Susan B. Anthony

Champion of the Ballot · Suffragist · 1820–1906

The tireless organiser of the American women's-suffrage movement — arrested for voting, and certain to her last breath that the right would come whether she lived to see it or not.

Who was Susan?

Susan B. Anthony was born into a Quaker family that believed in equality. She began in the temperance and anti-slavery causes, and found that as a woman she was forbidden even to speak at their meetings — which turned her to the fight for women's rights. With Elizabeth Cady Stanton she built the movement: she organised, petitioned, lectured across the country, and published the paper 'The Revolution', under the banner 'Men their rights and nothing more; women their rights and nothing less'. In 1872 she voted in Rochester and was arrested and tried, refusing to pay the fine. She did not live to see the amendment that bears her name ratified in 1920, but she never doubted it. Her last public words were 'Failure is impossible.'

Major achievements

• Built and led the American women's-suffrage movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Co-founded the National Woman Suffrage Association and the paper 'The Revolution'
• Was arrested and tried for voting in 1872, dramatising the injustice
• Compiled, with others, the 'History of Woman Suffrage'
• Inspired the 'Susan B. Anthony Amendment', ratified in 1920

Life in brief

• 1820 — Born in Massachusetts: Into a reform-minded Quaker family.
• 1851 — Meets Stanton: Begins a lifelong partnership for women's rights.
• 1868 — The Revolution: Launches the suffrage newspaper.
• 1872 — Votes and is arrested: Tried for voting in Rochester.
• 1878 — Suffrage amendment introduced: The measure later named for her.
• 1906 — Dies: Her last speech ends: 'Failure is impossible.'

Explore the life of Susan — five chapters

1. A Quaker Girl Who Expected to Be Heard — Massachusetts, mill towns and a teacher's wage
2. Stanton and Anthony — Fifty years of a division of labour
3. The Split — The Fifteenth Amendment, and arguments that should not have been made
4. United States v. Susan B. Anthony — Voting, and being refused the right to appeal
5. Failure Is Impossible — Thirty more years, and a vote she never cast legally

Read the five-chapter life of Susan B. Anthony →

Teach what Susan discovered

How Women Won the Vote — ideas Susan is tied to on the Living Knowledge Map. On Incandio you prove you understand one by teaching it to Ember, the AI pupil, in Teach the Room.

Begin

• Start a conversation with Susan — a dramatised, historically grounded AI portrayal
• Read the Historical Brief
• Explore the life of Susan — five chapters
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