How Did Susan B Anthony Influence The Way Women Vote

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Susan B. Anthony, the woman who helped other women vote, was born on February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts. Her father, Daniel, was a farmer and later a cotton mill owner and manager and was raised as a Quaker. Her mother, Lucy, came from a family that fought in the American Revolution and served in the Massachusetts state government. From an early age, Susan B. Anthony was inspired by the Quaker belief that everyone was equal under God. That idea guided her throughout her life. She had seven brothers and sisters, many of whom became activists for justice and emancipation of slaves. When she turned seventeen, Susan B. Anthony was sent to Quaker boarding school in Philadelphia, where she unhappily endured its strict and sometimes humiliating …show more content…

Anthony left home to teach at a Quaker boarding school. After many years of teaching, Anthony returned to her family, who had moved to New York State. There she met William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, who were friends of her father. Listening to them moved Susan to want to do more to help end slavery and help women have equal rights. She became an abolition activist, even though most people thought it was improper for women to give speeches in public. Anthony made many passionate speeches against slavery as well as for equal rights for women. In 1848, a group of women held a convention at Seneca Falls, New York. It was the first Women’s Rights Convention in the United States and began the Suffrage movement. Her mother and sister attended the convention, but Susan B. Anthony did not. In 1851, Susan B. Anthony met Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The two women became good friends and worked together for over 50 years, fighting for women’s rights. They traveled the country and Anthony gave speeches demanding that women be given the right to vote. At times, she risked being arrested for sharing her ideas in …show more content…

Then in 1890 the two organizations merged as the National American Woman Suffrage Association with Susan B. Anthony as its effective leader. When Elizabeth Cady Stanton retired from her post in 1892, Susan B. Anthony became the National American Woman Suffrage president. In 1893 she initiated the Rochester branch of Women's Educational and Industrial Union. In 1898 she called a meeting of 73 local women's societies to form the Rochester Council of Women. She played a key role in raising the funds required by the University of Rochester before they would admit women students, pleading her life insurance policy to close the final funding gap. Many years would go by of long and hard work to fight for women's rights. Susan B. Anthony died at the age of 86 of heart failure and pneumonia in her home in Rochester, New York on March 13, 1906. Sadly Susan B. Anthony did not live to see the achievement of women's suffrage at national level but she expressed pride in the progress the women's movement had made. On August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote and all because of Susan B.

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