Susan B Anthony Essay Research Paper I

Susan B. Anthony Essay, Research Paper

I. Susan B. Anthony : A Biographical Introduction

Susan Brownell Anthony was born on February 15, 1820 in

Adams, Massachusetts to Daniel and Lucy Anthony. Susan was

the second born of eight children in a strict Quaker family.

Her father, Daniel Anthony, was said to have been a stern

man, a Quaker Abolitionist and a cotton manufacturer born

near the conclusion of the eighteenth century. From what I

read, he believed in “guiding” his children, not in

‘directing’ them. Daniel Anthony did not allow his

offspring to experience the childish amusements of toys,

games, and music, which were seen as distractions from the

“inner light.” Instead he enforced self-discipline,

principled convictions, and the belief in one’s own

self-worth.

Each of my sources indicates that Susan was a precocious

child and she learned to read and write at the age of three.

In 1826, the Anthonys moved from Massachusetts to

Battensville, New York where Susan attended a district

school. When the teacher refused to teach Susan long

division, Susan was taken out of school and taught in a

“home school” set up by her father. The school was run by a

woman teacher, Mary Perkins. Perkins offered a new image of

womanhood to Susan and her sisters. She was independent and

educated and held a position that had traditionally been

reserved to young men. Ultimately, Susan was sent to

boarding school near Philadelphia. She taught at a female

academy and Quaker boarding school, in upstate New York from

1846-49. Afterwards, she settled in her

family home in Rochester, New York. It was here that she

began her first public crusade on behalf of temperance

(Anthony, 1975).

II. The Struggle for Women’s Rights

Susan B. Anthony’s first involvement in the world of

reform was in the temperance movement. This was one of the

first expressions of original feminism in the United States

and it dealt with the abuses of women and children who

suffered from alcoholic husbands. The first women’s rights

convention had taken place in Seneca Falls, New York, in

July of 1848. The declaration that emerged was modeled after

the Declaration of Independence. Written by Elizabeth Cady

Stanton, it claimed that “all men and women are created

equal” and that “the history of mankind is a history of

repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward

woman” (Harper, 1993, vol. 1). Following a long list of

grievances were resolutions for equitable laws, equal

educational and job opportunities, and the right to vote.

One year later in 1849, Susan B. Anthony gave her first

public speech for the “Daugters of Temperance” and then

helped to found the Woman’s State Temperance Society of New

York, one of the first such organizations of its time.

In 1851, she went to Syracuse to attend a series of

anti-slavery meetings. During this time Susan met Elizabeth

Stanton in person, became fast friends, and

subsequently joined her and another woman named Amelia

Bloomer in campaigns for women’s rights. In 1854, she

devoted herself to the anti-slavery movement serving from

1856 to the outbreak of the civil war in 1861. Here, Susan

B. Anthony served as an agent for the American Anti-slavery

Society. Afterwards, she collaborated with Stanton and

published the New York liberal weekly, “The Revolution.”

(from 1868-70) which called for equal pay for women (Harper,

1993, vols. 1 & 2).

In 1872, Susan demanded that women be given the same

civil and political rights that had been extended to black

males under the 14th and 15th amendments. Thus, she led a

group of women to the polls in Rochester to test the right

of women to vote. She was arrested two weeks later and while

awaiting trial, engaged in highly publicized lecture tours

and in March 1873, she tried to vote again in city

elections. After being tried and convicted of violating the

voting laws, Susan succeeded in her refusal to pay the fine

of one hundred dollars. From then on- she campaigned

endlessly for a federal woman suffrage amendment through the

National Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) (from 1869-90)

and the National American Woman Suffrage Association (from

1890-1906) and by lecturing throughout the country as well

(Barry, 1988).

III. After Anthony : The Struggle Continues

The struggle to eventually win the vote was a slow and

frustrating one. Wyoming Territory in 1869, Utah Territory

in 1870, and the states of Colorado in 1893 and Idaho in

1896 granted women the vote but the Eastern states still

resisted it. The woman-suffrage amendment to the Federal

Constitution, presented to every Congress since 1878,

repeatedly failed to pass.

Over a generation later, when the United States entered

World War I in April 1917, the NAWSA pledged its support.

Thousands of suffragists folded bandages in their local

headquarters and volunteered to work in hospitals and

government offices. The suffrage leaders hoped that after

the war American women would be rewarded with the vote for

their patriotic efforts.

Some feminist leaders split with the NAWSA over its

support of the war. Another woman named Alice Paul led the

Congressional Union for Women’s Suffrage, later called the

National Woman’s party, in agitating for the vote during the

war. Another group, the New York branch of the Woman’s

Peace party, led by a woman named Crystal Eastman, refused

to support the war “to make the world safe for democracy”