U.S. Leaders

Susan B. Anthony was a leading figure of the 19th century movement for women's suffrage in the United States, and one of the most famous and iconic names in women's history. She worked with her close friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton to campaign for women's rights by organizing, traveling, and speaking throughout the United States. It was this significant political movement which shows how reformers in one movement were often active in another, and how one individual can affect the efforts of thousands of others.

Susan B Anthony was raised in a Quaker family with long line of activists. She was brought up with a sense of justice. After she moved to Rochester in 1845, her family became part of the anti-slavery movement. She eventually became an agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society where she arranged meetings, gave speeches and distributed leaflets. Because she was a woman she endured many hardships, angry mobs and threats. Anthony was also involved in temperance movement and attended the rallies. Because she was a woman though, she was not allowed to speak at them. It was this that brought her to want to end womens sufferege and be able to have rights and obtain equal pay as the men did. In 1852 she met Elizabeth Cady at a campaign for womens rights and they became partners for they had the same beliefs. Anthony campaigned for both women and abolition of slavery. In 1868, Anthony published her first newspaper The Revolution where she talked about women, of all colors, getting their rights and ending slavery. From all of her work with the temperance movement she realized that women needed to be able to vote if they were going to influence public affairs. This was going to cause a change the Fifteenth Amendment to allow women to vote. Something Anthony and Cady, among other women, were willing to fight for. Anthony and three others were once