Susan B. Anthony and Women's Suffrage

Photo By Laurie Pearson | At her death in 1906. Anthony regretted not being able to see the results of her tireless campaigning for Women's rights as women did not gain the right to vote until 1920.  

MARINE CORPS LOGISTICS BASE BARSTOW, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES

02.27.2020

Story by Laurie Pearson  

Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow

Susan B. Anthony, born on February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts, was an American writer, lecturer, and abolitionist who went on to become a champion of temperance, labor rights, equal pay for equal work, and a leading figure in the women’s voting rights movement in America.

Working alongside Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anthony traveled around the country delivering speeches in favor of women’s suffrage, becoming one of the most visible leaders of the movement. Her father, Daniel, was a farmer and later a cotton mill owner and manager. He was raised as a Quaker. Anthony’s mother, Lucy, came from a family that fought in the American Revolution and served in the Massachusetts state government.

From an early age, Anthony was inspired by the Quaker belief that everyone was equal under God. That notion inspired and guided her throughout her life. Many of her seven brothers and sisters also became activists for justice and the emancipation of slaves.

When her father’s business failed in 1830s, Anthony returned home and found work as a teacher to help make ends meet. She then moved to a farm in the Rochester, New York area in the mid-1840s.

By 1848, Anthony had been a teacher for many years, and had moved to the state of New York. Her desire to fight for equal rights deepened. Her mother and sister joined a group of women and held a convention at Seneca Falls, New York. It was the first Women’s Rights Convention in the United States and was the beginning of the Women’s Suffrage Movement. In 1851, Anthony met Stanton. The two women became good friends and worked together for more than 50 years fighting for women’s rights.

The two traveled the country and Anthony gave speeches demanding that women be given the right to vote. At times, she risked being arrested for sharing her ideas in public.

Anthony had a strategy. Her discipline, energy, and ability to organize made her a strong and successful leader. Anthony and Stanton co-founded the American Equal Rights Association. In 1868 they became editors of the Association’s newspaper, The Revolution, which helped to spread the ideas of equality and rights for women. Anthony began to lecture to raise money for publishing the newspaper and to support the suffrage movement, becoming famous throughout the county. While many people admired her, others hated her ideas.

When Congress passed the 14th and 15th Amendments, giving voting rights to African American men, Anthony and Stanton were angry and opposed the legislation because it did not include the women’s right to vote. Their beliefs led them to split from other suffragists.

Anthony and Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association, to push for a Constitutional Amendment giving women the right to vote. In 1872, Anthony was arrested for voting. She was tried and fined $100 for her crime. This made many people angry and brought national attention to the suffrage movement.

In 1876, she led a protest at the 1876 Centennial celebration of American Independence. She gave a speech, “Declaration of Rights,” written by Stanton and another suffragist, Matilda Joslyn Gage.

In that speech she said, “Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less!”

In 1888, she helped to merge the two largest suffrage associations into one, the National American Women’s Suffrage Association, leading the group until 1900. She was able to gather thousands of signatures on petitions, and lobbied Congress every year on behalf of women. Anthony died in 1906, 14 years before women were given the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Anthony died on March 13, 1906, at the age of 86 at her home in Rochester, New York. According to her obituary in The New York Times, shortly before her death, Anthony told friend Anna Shaw, “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.”

In recognition of her dedication and hard work, the U.S. Treasury Department put Anthony’s portrait on dollar coins in 1979, making her the first woman to be so honored.

For more information about Susan Brownell Anthony, visit the following sites: https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/susan-b-anthony and https://www.biography.com/activist/susan-b-anthony.

• Date Taken: 02.27.2020
• Date Posted: 04.27.2020 16:32
• Story ID: 368591
• Location: MARINE CORPS LOGISTICS BASE BARSTOW, CALIFORNIA, US