
Susan B. Anthony
equality + civil rights crusader
Susan B. Anthony died more than a century ago...14 years before the voting rights amendment that bears her name was enacted. Issues she championed then are still central to political debates + policies today.
Never afraid to raise her voice for the sake of social justice, she campaigned for abolition alongside Frederick Douglass, was arrested for attempting to vote as a woman, and led the fight for equal rights for women ~ "Equal pay for equal work!" is not a new rallying cry. Ridiculed as much as revered, Susan never stopped believing in her causes. Even though she admitted it was cruel to die without seeing women get the right to vote, her last public words were "Failure is impossible!"
abolitionism | voting rights | women's rights | labor rights
1979 dollar coin | first real woman depicted on US currency
alligator purse | a symbol of her independence, immortalized in the jump-rope rhyme "Miss Lulu {or Suzy} had a baby, his name was Tiny Tim"
1860 | passage of Married Women's Property Act, due to Susan & friends' aggressive lobbying
1863 | co-founded Women's National Loyal League to petition for the Thirteenth Amendment, outlawing slavery
1866 | co-founded the American Equal Rights Association
plus, a really big moment
1920 | Susan B. Anthony Amendment (Nineteenth Amendment), granting women the right to vote, 14 years after her death
from | to
teacher | abolitionist and suffragist
born on
February 15, 1820
born in
Adams, Massachusetts
birth name
Susan Brownell Anthony
citizen of
The United States of America
daughter of
Lucy (Read) Anthony
Daniel Anthony
~ cotton manufacturer, farmer, insurance salesperson ~
sister of
3 sisters | Guelma, Mary and Hannah
2 brothers | Daniel and Jacob Merritt
Eliza
~ died of scarlet fever when she was two ~
grew up in
Battenville, New York
educated at
home schooled
Deborah Moulson's Female Seminary
~ Society of Friends {Quaker} boarding school | near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ~
worked alongside
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Harriet Tubman
Lucy Stone
advocate of
women's suffrage
abolition
temperance
labor unions
fair pay
died on
March 13, 1906
~ pneumonia | Rochester, New York ~
"What an absurd notion that women have not intellectual and moral faculties sufficient for anything but domestic concerns."
to brother-in-law, Aaron McLean {quoted in Ida Husted Harper's Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony} | around 1840
"Be the future what it may, our happiness in the present is far more complete if we live an upright life."
quoted in Ida Husted Harper's Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony | around 1840
"Woman must have a purse of her own, & how can this be, so long as the wife is denied the right to her individual and joint earnings. Reflections like these, caused me to see and really feel that there is no freedom for woman without the possession of all her property rights..."
Susan B. Anthony | november 1853
"Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation."
on Wendell Phillips' withdrawal of support for divorce law reform | may 1860
"Forget conventionalisms; forget what the world will say, whether you are in your place or out of your place; think your best thoughts, speak your best words, do your best works, looking only to suffering humanity, your own conscience, and God for approval."
Meeting of the Loyal Women of the Republic | may 1863
"Think your best thoughts, speak your best words, do your best works, looking only to suffering humanity, your own conscience, and God for approval."
Meeting of the Loyal Women of the Republic | may 1863
"Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less."
The Revolution | february 1868
"Scorn to be 'petted' by your employers; make them understand you are in their service AS WORKERS not AS WOMEN; and that you will ask and will accept, nothing less nor more because of your sex."
The Revolution | october 1868
"Join the union, girls, and together say, 'Equal Pay for Equal Work!'"
Women's Typographical Union No. 1 Meeting | october 1869
"Away with your man-visions! Women propose to reject them all, and begin to dream dreams for themselves."
to her family, from Salt Lake City | july 1871
"Woman must not depend on the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself."
"Power of the Ballot" and defense of murderer Laura Fair | july 1871
"It is we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union."
Is it a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to Vote? | november 1872
"Robbed of the fundamental privilege of citizenship, I am degraded from the status of a citizen to that of a subject; and not only myself individually, but all of my sex, are, by your honor's verdict, doomed to political subjection under this, so-called, form of government."
An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony on the Charge of Illegal Voting | june 1873
"Marriage, to women as to men, must be a luxury, not a necessity; an incident of life, not all of it."
Social Purity | march 1875
"And I say, give to woman the ballot, the political fulcrum, on which to plant her moral lever, and she will lift the world into a nobler purer atmosphere."
"social purity" | march 1875
"I never could have done the work I have if I had not had this woman at my right hand."
at Susan's 70th birthday banquet, Riggs House, Washington, DC | february 1890
"Bicycling has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride on a wheel. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance."
Champion Of Her Sex: Miss Susan B. Anthony | february 1896
"Oh, if I could live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done."
The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Vol. III | january 1902
"It is all at sea—but the Laws of Nature are still going on—with no shadow or turning— What a world it is—it goes right on & on—no matter who lives or who dies!!"
to Ida Husted Harper on the death of Elizabeth Cady Stanton | october 1902
"How shall we ever make the world intelligent?"
to Ida Husted Harper upon the death of Elizabeth Cady Stanton | october 1902
"I think the girl who is able to earn her own living and pay her own way should be as happy as anybody on earth. The sense of independence and security is very sweet."
with Edwin Tracy of the New York Press | january 1905
"The modern girl sees the dawn of a new day. Women at the editor's desk, women teaching in college, women healing the sick, women practicing in the courts, women preaching from the pulpit and lecturing from the platform ~ call them new women or what you please ~ they are the women the world welcomes today."
on the occasion of her 85th birthday | february 1905
"I have given my life and all I am to it, and now I want my last act to be to give it all I have, to the last cent."
to her sister {quoted in New York Times obituary} | march 1906
"To think I have had more than 60 years of hard struggle for a little liberty, and then to die without it seems so cruel."
to Anna Shaw {quoted in New York Times obituary} | march 1906
curated with care by Meghan Miller Brawley {july 2014}
Elizabeth Cady Stanton + Susan B. Anthony | cofounders
The friendship between Susan and fellow suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton (seated in photograph) began in 1851, and lasted until Elizabeth's death in 1902. Elizabeth introduced Susan to the women's suffrage movement, and together the two women cofounded the Women's National Loyal League in 1862, the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869, made hundreds of appearances and wrote countless articles and the History of Woman Suffrage. On Elizabeth's death in 1902, Susan wrote to her biographer and friend Ida Husted Harper, "it seems impossible—that the voice is hushed … How shall we ever make the world intelligent?" This photograph was probably taken sometime after 1880.
Library of Congress | Prints and Photographs division
Susan B. Anthony House & Museum
Susan B. Anthony moved with her mother and sister in the house at 17 Madison in Rochester, New York, in 1864 and turned it into a sort of salon for the biggest progressive causes of her time ~ abolition, suffrage and labor organization. She and her sister Mary, also a prominent suffragist, wanted the home to become a museum after their death, and in 1945, the women to whom the Anthony sisters willed the house began work. In this video, the CEO Deborah L. Hughes, gives history and a glimpse into this piece of history.
Carol White Llewellyn | Finger Lakes Travel Maven | Braniac Getaways | https://vimeo.com/69100664
editorial cartoon | The Woman Who Dared | The Daily Graphic | Thomas Wust | june 5, 1873
In November 1872, Susan B. Anthony, along with several other women, dared vote in the federal election in Rochester, NY (she voted for Ulysses S. Grant). She was arrested, and her trial held in June the following year. This cartoon, published at the time of her trial for illegal voting, is typical of the anti-suffrage commentary of the day, depicting Susan B. Anthony as an angry, umbrella-weilding old maid, leaving men to perform "womanly" tasks such as baby minding and marketing (the horror!). Susan was fined $100, and refused to pay.
Library of Congress | Prints and Photographs division
photograph | by S.A. Taylor | [1880-1906]
Taken late in life, this photo could easily have been the inspiration for the Susan B. Anthony stamp and coin, with its serious profile. But who knows ~ perhaps that alligator purse is stashed under her full skirt!
S.A. Taylor | held by Library of Congress | Prints and Photographs Division
inscription, personal copy | Harriet, the Moses of Her People | Sarah H. Bradford | 1903
The inscription on Susan B. Anthony's personal copy of Sarah Bradford's 1901 biography of Harriet Tubman reads: This most wonderful woman -- Harriet Tubman -- is still alive -- I saw her but the other day at the beautiful home of Eliza Wright Osborne -- the daughter of Martha C. Wright -- in company with Elizabeth Smith Miller -- the only daughter of Garret Smith -- Miss Emily Hamland -- Rev. Anna H. Shaw -- and Miss Ella Wright Garrison -- the daughter of Martha G. Wright and the wife of William Lloyd Garrison Jr. -- all of us were visiting at the Osbornes -- a real love feast of the few that are left -- and here came Harriet Tubman! Susan B. Anthony 17 Madison Street Rochester, N. Y. Jan. 1, 1903
Library of Congress | Rare Books and Special Collections Division | Susan B. Anthony Collection