苏珊分别于1888年和1904年群组建了国际妇女理事会和国际妇女选举权同盟，从而使她领导的女权运动走向世界，最终在伦敦和柏林召开大会。苏珊在斯坦屯辞世四年后于1906年离开人世，但她们所付出的努力为《美国宪法》第十九修正案于1920年通过铺平了道路，自那以后，美国妇女开始享有投票权。
She was the country’s most eloquent voice for women’sequality under the law.
她为女性争取法律上的平等权利发出了最有力的声音。
Susan Brownell Anthony (February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906) was a prominent American civilrights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introducewomen's suffrage into the United States. She traveled the United States, and Europe, and gave 75to 100 speeches every year on women's rights for 45 years.
Early social activism
In the era before the American Civil War, Anthony took a prominent role in the New York anti-slavery and temperance movements. In 1836, at age 16, Susan collected two boxes of petitionsopposing slavery, in response to the gag rule prohibiting such petitions in the House ofRepresentatives. In 1849, at age 29, she became secretary for the Daughters of Temperance,which gave her a forum to speak out against alcohol abuse, and served as the beginning ofAnthony's movement towards the public limelight.
In late 1850, Anthony read a detailed account in the New York Tribune of the first NationalWomen's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts. In the article, Horace Greeley wrote anespecially admiring description of the final speech, one given by Lucy Stone. Stone's wordscatalyzed Anthony to devote her life to women's rights. In the summer of 1852, Anthony metboth Greeley and Stone in Seneca Falls.
In 1851, on a street in Seneca Falls, Anthony was introduced to Elizabeth Cady Stanton by amutual acquaintance, as well as fellow feminist Amelia Bloomer. Anthony joined with Stanton inorganizing the first women's state temperance society in America after being refused admission to aprevious convention on account of her sex, in 1851. Stanton remained a close friend andcolleague of Anthony's for the remainder of their lives, but Stanton longed for a broader, moreradical women's rights platform. Together, the two women traversed the United States givingspeeches and attempting to persuade the government that society should treat men and womenequally.
Anthony was invited to speak at the third annual National Women's Rights Convention held inSyracuse, New York in September 1852. She and Matilda Joslyn Gage both made their first publicspeeches for women's rights at the convention. Anthony began to gain notice as a powerful publicadvocate of women's rights and as a new and stirring voice for change. Anthony participated inevery subsequent annual National Women's Rights Convention, and served as conventionpresident in 1858.
In 1856, Anthony further attempted to unify the African-American and women's rightsmovements when, recruited by abolitionist Abby Kelley Foster, she became an agent for WilliamLloyd Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society of New York. Speaking at the Ninth NationalWomen’s Rights Convention on May 12, 1859, Anthony asked "Where, under our Declaration ofIndependence, does the Saxon man get his power to deprive all women and Negroes of theirinalienable rights?"
The Revolution
On January 1, 1868, Anthony first published a weekly journal entitled The Revolution. Printed inNew York City, its motto was: "The true republic — men, their rights and nothing more; women,their rights and nothing less." Anthony worked as the publisher and business manager, whileElizabeth Cady Stanton acted as editor. The main thrust of The Revolution was to promotewomen’s and African-Americans’ right to suffrage, but it also discussed issues of equal pay for equalwork, more liberal divorce laws and the church’s position on women’s issues. The journal wasbacked by independently wealthy George Francis Train, who provided $600 in starting funds.
Though she never married, Anthony published her views about sexuality in marriage, holding thata woman should be allowed to refuse sex with her husband; the American woman had no legalrecourse at that time against rape by her husband. Anthony spoke very little on the subject ofabortion. Of primary importance to Anthony was the granting to woman the right to her ownbody which she saw as an essential element for the prevention of unwanted pregnancies, usingabstinence as the method. Pro-life activists claim that Anthony wrote an article in 1869 called"Marriage and Maternity: The Revolution"; in it the writer discusses the subject of abortion, arguingthat instead of merely attempting to pass a law against abortion, the root cause must also beaddressed: man's unthinking gratification of his sexual urges upon woman. The writerremonstrates against abortion, saying "Guilty? Yes, no matter what the motive, love of ease, or adesire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits thedeed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh! thrice guilty is hewho, for selfish gratification, heedless of her prayers, indifferent to her fate, drove her to thedesperation which impelled her to the crime." Though this passage is cited by contemporary pro-life activists, historians Ann Gordon and Lynn Sherr dispute Anthony's authorship. Gordon andSherr write, "The bits of information circulating on the Web always cite 'Marriage and Maternity', anarticle in a newspaper owned for several years after the Civil War by Susan B. Anthony. In it, thewriter deplores 'the horrible crime of child-murder', and signs it simply, 'A'. Although no data existthat Anthony wrote it, or ever used that shorthand for herself, she is imagined to be its author.The anti-abortion forces also ignore the paragraph in which the anonymous author vigorouslyopposes 'demanding a law for its suppression'. In other words, the article opposes thecriminalization of abortion and was written by someone other than Anthony."
American Equal Rights Association
In 1869, long-time friends Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony found themselves, for the firsttime, on opposing sides of a debate. The American Equal Rights Association (AERA), which hadoriginally fought for both blacks’ and women’s right to suffrage, voted to support the 15thAmendment to the Constitution, granting suffrage to black men, but not women. Anthonyquestioned why women should support this amendment when black men were not continuing toshow support for women’s voting rights. Partially as a result of the decision by the AERA, Anthonysoon thereafter devoted herself almost exclusively to the agitation for women's rights.
Susan B. Anthony, ca 1900On November 18, 1872, Anthony was arrested by a U.S. DeputyMarshal for voting illegally in the 1872 Presidential Election two weeks earlier. She had written toStanton on the night of the election that she had "positively voted the Republican ticket –straight...". She was tried and convicted seven months later, despite the stirring and eloquentpresentation of her arguments that the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment, whichguaranteed to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" the privileges of citizenship, andwhich contained no gender qualification, gave women the constitutional right to vote in federalelections. Her trial took place at the Ontario County courthouse in Canandaigua, New York. Thesentence was a fine, but not imprisonment; and true to her word in court, she never paid thepenalty for the rest of her life. The trial gave Anthony the opportunity to spread her arguments toa wider audience than ever before.
Anthony toured Europe in 1883 and visited many charitable organizations. She wrote of a poormother she saw in Killarney that had "six ragged, dirty children" to say that "the evidences werethat "God" was about to add a No. 7 to her flock. What a dreadful creature their God must be tokeep sending hungry mouths while he withholds the bread to fill them!"
In 1893, she joined with Helen Barrett Montgomery in forming a chapter of the Woman’sEducational and Industrial Union (WEIU)[13] in Rochester. In 1898, she also worked withMontgomery to raise funds to open opportunities for women students to study at University ofRochester.
Legacy
Susan B. Anthony, who died 14 years before passage of the 19th Amendment giving women theright to vote, was honored as the first real (non-allegorical) American woman on circulating U.S.coinage with her appearance on the Susan B. Anthony dollar. The coin, approximately the size of aU.S. quarter, was minted for only four years, 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1999. Anthony dollars wereminted for circulation at the Philadelphia and Denver mints for all four years, and at the SanFrancisco mint for the first three production years. She was also featured on U.S. commemorativestamps in 1936 and 1954.
Anthony's birthplace in Adams was purchased in August 2006 by Carol Crossed, founder of theNew York chapter of Democrats for Life of America, affiliated with Feminists for Life. Anthony'schildhood home in Battenville, New York, was placed on the New York State Historic Register in2006, and the National Historic Register in 2007.
The Susan B. Anthony House in Rochester was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1966 andwas operated as a museum.
The American composer Virgil Thomson and poet Gertrude Stein wrote an opera, The Mother of UsAll, that abstractly explores Anthony's life and mission. Along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton andLucretia Mott, she is commemorated in The Woman Movement, a sculpture by Adelaide Johnson,unveiled in 1921 at the United States Capitol.
