Susan Brownwell Anthony was born on February 15, 1820, in Adams, Massachusetts. She was the second of eight children born
to Daniel Anthony, a cotton manufacturer and abolitionist, and Lucy Read. She was quite smart as a child, and she learned to read and write at age three. Her father did not allow her to play games or play with toys, as he saw them as distractions from the “inner light.” At age six, they moved to Battenville, New York. Susan’s teacher at her new school refused to teach her long division because of her gender. Upon hearing this, her father enrolled her in a home school group and began
teaching her himself.
In 1839, they moved to Center Falls, New York in the midst of the Panic of 1837 and the economic depression soon after. Susan left home and began teaching in an effort to pay off her father’s debts. She first taught at Eunice Kenyon’s Friends’ Seminary in New Rochelle. In 1846 she began teaching at Canajoharie Academy where she went on to become the headmistress of the female department. This is when she began her fight for equal pay.
In 1849, at age 29, she quit teaching and moved to the family farm in Rochester, New York. She attended Unitarian Church until she began distancing herself from organized religions. She had prominent roles in the New York anti-slavery and
temperance movements. She became secretary for the Daughters of Temperance.
In 1851, she was introduced in Seneca Falls to Elizabeth Cady Stanton by Amelia Bloomer. Anthony joined Stanton in organizing the first women’s state temperance society in America. In 1852, they began traveling around the United States together giving speeches attempting to persuade the government that society should treat men and women equally. In 1856, Susan began attempting to unify the African-American and women’s rights movements.
In 1868, a weekly journal called The Revolution was first published. Anthony worked as the publisher and business manager, while Elizabeth Cady Stanton acted as editor. In the 19th century, abortion was an illegal and life-threatening procedure Anthony often wrote about.
For casting a vote in the presidential election of 1872, in Rochester, New York, Anthony was arrested. She pled not guilty and asserted that the 14th amendment entitled her to vote because it states that all “persons” (which includes women) who are US citizens shall not be denied the privileges of citizenship. She was defended by Matilda Joslyn Gage, who asserted that it was the US on trial, not Anthony. During her trail, Susan gave her famous
On Women’s Right to Vote speech.
In the end, the judge explicitly instructed the jury to deliver a guilty verdict, refused to poll the jury, and delivered an opinion he had written before the trial had even begun. He sentenced her to pay a $100 fine. She promised the court that they would never see a penny, and they never pursued it.
Susan B. Anthony died on March 13, 1906; 14 years, 5 months, and 5 days before the 19th amendment was passed, giving women the right to vote.