Susan Brownell Anthony (February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was a prominent, independent and well-educated American civil rights leader, who, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, led the effort to secure women’s suffrage in the United States.Anthony was born and raised in Adams, Massachusetts, the daughter of Quakers. Susan B. Anthony was the second born of eight children in a strict Quaker family. Susan was a precocious child and she learned to read and write at the age of three. Her father, Daniel Anthony, was a stern man, a Quaker Abolitionist and a cotton manufacturer. He believed in guiding his children instead of directing them. He did not allow them to experience the childish amusements of toys, games, and music, which were seen as distractions from the “Inner Light”. Instead, he enforced self-discipline, principled convictions, and belief in one’s own self-worth.
In 1826, the Anthonys moved from Massachusetts to Battenville, New York, where Susan attended a district school. When a teacher refused to teach Susan long division because she was a girl, Susan was taken out of the district school and taught in a “home school” set up by her father. A female teacher named Mary Perkins, who ran the school, offered a new image of womanhood to Susan and her sisters. Ultimately, Susan was sent to a boarding school near Philadelphia
Anthony was independent and educated and held a position that had traditionally been reserved to young men. She taught for 15 years and worked at a female academy, called Eunice Kenyon’s Quaker boarding school, in upstate New York from 1846-1849. After, she settled in her family home in Rochester, New York. It was here that she began her first public crusade on behalf of temperance. While in Rochester, she attended the Unitarian Church.
Anthony was very self-conscious, both of her looks (one eye always pointed slightly outwards) and of her speaking abilities. She long resisted public speaking for fear her speech would not be good enough. However, throughout her lifetime, Anthony worked endlessly. She traveled thousands of miles each year throughout the United States and Europe giving speeches on suffrage (75 to 100 speeches per year for 45 years). She traveled by carriage, wagon, train, mule, bicycle, stagecoach, ship, ferry boat and even sleigh.
Anthony died at Rochester, New York, on March 13, 1906 and is buried there in Mount Hope Cemetery.
Early social activism
In the decade preceding the outbreak of the American Civil War, Anthony began and took a prominent part in the anti-slavery and temperance movements in New York, joining with Elizabeth Cady Stanton in organizing in 1852 the first woman’s state temperance society in America. In addition, she attended her first women’s rights convention in Syracuse, New York in 1852. In 1856 she became the agent for New York state of William Lloyd Garrison’s American Anti-Slavery Society.
In 1851, Anthony was introduced to Stanton, on a street in Seneca Falls, New York|Seneca Falls]] by mutual acquaintance Amelia Bloomer, also a feminist. The two women were to remain close friends and colleagues for the remainder of their lives, although unlike Anthony, Stanton longed for a broader platform of women’s rights. Together, the two women traveled the United States giving speeches about women’s rights and attempting to persuade the government that women should be treated equally to men in society.After 1854, Anthony devoted herself almost exclusively to the agitation for women’s rights, and became recognized as a public speaker and writer, as well as one of the ablest and most zealous advocates of complete legal equality. In an era when men strictly dominated any decision regarding abortion, she was active in opposing it. Prior to the advent of the Sexual Revolution and modern methods of contraception, women were often forced by circumstance into having abortions: “When a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is a sign that, by education or circumstances, she has been greatly wronged.” (The Revolution, IV, No. 1 (July 8, 1869)). A far more dangerous procedure at the time, she considered it an imposition of the will of men onto powerless women.
From 1868 to 1870, Anthony was the proprietor of a weekly paper, The Revolution, published in New York City, edited by Stanton, and having as its motto:
“The true republic ” men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.”
It was also around this time that Anthony began participating in the bicycling craze that was spreading through the country. Later, she would famously credit the bicycle with helping to improve the situation of women in America. (see History of the bicycle)
National suffrage organizations
In 1869, Anthony and Stanton founded the National Woman’s Suffrage Association (NWSA), an organization dedicated to gaining voting rights for women. Anthony was vice-president-at-large of the NWSA from the date of its organization until 1892, when she became president.
In the early years of the NWSA, Anthony made attempts to unite women in the labor movement with the suffragist cause, but with little success. Along with Stanton, she was a delegate at the 1868 convention of the National Labor Union. Anthony alienated the labor movement, not only because suffrage was seen as a concern for middle-class rather than working women, but because she openly encouraged women to achieve economic independence by entering the printing trades, where male workers were on strike. Anthony was part of the National Labor Union for a while but was then expelled over this controversy.
In collaboration with Stanton, Gage, and Ida Husted Harper, Anthony published The History of Woman Suffrage (4 vols., New York, 1884-1887). Anthony was also a friend of Josephine Brawley Hughes, an advocate of women’s rights and of alcohol abolition in Arizona.
In 1890, Anthony orchestrated the merger of the NWSA with the American Woman Suffrage Association, creating the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Anthony’s strategy for suffrage was to unite the suffrage movement where possible, and to focus on the goal of gaining the vote, leaving aside other women’s rights issues. Her pursuit of alliances with moderate suffragists created long lasting tension between herself and more radical suffragists such as Stanton. Stanton criticized this stance, writing that Anthony and Lucy Stone, leader in the more conservative American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), “see suffrage only. They do not see woman’s religious and social bondage.” Anthony argued to Stanton,
“We number over 10,000 women and each one has opinions…we can only hold them together to work for the ballot by letting alone their whims and prejudices on other subjects.”
The controversial merger occurred after Anthony created a special National Woman Suffrage Association executive committee to decide whether they should unite with the AWSA (using a committee instead of a full NWSA vote went against the NWSA constitution). Gage (a prominent member who opposed the merger) was denied funds to enable her to attend the NWSA convention, leading to these decisions Motions to make it possible for members to vote by mail were strenuously opposed by Anthony and her adherents, and the committee was stacked with members who favoured the merger (two who decided against it were asked to resign).The union of the two organizations effectively marginalized radical elements of the movement, including Stanton. Anthony pushed for Stanton to be voted in as the first NAWSA president, and stood by her as Stanton was belittled by the large conservative factions within the new organization.
Throughout her life, Anthony fought social injustice, including attacking the injustice women of the period faced from their fellow man. It was difficult for an outspoken woman in 19th century society to live as secondary to men. Anthony was a constant target of abuse from political leaders, media representatives and other individuals. But as a leading advocate of abolition, women’s rights, a founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association, and New York State’s agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society, Susan B. Anthony led an effective and challenging life.
United States vs. Susan B. Anthony
For casting a vote in the presidential election held on November 5, 1872, in Rochester, New York, Anthony was arrested on November 18 and pled not guilty, asserting that the 14th amendment entitled her to vote because, unlike the original Constitution, it provides that all “persons” (which includes females) born in the U.S. are “citizens” who shall not be denied the “privileges” of citizenship (which includes voting).She was defended at trial by Matilda Joslyn Gage, who asserted that it was the United States that was truly on trial, not Anthony. At the trial, she made her famous “On Women’s Right to Vote” speech. Being a citizen of the United States and having the lawfully given right to vote as a citizen, Anthony was faced with the constraint of a gender-biased society when it came to legal issues when presenting this speech. Her speech mainly focused on the fact that casting her vote in the previous presidential election was not a crime, simply a legal right of a United States citizen. Her speech was an attempt to persuade the government that she was not unlawful in her action, in the fact that if she were to have been a male, her action would have never been questioned. By not having the government and not having men in general in her favor, Anthony presented a strong defense to her speech through the use of statements from the Constitution to support the fact that her actions were in fact not wrong.
However, her defense was all for naught. The judge, Supreme Court Associate Justice Ward Hunt, explicitly instructed the jury to deliver a guilty verdict, refused to poll the jury, delivered an opinion he had written before trial had even begun, and on June 18, 1873, sentenced her to pay a $100 fine. Anthony responded, “May it please your honor, I will never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty.” She never did pay the fine, and the government never pursued her for non-payment.
Legacy
Susan B. Anthony was honored as the first real (non-allegorical) American woman on circulating U.S. coinage with her appearance on the Anthony dollar. The dollar coin, approximately the size of a U.S. quarter, was minted for only four years, 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1999. Anthony dollars were produced at the Philadelphia and Denver mints for all four of these years, and at the San Francisco mint for all production years except 1999.
Anthony’s birthplace in Adams was purchased in 2006 by Carol Crossed, affiliated with both Democrats for Life of America and Feminists for Life. She has stated that efforts will be made to open the home to the public in the near future.
Source: Susan B. Anthony. (2006, August 14). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 05:52, August 14, 2006.
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