed matter on women's rights. She named The Lily and The Woman's Advocate, and said they had some documents for sale on the platform.

Stanton and Anthony founded the American Equal Rights Association and in 1868 became editors of its newspaper, The Revolution. The masthead of the newspaper proudly displayed their motto, "Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less."

By 1869 Stanton, Anthony and others formed the National Woman Suffrage Association and focused their efforts on a federal woman's suffrage amendment. In an effort to challenge suffrage, Anthony and her three sisters voted in the 1872 Presidential election. She was arrested and put on trial in the Ontario Courthouse, Canandaigua, New York. The judge instructed the jury to find her guilty without any deliberations, and imposed a $100 fine. When Anthony refused to pay a $100 fine and court costs, the judge did not sentence her to prison time, which ended her chance of an appeal. An appeal would have allowed the suffrage movement to take the question of women's voting rights to the Supreme Court, but it was not to be.

From 1881 to 1885, Anthony joined Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage in writing the History of Woman Suffrage.

As a final tribute to Susan B. Anthony, the Nineteenth Amendment was named the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. It was ratified in 1920.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Susan B. Anthony - Women's Rights National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Susan B. Anthony(1820-1906) is perhaps the most widely known suffragist of her generation and has become an icon of the woman's suffrage movement. Anthony traveled the country to give speeches, circulate petitions, and organize local women's rights organizations. Anthony was born in Adams, Massachusetts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen's rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny. The preamble of the Federal Constitution says: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people - women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government - the ballot. For any state to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people, is to pass a bill of attainder, or, an ex post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their female posterity. To them this government has no just powers derived from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters, of every household - which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord, and rebellion into every home of the nation. Webster, Worcester, and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a person in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office. The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several states is today null and void, precisely as is every one against Negroes. Susan B. Anthony - 1873

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The History Place - Great Speeches Collection: Susan B. Anthony Speech - Women's Right to Vote

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote.