ANTHONY, SUSAN BROWNELL
People no longer are surprised when an American woman works outside the home, keeps her own bank account, maintains custody of her children after a DIVORCE, or votes in a presidential election. Yet, not too long ago, these practices were uncommon, if not illegal, in the United States. Due in large part to the efforts of the remarkable Susan Brownell Anthony and other pioneers of feminism, women in the United States enjoy rights and opportunities that are simply taken for granted today.
Anthony was born in 1820, during an era when most women got married, produced children, and deferred completely to their husbands.
Daniel Anthony, her father, belonged to the Society of Friends (better known as Quakers), a religious group that recognized the equality of men and women. Daniel encouraged his daughter to think independently and to speak her mind. He supported her educational pursuits and emphasized self-sufficiency.
Although Anthony’s father was an admirable man and progressive for his time, her mother, Lucy Anthony, found little pleasure in her restricted, duty-bound life. She appeared overwhelmed by eight pregnancies and exhausted
from running the household while keeping
boarders and raising six surviving children. His-
torians believe that the withdrawn, careworn
Lucy became a symbol to Anthony of the unfair
burdens of marriage. The institution seemed
weighted against women, even those with kind
and liberal-minded husbands. Anthony con-
cluded that marriage was necessary only when a
strong emotional bond existed between two
people. This view put her at odds with most
women of her generation, who considered mat-
rimony a requirement for social and economic
security. True to her principles, Anthony— who
once referred to marriage as SLAVERY and “a blot
on civilization”—rejected several suitors’ offers
and remained single throughout her long life.
Anthony was an intelligent young girl who
received the best education available at the time.
Although she attended a well-regarded board-
ing school in Philadelphia, she did not enroll in
college. In the 1830s, only one college in the
United States, Ohio’s Oberlin College, accepted
women. Even with a college education, Anthony
would have faced a limited number of employ-
ment opportunities. As a woman, her only
options were to become a seamstress, a domes-
tic, or a teacher. Anthony chose teaching and, in
1938, began the first of several teaching jobs. In
1846, she became headmistress at Canajoharie
Academy in New York. There, she discovered
that male teachers were paid $10.00 a week,
whereas she received $2.50. Frustrated with the
low pay and a lack of respect for her work,
Anthony decided to devote her energies to social
reform.
Although Anthony is best known for her fight for women’s suffrage, she also crusaded for
other causes. In 1852, Anthony became active in the TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT, a national campaign to ban the sale and consumption of alcohol.
When it became clear that women were not allowed full leadership in the existing temper-
ance organizations, Anthony helped form the
Woman’s State Temperance Society of New York.
Like her father, Anthony also was a fervent
abolitionist. She became friends with FREDER-
ICK DOUGLASS and attended her father’s anti-
slavery meetings in the family home. Before and
during the U.S. CIVIL WAR, Anthony devoted her
organizational skills to the cause. As head of the
Anti-Slavery Society of New York, she planned
lecture schedules and spoke publicly against the
evils of the Southern system and of the discrim-
inatory practices in the North. During this time,
she joined forces with another abolitionist, ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, who was the acknowledged leader of the fledgling WOMEN’S RIGHTS
movement.
After the war, Anthony and Stanton continued to work together for social reform. They
were bitterly disappointed when their fellow abolitionists refused to support their strategy for constitutionally mandating VOTING RIGHTS for women. A golden opportunity for female suffrage
had arisen with the drafting of the FIFTEENTH
AMENDMENT to the U.S. Constitution.
This amendment was necessary to grant voting
rights to the former slaves who were liberated by
President ABRAHAM LINCOLN’s EMANCIPATION
PROCLAMATION.However, the abolitionists supported
the Fifteenth Amendment only to the
extent that it gave African American males the
right to vote. They were not concerned about
the amendment’s exclusion of women.With that
defeat, Anthony focused her sights on a separate
constitutional amendment to grant women the
franchise.
In 1868, Anthony began publishing The Revolution,
a weekly newsletter advocating suffrage
and equal rights for women. In 1869, Anthony
and Stanton formed the National Woman’s Suffrage
Association. An indefatigable worker,
Anthony became a fixture on the lecture circuit
and headed national petition drives to establish
support for female voting rights.
In 1872, Anthony decided to test the legality
of voting laws that allowed only white and
African American males to go to the polls. She
registered and voted in the 1872 presidential
election in Rochester, New York. Anthony was
prosecuted for the offense and fined $100, but
she refused to pay. Her defiance rallied supporters
of women’s rights across the nation. In
time, Anthony merged her suffrage organization
with another one, to form the National
American Woman Suffrage Association. She
served as president of this association from 1892
to 1900.
Not surprisingly, Anthony fought hard for
the liberalization of laws for married women.
During most of the nineteenth century, a wife
had very little protection under the law. Any
income she produced automatically belonged to
her husband, as did any inheritance she received.
Her husband could apprentice their children
without her permission and was designated sole
guardian of their children, no matter how unfit
he might be. A husband even had the right to
pass on his guardianship of the children by will.
In Anthony’s home state of New York, her petition
drives and lectures were instrumental in
convincing the legislature to pass laws giving
married women power over their incomes and
guardianship of their children.
Anthony was not afraid to flout social conventions
to achieve her goals. For a time, she
wore bloomers, a controversial garment named
after Amelia Jenks Bloomer, the woman who
popularized it. Bloomers were loose-fitting
trousers gathered at the ankle and worn underneath
a knee-length skirt. The costume was
intended as a protest against the tight-fitting
corsets and unwieldy petticoats popularly worn
by women at the time. Although she withstood
ridicule to make her point, Anthony stopped
wearing bloomers when she concluded that they
were diverting attention from the more serious
issues facing women.
Anthony’s message of equality often met
resistance, and not just from men.Many women
in the nineteenth century were frightened by or
skeptical of change. In 1870, Anthony lamented
their wariness when she wrote, “The fact is,
women are in chains, and their servitude is all
the more debasing because they do not realize
it.” She urged women to recognize the inequities
they faced and to speak and act for their own
freedom.
When Anthony died in 1906, women did not
yet have the right to vote in presidential elections.
When the NINETEENTH AMENDMENT to
the U.S. Constitution finally became law in
1920, it was called the Anthony amendment in
recognition of her valiant efforts to gain suffrage.
Anthony was also honored in 1979 and
1980, when the U.S.Mint issued one dollar coins
bearing her likeness. She became the first
woman to be pictured on a U.S. coin in general
circulation.
FURTHER READINGS
Barry, Kathleen. 1988. Susan B. Anthony: A Biography of a
Singular Feminist. New York: New York Univ. Press.
Cooper, Ilene. 1984. Susan B. Anthony. New York:Watts.
Gurko,Miriam. 1974. The Ladies of Seneca Falls: The Birth of
the Woman’s Rights Movement. New York: Macmillan.
Wells, Ida B. 1970. Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of
Ida B. Wells. Ed. Alfreda M. Duster. Chicago: Univ. of
Chicago Press.
CROSS-REFERENCES
Fifteenth Amendment; Nineteenth Amendment; Stanton, Elizabeth Cady; Temperance Movement;Women’s Rights.
