Anthony, Susan Brownell

Susan Brownell (1820-1906), an American reformer. She was born at South Adams, Massachusetts, of Quaker ancestry. She was a teacher, an organizer of temperance societies, an anti-slavery leader, and an ardent advocate of female suffrage. She was associated with Garrison, Douglass, and other anti-slavery workers. Her most intimate friend was Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, and Frances E. Willard were also co-workers. In 1853 Miss Anthony made her first public speech. The occasion was a meeting of the New York Educational Convention. Women were permitted membership and were, it may be presumed, allowed to pay their annual dues, but they were not expected to be heard. When Miss Anthony rose to address the chair, the convention was thunderstruck. The men wrangled half an hour over the proposed innovation before they instructed the presiding officer to waive the point of order and grant Miss Anthony the privilege of speaking. When Miss Anthony began her work, there were practically no occupations for women except domestic service, sewing, and teaching young children. High schools were not open to girls. A woman's property belonged to her husband. She could not even collect her own wages. One of Miss Anthony's great victories was a law passed by the legislature of New York in 1860, giving a woman the right to hold her own property and to act as guardian to her children. One who wrote her life says, "Every girl who now enjoys a college education; every woman who earns a living in any profession or trade; every wife who is protected in the ownership of property; every mother who has an equal right with the father to the custody and control of her children; every woman who belongs to a club and works for individual and civic improvement, owes these sacred privileges to Susan B. Anthony above all others." Miss Anthony was for many years the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She was an able platform speaker, a cogent writer, a courageous, persistent woman. With it all she was known among her associates as a sympathetic friend and an excellent cook and housewife. Whatever fanciful notions might possess others, she never forgot that the world is full of hard work and of every day prosaic duties. See Howe; Julia Ward; Willard; Frances; Woman Suffrage