Susan Brownell Anthony

Personal Statement: Hi, my name is Susan Brownell Anthony, a feminist of my time who worked towards women’s rights. I was born on February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts. I was the daughter of Lucy Read and Daniel Anthony and was the second oldest of children: Guelma Penn, then me, then Hannah, then Mary Stafford, Eliza Tefft, Jacob Merritt, and lastly my youngest brother Daniel Reed. I was raised as a Quaker and I guess you could say that activism ran in my blood and at a young age I developed a sense of justice and moral enthusiasm. I did attend formal schooling at a local district school, but after the Panic of 1837, my older sister Guelma and I were taken out of school altogether at the ages of 17 and 18. I played a pretty major role in laying the foundation for women’s suffrage, sadly I did not get to see or experience it in the time I was alive.

Issue: I was the a champion of temperance, abolition and African American rights, rights of labor, and equal pay for equal work; although I was a busy woman, I devoted my life to organizing and leading women’s suffrage movement. At a young age, I experienced gender discrimination when, early in grade school a teaching refused to show me how to do long division simply because I was a girl, my teacher had no problem showing it to the boys in my class. Rights for all people is something very close to me and something that I think is worth the fight.

Solution: I taught school for fifteen years and then became involved in the temperance and anti-slavery movement, but since I was a woman I was not allowed to speak publicly. Because of this injustice, I became a leader in the movement for women’s suffrage. I tried to vote in in the presidential election and was criticized for it. Although I did not live long enough to see women’s suffrage in my life, I was successful in getting the women the right to vote. As early as 1893, 14 years after my death, the first women were allowed to vote in New Zealand.

Relationship To Others: I don’t discriminate, but at the dinner party I would be most comfortable holding a conversation with people who understand me and have similar beliefs as I do. With that being said, I would feel most comfortable with my fellow women’s rights activists like Margaret Fuller, Lucretia Mott, Angelina Grimke, and Elizabeth Stanton. Us girls would have so much to talk about!!