CanadaLeaders in U.S. Women's Suffrage Movement
View the portraits and read the biographical details of the leaders of the women's suffrage movement in the United States.
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Susan B. Anthony
1820-1906
- American reformer and leader of the women's suffrage movement
- Born in Adams, MA
- Daughter of Daniel Anthony, Quaker abolitionist
- Teacher in rural New York state at 17 years old
- Fought for equal pay for women teachers, for coeducation, and for college training for girls
- Organized the first woman's temperance association, the Daughters of Temperance
- Met Elizabeth Cady Stanton at a temperance meeting in 1851 and became a close personal friend
- Until Stanton's death in 1902, Anthony and Stanton were leaders of the women's suffrage movement in the U.S.
- Lectured on women's rights and abolition from 1851 to 1860
- Helped to pass the first laws (with Stanton) in the New York state legislature to guarantee women rights over their children and control of property and wages
- In 1863 Anthony co-organized the Women's Loyal League to support Lincoln's government, especially his emancipation policy
- After the Civil War, she opposed granting suffrage to freedmen without also giving it to women (division existed among women's suffrage sympathizers on this issue)
- Anthony and Stanton organized the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869
- National Woman Suffrage Association united with the American Woman Suffrage Association to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1890
- Anthony was President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1892 to 1900
- She led a group of women in 1872 to vote in Rochester, NY, to test their rights under the terms of the 14th Amendment
- Anthony was arrested, tried, and sentenced to a fine (which she refused to pay)
- Other women followed her example until the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case against them
- Beginning in 1869, she traveled and lectured throughout the U.S. and Europe
- Anthony possessed superior intellect, a strong personality, and unswerving commitment to the suffrage movement
- With Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage, she compiled Volumes I, II, and III of the History of Woman Suffrage (1881-1886)
- She used her own financial resources to buy most of the first edition
- She presented the History of Woman Suffrage to colleges and universities in the U.S. and Europe
- The History of Woman Suffrage was completed by Ida Husted Harper (Vol. IV, V, and VI, 1900-1922; Anthony contributed to Vol. IV)
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