Susan Brownell Anthony was born to a Quaker family and exposed to political awareness from home when her father hosted anti-slavery leaders, such as Frederick Douglass. At 26, she went to work for the first time as a teacher, an experience that has exposed her to gender inequality in the workforce.
On her way to becoming a full-time leader of social movements, she was first engaged in the causes of abolition and temperance. In political gatherings, she also saw disrespect for female participants, and so she concluded that it is through voting that women will be able to secure their various rights. She has collaborated with many suffragists, most notable was her 50 years friendship and professional partnership with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who she met at the Seneca Falls anti-slavery convention.
Making suffrage her main cause, she was active in various activist platforms, many of which she established – publishing The Revolution newspaper, editing History of Woman Suffrage books, organizing the first national woman suffrage convention, and heading the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She had a broad approach to the women’s rights movement, which included support for dress reform, advocating for the use of bicycle, petitioning for married women’s property rights, and campaigning for equal access to education. She also used the power of publicity and gained national attention when in 1872 she went to vote in the presidential elections, being arrested and convicted.
She appealed to Congress every year for 37 years (from 1869 to 1906) advocating for suffrage. 14 years after her death, the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution has passed granting women the right to vote. It was also called “Susan B. Anthony amendment.”
A century since, her legacy has an iconic status – her house turned into a museum, and her grave is becoming a pilgrimage site on election days, covered with “I voted” stickers. On the other hand, her sayings against black men’s suffrage before women’s are being critically re-examined as racist statements. She was never married or engaged in a publicly open relationship and did not have children.
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