Susan B. Anthony
Title
Susan B. Anthony
Subject
Women's rights
Description
Prominent civil rights leader for women in the United States
Creator
Amy French
Source
Image: Wiki Commons
Birth Date
1820
Birthplace
Adams, Massachusetts, USA
Death Date
1906
Occupation
Political leader for women's rights
Biographical Text
A prominent civil rights leader during the women’s suffrage movement in the 1800s, Susan Anthony was also involved in the anti-slavery movement and the temperance movement. Anthony was a tireless champion for women's rights. She never married in order to retain the few rights that a woman had in American society if she was single. A Quaker, her faith underwrote many of her views on egalitarianism. With Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she co-founded the women's rights journal, The Revolution. Anthony found a life-long friend in Stanton and, together, the two spent their lives making society a better and more equitable place for women. By the 1860s, Anthony occupied a new space for women in American society—that of a female political leader. After the passage of the 14th amendment to the US Constitution, Anthony cast her vote in the 1872 federal election, for which she was arrested. In the trial of Susan B. Anthony (1873), she gave a roaring speech on woman suffrage, repeatedly refusing the judge's order to silence herself. The judge found her guilty and made it impossible for her to appeal. In Minor v. Happersett (1874), the US Supreme Court conceded that women were citizens, but that the Constitution did not grant all citizens the right to vote.
Bibliography
Dubois, Ellen Carol. Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America. (Cornell University Press, 1978).
Gordon, Ann. The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Six volumes. (Rutgers University Press, 2000-2013).
Hull, N. E. H. (2012). The Woman Who Dared to Vote: The Trial of Susan B. Anthony. (University Press of Kansas, 2012).
VanBurkleo, Sandra F. Belonging to the World: Women's Rights and American Constitutional Culture. (Oxford University Press, 2001).
Susan B. Anthony Trial digitized papers:
Susan B. Anthony Collection, Library of Congress
Files
