Susan B. Anthony

Susan B. Anthony 

Personal Statement:
I was born on February 15th 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts. I was the 2nd of the 7 children my father, Daniel Anthony, and mother, Lucy Read, conceived. My received my primary education from home schooling, but in 1837, went to Deborah Moulson's Female Seminary to continue my education. I am considered notable because I helped women's suffrage become a reality, even though I didn't see the law passed in my lifetime. Historically, I was the first women to vote, and left a lasting mark on the lives of women in America. I helped them gain their right to vote.

Issue:
  In the beginning of my life, I spend much time advocating the temperance movement. Being a Quaker, drunkenness is seen a sin to me, and therefore, my involvement in the temperance movement had religious motives.  However, my father was a liberal Quaker and abolitionist, and when we moved to Rochester New York in 1845, anti-slavery meetings frequently took place in our house. My involvement in the abolitionist movement also had religious motives. In Rochester, I also began teaching. The unfair pay of women teachers began to spark my interest in the women's suffrage movement. It just isn't right to pay women $2.5 a month when a man is receiving $10 a month. In 1848, I attended my first women's suffrage convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y. Around the same time, my father's friends, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and Wendell Phillips, would visit and discuss in the house. They also helped shape my views on slavery, temperance, and women's suffrage. Until 1851, I spent much of my efforts rallying for the temperance movement. However, when I was denied the right to speak at a rallies because I was a women, I then realized that I had to gain my rights, both freedom of speech and ability to vote, in order to achieve any real success with the other causes. Around this time I met Elizabeth Candy Stanton, and the two of us would later organized the National Woman  In the beginning of my life, I spend much time advocating the temperance movement. Suffrage Association in 1868. However, with the outbreak of the Civil War, I helped the abolitionist movement. When women still had not gained the right to vote by the end of the war, I focused on the women suffrage movement. Stanton and I began writing a weekly newspaper called Revolution which advocates women's rights. However, by 1872, enough was enough so I registered and voted for the 1872 presidential election. Though I was arrested, tried in court, and fined $100, it was worth it. Continuing on my journey to suffrage, Stanton, Matilda Gage, and I began writing History of Women's Suffrage,  which eventually had 6 volumes. I founded the International Council of Women in 1888, which met in both London and Berlin.

Solution:
The only solution to slavery and lack of women suffrage would be legislation. The abolition of slavery was seen at the end of the Civil War, and, though not in my lifetime, women gained their right to vote in 1920. Temperance, however, was solely a moral issue. I did not advocate Prohibition because the issue of women's suffrage was far more important.

Relationships:
 I would feel comfortable sitting with anyone who supports the temperance, women suffrage, and abolitionist movement. Especially, I would love to sit by Elizabeth Candy Stanton, because she was a lifelong friend that helped me fight for women's suffrage. Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Wendell Phillips would also be fine people to sit with because they were also involved in the anti-slavery movement. It would also be nice to sit by Matilda Gage because she supported the women's suffrage cause and wrote History of Women's Suffrage with me. I would feel comfortable with anyone who supported my causes, including David Walker, Harriet Truman, and Sojourner Truth. I would not want to sit with anyone who opposed women's suffrage or abolition, especially Josephine Dodge because she formed the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. Also, I would not was to sit by Calhoun because he is pro-slavery.