Publisher's Synopsis
Susan B. Anthony was an American writer, lecturer and abolitionist who was a leading figure in the women's voting rights movement. Raised in a Quaker household, Anthony went on to work as a teacher. She later partnered with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and would eventually lead the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
Anthony was born on February 15, 1820, in Adams, Massachusetts. The second oldest of eight children to a local cotton mill owner and his wife, only five of Anthony's siblings lived to be adults. One child was stillborn, and another died at age two.
Anthony grew up in a Quaker family and developed a strong moral compass early on, spending much of her life working on social causes. In 1826, the Anthony family moved to Battenville, New York. Around this time, Anthony was sent to study at a Quaker school near Philadelphia.
After her father's business failed in the late 1830s, Anthony returned home to help her family make ends meet. She found work as a teacher. The Anthonys moved to a farm in the Rochester, New York area, in the mid-1840s.
In the 1840s, Anthony's family became involved in the fight to end slavery, also known as the abolitionist movement. The Anthonys' Rochester farm served as a meeting place for such famed abolitionists as Frederick Douglass. Around this time, Anthony became the head of the girls' department at Canajoharie Academy - a post she held for two years.
Leaving the Canajoharie Academy in 1849, Anthony soon devoted more of her time to social issues. She was also involved in the temperance movement, aimed at limiting or completely stopping the production and sale of alcohol.
Anthony was inspired to fight for women's rights while campaigning against alcohol. Anthony was denied a chance to speak at a temperance convention because she was a woman, and later realized that no one would take women in politics seriously unless they had the right to vote.