Susan B. Anthony Biography : You must have read about many women who made a difference in this world. One such brave woman is Susan B. Anthony. She was an abolitionist, suffragist, speaker and author. She also served as the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She played an important role in the women’s suffrage movement. She was also part of the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York State. You can find all the information about this great woman here.
Susan B. Anthony Background information
This coin featuring Susan B. Anthony birth date is February 15, 1820, and her place of birth is Adams, Massachusetts. She is the second child in the family, and she has seven siblings. The names of her parents are Daniel Anthony and Lucy Read. She got her name from her grandmother Susannah and her aunt Susan. Her spirit of social reform came from her family. The names of her brothers are Daniel and Merritt. They shifted to Kansas to become a part of the anti-slavery movement. Her sister Mary is a women’s rights activist and a principal of a school. Anthony’s father served as an abolitionist. Her father was a Quaker, and her mother was a Methodist. They both encouraged their children to be independent.
Susan B. Anthony went to Quaker boarding school located in Philadelphia. She was 17 at that time. She discontinued her studies because of the worse economic conditions of the family. It was the time of Panic of 1837 that left many people bereft of money. They sold all their essentials to get money and survive. But they got saved by their maternal uncle who bought all their belongings back. So to help her family, Anthony went to work as a teacher at a Quaker Boarding School. In that time she was friends with activists such as Frederick Douglass. From then onwards for the rest of her life, she supported many historical movements. The fee she received as a public speaker was enough to support herself.
Anthony started her social activist career with energy and focus. She learned about all the issues that required reforms. She preferred the radical views of many popular personalities such as William Lloyd Garrison, Elizabeth Cady and Stanton George Thompson. She began to wear the bloomer dress that led to much controversy. The bloomer dress consisted of pantaloons under the knee-length dress. However, she stopped wearing the dress and wore traditional attire after some time. She felt that people focused more on the attire than her ideas.
Association with Elizabeth Cady Stanton
In the year 1852, she meet Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was one of the managers of Seneca Falls Convention. Here Stanton announced her controversial decision to join the women’s suffrage. Both the women met Amelia Bloomer, who was a feminist. Anthony and Stanton became close friends who helped them to create a stir in
Women’s rights movements. Some people said that Stanton spent more time with Anthony than her own husband. They both had the same goals and skills. Anthony was a good organiser; on the other hand, Stanton was an intellectual. Anthony was a good speaker, but she did not think of herself as a good writer. So whenever people take the quotes of Anthony, they take it from her speeches. Their collaboration was one of the famous one in New York by the year 1854.
Temperance activities
Temperance was the movement started in the United States to lessen the use of Alcohol. This got taken into the women’s rights issues. This is because the laws at that time gave all the rights to the husband, and he had complete control of the family. So when a woman has a drunken husband, she is not able to manage. She cannot even do anything when her husband abused her and the children. Even when a woman opted for divorce, the ownership of the children went to the husband.
At the time when Anthony was working at Canajoharie as a teacher, she joined with Daughters of Temperance. She gave a speech in the meetings. In the year 1852, she got selected as the delegate for the state temperance convention. She and the other women with the same ideals collected 28,000 signatures. At that time, many women were not offered rights to talk in public. That is why Anthony focused all her energies on women’s rights activities.
Women’s Rights activities
Anthony’s active part in the Women’s Rights activities began at the right time. It was starting to get a notice from many people. She aided the Seneca Falls Convention that happened in 1848. This is the first woman’s rights convention in history. In the year 1852, Anthony went to her first convention conducted in the year Syracuse, New York. In this convention, she worked as a secretary. But a major problem in these movements was the lack of funding.
Anti-slavery activities
Already at the age of sixteen, Anthony collected petitions to put an end to slavery. In 1851, she played an important part in managing a convention about anti-slavery. She also became a member of the Underground Railroad. She was part of anti-slavery meetings and put up banners that spread its ideals.
Women’s Loyal National League
In 1863, she was part of the campaign called Women’s Loyal National League. The main purpose of the campaign is for the US constitution amendment that will put an end to slavery. This collected more than 400,000 signatures to prevent slavery once and for all. It allowed the way for the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery. Anthony was one of the most important members of this effort. The success in the abolition of slave allowed room for the women’s rights also to come to the centre stage. Many members joined the movement, such as young members like Anna Dickinson.
Legacy
Anthony, for most of her life, lived in hotels and in the houses of her friends. However, in the year 1891, when she was seventy-one, she decided to settle. She started to live in the house of her sister Mary located in Rochester. In this age too she was active and toured the Yosemite National Park riding on a mule. She was the leader of NAWSA and continued to work actively for suffrage work.
On March 13, 1906, Susan B. Anthony died of heart failure and pneumonia. She was 86 years of age at that time—her cemetery is located in Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester.
She is the woman activist who is an inspiration for many women serving as an activist today. Their life was hard because they did not even have a proper medium to have their voice heard. She did not live long to see the fruits of her achievements. But she was proud of her accomplishments. Many states in her lifetime provided legal rights for women.
