Susan B. Anthony by Austin Lawson

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Susan B. Anthony

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Was born on February 15th, 1820, and died on March 13th, 1906.
Susan's acquaintance with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, led her to join the women's rights movement in 1852. Soon after, she dedicated her life to woman suffrage.
She was an abolitionist, an educational reformer, a labor activist, a temperance worker, a women rights campaigner, and a suffragist.

Susan Brownell Anthony was born on February 15, 1820, in Adams, Massachusetts, Susan B. Anthony grew up in a Quaker family. She developed a strong moral early on, and spent most of her life working on social causes. Anthony was the second oldest child out of eight children to a local cotton mill owner and his wife. Only six of the Anthony children lived to be adults. One child was stillborn and another died at the age of two. The family moved to Battenville, New York, in 1826. Around this time, Anthony was sent to study at a Quaker school near Philadelphia. After her father's business failed in the late 1830s, Anthony returned home to help her family make ends meet, and found work as a teacher. The Anthonys moved to a farm in the Rochester, New York area, in the mid-1840s. There, they became involved in the fight to end slavery, also known as the abolitionist movement. The Anthonys' farm served as a meeting place for such famed abolitionists as Frederick Douglass. Around this time, Anthony became the head of the girls' department at the Canajoharie Academy.

Leaving the Canajoharie Academy in 1849, Anthony soon devoted most of her time to social problems/issues. In 1851, she attended an anti-slavery conference, where she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She was also involved in the temperance movement, trying to limit or completely stopping the production and sale of alcohol. She was inspired to fight for women's rights while campaigning against alcohol. Anthony was denied a chance to speak at a temperance convention because she was a woman, and later realized that no one would take women in politics seriously unless they had the right to vote. Anthony and Stanton established the Women's New York State Temperance Society in 1852. Before long, they were also fighting for women's rights. They formed the New York State Woman's Rights Committee. Anthony also started up petitions for women to have the right to own property and to vote. She traveled extensively, campaigning on the behalf of women. In 1856, Anthony began working as an agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society. She spent years promoting the society's cause up until the Civil War.