Susan B. Anthony

Susan Brownell Anthony, aged 28

Susan Brownell Anthony (February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was a prominent, independent, and well-educated American civil rights leader and abolitionist, who joined with other women's rights leaders to secure women's suffrage in the United States.

Anthony was born and raised in Adams, Massachusetts, the second of eight children. She was a precocious child, having learned to read and write at the age of three. Her father, cotton manufacturer and abolitionist Daniel Anthony, was a strict, yet open-minded man. Daniel was born into the Quaker religion, but, in 1826, when the Quakers split into liberal and conservative camps, the Anthony's followed the liberals and became known as Hicksite Friends, after Elias Hicks. Daniel raised his children in a moderately strict household, not allowing Susan to experience what he perceived as the childish amusements of toys, and games, which were seen as distractions from the “Inner Light”. However, Daniel was shunned by other Quakers for permitting dancing and citing a firm belief in "complete personal, mental and spiritual freedom" in his home. He enforced self-discipline, principled convictions, and belief in one's own self-worth.

In 1826, when Susan was six years old, the Anthony family moved from Massachusetts to Battenville, New York. Susan was sent to attend a local district school, where a teacher refused to teach her long division due to her gender. Upon learning of the weak education she was receiving, her father took Susan out of the district school and placed her in a group home school. It was a teacher there, by the name of Mary Perkins, who offered a new and daring image of womanhood to Susan and her sisters which undoubtedly fostered Susan's strong beliefs towards female equality and women's rights. She was later sent to a boarding school near Philadelphia.

Susan was very self-conscious in her youth, of both her looks, and of her speaking abilities. She long resisted public speaking for fear she would not be eloquent enough. Despite these insecurities, she would become a renowned public presence.

Susan B. Anthony taught from the time she was 17 until she was 29. Her first occupation inspired her to fight to obtain wages equivalent to those of male teachers, as, at the time, men earned roughly four times more than women for the same duties. Anthony worked at the female academy Eunice Kenyon's Quaker boarding school, in upstate New York, from 1846 to 1849, and soon thereafter settled in Rochester, New York, where she began attending the local Unitarian Church. Anthony felt disenfranchised from the Quakers, due to her having frequently witnessed instances of contradictory behavior such as alcohol abuse among Quaker preachers. Anthony moved further away from organized religion as she got older, and she would later be chastized by various Christian religious groups for displaying atheistic tendencies.

It was in New York State that Anthony began to first take part in coventions and gatherings related to the temperance movement. She would eventually help to lead the women's movement, Traveling thousands of miles throughout the United States and Europe, and giving 75 to 100 speeches per year on suffrage and women's rights, for 45 years. She travelled by carriage, wagon, train, mule, bicycle, stagecoach, ship, ferry boat, and even sleigh.

Susan B. Anthony died in Rochester, New York, on March 13, 1906, and is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery.

Early social activism

In 1849, at the age of 29, Anthony became secretary for the Daughters of Temperance, allowing her a forum to speak out against alcohol abuse, and beginning a movement towards the public spotlight.

In the decade preceding the outbreak of the American Civil War, Anthony took a prominent part in the anti-slavery and temperance movements in New York. After the first American women's rights convention took place on July 19 and July 20, 1848, in Seneca Falls, New York, Anthony decided to attend her first women's rights convention when it came to Syracuse, New York in 1852. Soon after, Anthony began devoting herself almost exclusively to the agitation for women's rights.

In 1851, on a street in Seneca Falls, Anthony was introduced to Elizabeth Cady Stanton by mutual acquaintance and fellow feminist Amelia Bloomer. Anthony joined with Stanton in organizing, in 1852, the first women's state temperance society in America. Stanton would remain a close friend and colleague of Anthony's for the remainder of their lives, although, unlike Anthony, Stanton longed for a broader, more radical platform of women's rights. Together, the two women traveled the United States giving speeches and attempting to persuade the government that women should be treated equally to men in society. After 1854, Anthony gained in recognition as one of the ablest and most zealous advocates of complete legal equality, as well as a renowned public speaker and writer.

Yet, even as Anthony was gaining a following as a powerful public figure in the world of women's rights, in 1856 she would become agent for William Lloyd Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society of New York state. However, she would soon thereafter devote herself almost exclusively to the agitation for women's rights.

From 1868 to 1870, she 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."

Anthony occasionally wrote about abortion, which she opposed, for she saw it as another instance of a societal "double standard" imposed upon women. Unlike today, in the 19th century the decision to undergo an abortion was almost always decided by men, there were none of the standard contraceptive options available to women today, and it was a life-threatening and unsanitary procedure, due to the fact that antibiotics had not yet been invented. "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).

Anthony used The Revolution as a vehicle in her crusade for equality, writing passionately about a variety of subjects relating to women's rights.

National suffrage organizations

In 1869, Anthony and Stanton founded the National Woman's Suffrage Association (NWSA), an organization dedicated to gaining women's suffrage. 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. She, along with Stanton, was a delegate at the 1868 convention of the National Labor Union. However Anthony inadvertently alienated the labor movement, not only because suffrage was seen as a concern for middle-class rather than working-class women, but because she openly encouraged women to achieve economic independence by entering the printing trades, where male workers were on strike at the time. Anthony was later expelled from the National Labor Union over this controversy.

File:Susan B Anthony Older Years.gif

Susan B. Anthony.

In 1890, Anthony orchestrated the merger of the NWSA with the more conservative American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), creating the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Prior to the controversial merge, Anthony had created a special NWSA executive committee to vote on whether they should merge with the AWSA, despite the fact that using a committee instead of an all-member vote went against the NWSA constitution. 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 favored the merger (two who decided against it were asked to resign).

Anthony's pursuit of alliances with moderate and conservative suffragists created long lasting tension between herself and more radical suffragists such as Stanton. Anthony felt strongly that the moderate, rather than radical, approach to women's rights, was more realistic, and would consequently serve to gain more for women in the end. Anthony's more moderate strategy was to unite the suffrage movement wherever possible, and to then focus strictly on gaining the vote, temporarily leaving aside other women's rights issues in order to focus attention on the cause at hand. Stanton openly criticized Anthony's stance, writing that Anthony and AWSA leader Lucy Stone, "see suffrage only. They do not see woman's religious and social bondage." Anthony responded 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 creation of the NAWSA effectively marginalized the more radical elements within the women's 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.

In collaboration with Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Ida Husted Harper, Anthony published The History of Woman Suffrage (4 vols., New York, 1884–1887). Anthony also befriended Josephine Brawley Hughes, an advocate of women's rights and of alcoholic beverage|alcohol abolition in Arizona, and Carrie Chapman Catt, whom Anthony endorsed for the presidency of the NAWSA when Anthony formally retired in 1900.

It was difficult for an outspoken and intelligent woman like Anthony to live as secondary to men in 19th century society. Anthony was a constant target of abuse from political leaders, News media representatives, and many other less progressive individuals. Even so, 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 a challenging, and yet ultimately indispensable 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 (see below). 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.

The court speech on women's right to vote

In 1873, Susan B. Anthony recited the following speech before the court, in defense of all women's right to suffrage:

"Friends and fellow citizens: I stand before you tonight under indictment for the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election, without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening to prove to you that in thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen's rights, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any state to deny.

File:Susan Brownell Anthony - Project Gutenberg eText 15220.jpg

Susan B. Anthony

The preamble of the Federal Constitution says: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people - women as well as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government - the ballot.

For any state to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement of one entire half of the people, is to pass a bill of attainder, or, an ex post facto law, and is therefore a violation of the supreme law of the land. By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their female posterity. To them this government has no just powers derived from the consent of the governed. To them this government is not a democracy. It is not a republic. It is an odious aristocracy; a hateful oligarchy of sex; the most hateful aristocracy ever established on the face of the globe; an oligarchy of wealth, where the rich govern the poor. An oligarchy of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant, or even an oligarchy of race, where the Saxon rules the African, might be endured; but this oligarchy of sex, which makes father, brothers, husband, sons, the oligarchs over the mother and sisters, the wife and daughters, of every household - which ordains all men sovereigns, all women subjects, carries dissension, discord, and rebellion into every home of the nation.

Webster, Worcester, and Bouvier all define a citizen to be a person in the United States, entitled to vote and hold office. The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and laws of the several states is today null and void, precisely as is every one against Negroes."

Legacy

A Susan B. Anthony dollar coin

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 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.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Baker, Jean H. Sisters: The Lives of America's Suffragists. Hill and Wang, New York, 2005. ISBN 0-8090-9528-9.
• Barry, Kathleen , Susan B. Anthony: A Biography of a Singular Feminist, Authorhouse 2000, ISBN 1-58721-009-6
• Bass, Jack. "CIVIL RIGHTS: Judges followed Parks' bold lead." 27 November 2005. Atlanta Journal Constitution. LexisNexis. 5 March 2006. <http:/web.lexisnexis.com/universe/document?_m=00a2bc74653371...>.
• Boller, Paul F., Jr. "Presidential Campaigns." Oxford University Press, 1984.
• "From Kansas." Proquest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune. 7 September 1876. O1
• Harper, Mrs Ida Husted. Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (3 vols., Indianapolis, 1898-1908)
• Linder, Douglas. "Susan B. Anthony: A Biography." Law.umkc.edu. 2001. 05 March 2006 22 October, 2005 http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/anthony/sbabiog.html
• Linder, Douglas. "Famous American Trials: The Anthony Trial: An Account." Argument for the Defense Concerning Legal Issues in the Case of: United States vs. Susan B. Anthony. 2001. 5 March 2006. <http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/anthony/defargument.html>
• McCulloch, John. "The Struggle for Women's Suffrage in Queensland." Hecate: 1874.
• Patriot Ledger Staff. "Role model: Susan B. Anthony to come to life." The Patriot Ledger: City Edition. LexisNexis., Quincy, MA. 1 MArch 2006 <http://lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=969f13ed043290...>.
• "Suffragist." Susan B. Anthony House. 03 2006. 18 Mar. 2006 <http://susanbanthonyhouse.org/index.shtml>.
• "Susan B. Anthony." The National Women's History Project. 1994 18 Mar. 2006 <http://www.mith2.umd.edu/WomensStudies/PictureGallery/anthony.html>.
• "Susan Brownwell Anthony." Women in History. Women in History: Living Vignettes of Women From the Past. 21 Mar. 2006
• "The Women in the Field." Proquest Historical Newspaper Chicago Tribune. 9 July 1868. O3.

External links

• Rutgers: Stanton and Anthony Archive
• The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2), by Ida Husted Harper, available for free via Project Gutenberg
• The Trial of Susan B. Anthony, available for free via Project Gutenberg
• First Unitarian Church
• Susan B. Anthony House Website
• Anthony trial
• New York Times obituary

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