EARLY LIFE
Susan Anthony was born on February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts.
Raised by a strict Quaker father, Susan Anthony was not allowed toys or amusements as a child as he claimed that they would distract the soul from the "inner light."
A precocious child, she learned to read and write at the age of three.
Susan B. Anthony's father withdrew her from a school that would not allow her to learn long division as boys did.
Raised by a strict Quaker father, Susan Anthony was not allowed toys or amusements as a child as he claimed that they would distract the soul from the "inner light."
A precocious child, she learned to read and write at the age of three.
Susan B. Anthony's father withdrew her from a school that would not allow her to learn long division as boys did.
When Anthony was six years old, her family moved to Battenville, New York, where her father managed a large cotton mill.
Susan B. Anthony didn't actually have a middle name. There was a craze for middle initials at the time, so she chose "B" because her namesake aunt had married a man named Brownell.
TEACHING CAREER
Before she was sixteen, Anthony started to teach, taking small jobs near her home. After her family was financially ruined during an economic downturn known as the Panic of 1837, the family moved to Hardscrabble (later called Center Falls), New York.
Anthony left home to teach and to help pay off her father’s debts. She taught first at Eunice Kenyon’s Friends’ Seminary in New Rochelle, New York and then at the Canajoharie Academy in 1846. There, she rose to become headmistress of the Female Department.
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| Headmistress Susan B. Anthony in 1848 at age 28 |
Away from Quaker influences for the first time in her life, Anthony began to replace her plain clothing with more stylish dresses, and she stopped using "thee" and other forms of speech traditionally used by Quakers.
By this time, Anthony's family had moved to a farm on the outskirts of Rochester, New York, purchased partly with the inheritance of Anthony's mother.
When the Canajoharie Academy closed in 1849 Anthony took up her father’s offer to come to Rochester and run the farm while he built up his insurance business.
SOCIAL ACTIVISM
In her youth, Anthony was very self-conscious of her appearance and speaking abilities. She long resisted public speaking for fear she would not be sufficiently eloquent.
From the mid 1850s she devoted herself totally to the cause of equal rights for women. Her Quaker background, where unlike most other denominations both men and women were allowed to speak at services, was influential on her beliefs.
She founded the National Woman Suffrage Association along with Elizabeth Stanton on May 15, 1869.
On November 18, 1872, Anthony was arrested by a U.S. Deputy Marshal for voting illegally in the 1872 Presidential Election thirteen days earlier. Found guilty she received a $100 fine, but not imprisonment; true to her word in court ("I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty"), she never paid the fine for the rest of her life, and an embarrassed U.S. Government took no collection action against her.
In 1900, Anthony led a long, campaign for The University of Rochester to accept women into their programs. To do so Anthony was required to raise $50,000 in pledges and practicing what she preached, Anthony cashed out her own life insurance policy to reach the funding goal. The university later repaid her for the cost of the policy.
By the time she was 80 years old, even though woman suffrage was far from won, Anthony was enough of a public institution that President William McKinley invited her to celebrate her birthday at the White House.
Susan B. Anthony died at the age of 86 of heart failure and pneumonia in her home in Rochester, New York, on March 13, 1906, 14 years before passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. She was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester.
In 1979 Anthony was honored as the first American woman on circulating U.S. coinage with her appearance on the Susan B. Anthony dollar. Sadly, it was short lived, the coins were only produced through 1981 because they were supposedly too easily confused with quarters.
Sources Rric, Exhalelifestyle
She founded the National Woman Suffrage Association along with Elizabeth Stanton on May 15, 1869.
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| Susan Antony and Elizabeth Stanton |
On November 18, 1872, Anthony was arrested by a U.S. Deputy Marshal for voting illegally in the 1872 Presidential Election thirteen days earlier. Found guilty she received a $100 fine, but not imprisonment; true to her word in court ("I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty"), she never paid the fine for the rest of her life, and an embarrassed U.S. Government took no collection action against her.
In 1900, Anthony led a long, campaign for The University of Rochester to accept women into their programs. To do so Anthony was required to raise $50,000 in pledges and practicing what she preached, Anthony cashed out her own life insurance policy to reach the funding goal. The university later repaid her for the cost of the policy.
By the time she was 80 years old, even though woman suffrage was far from won, Anthony was enough of a public institution that President William McKinley invited her to celebrate her birthday at the White House.
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| Portrait of Susan B. Anthony |
Susan B. Anthony died at the age of 86 of heart failure and pneumonia in her home in Rochester, New York, on March 13, 1906, 14 years before passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. She was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester.
In 1979 Anthony was honored as the first American woman on circulating U.S. coinage with her appearance on the Susan B. Anthony dollar. Sadly, it was short lived, the coins were only produced through 1981 because they were supposedly too easily confused with quarters.
Sources Rric, Exhalelifestyle
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