From an early age, Anthony was taught Quaker values as well as political activism by her parents. The efforts of her father, a devout Quaker, and her mother, a representative of the Massachusetts state government, culminated in her career as a leading speaker on suffrage, abolition, and a variety of other progressive issues. This caused her to vigorously advocate for women’s rights with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, another prominent progressive advocate. During her career, Anthony founded the American Equal Rights Association and a newspaper called The Revolution. Both these served as platforms for her to spread her ideas across America. The newspaper served as an expression of both Anthony’s personal beliefs as well as the AERA’s opinion. Most of the messages from the paper concerned the subject of women in the workplace, such as unionization and discrimination against them. Despite this, conflicts sometimes arose between the objectives of the association and Anthony’s own beliefs. During the push for African American rights, many organizations vouched to support the push. However, some reformers such as Anthony rejected the movement and claimed through mediums such as the newspaper the claim: “Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.”
This split in ideologies became apparent during the response to a Kansas bill granting both blacks and women the right to vote. Due to the passing of the 15th Amendment, which granted men of color the right to vote, Anthony and Stanton advocated for a 16th Amendment that granted women enfranchisement. Some members of the party, however, refused to support the action, which led to the split of the AERA and newly formed National Women Sufferage Association under Stanton and Anthony.
During her period of activism, she engaged in increasingly risky challenges and actions that defied the state. Eventually, she was arrested for voting during the election. This causes a major uproar as many flocked to the organization following its spur of publicity. The organization leveraged this public exposure during the US Centennial Event, where Anthony gave the Declaration of Rights speech, which focused on drawing parallels between American independence from Britain and Women’s Suffrage. This catalyzed the movement of Women’s suffrage which would result in the 19th Amendment a century later.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Revolution
https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-Equal-Rights-Association
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/susan-b-anthony
https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-declaration-of-rights-of-the-women-of-the-united-states.htm
Good Job! The post was fun to read and really gave me a lot of insight into women's activism and suffrage movements going on in the time period. After reading your blog, I decided to do a little research on the topic and found some fun facts that go well with the rest of what you say. To add on to the long list of suffrage movements, in 1900, Anthony was able to persuade the University of Rochester to admit women. This lead to her next achievement, being the first women to appear on a U.S. coin. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed the Susan B. Anthony Dollar Coin Act, which replaced the existing dollar coin with one bearing Anthony's image. Overall, loved reading this; can't wait to see more posts!
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