Susan B Anthony Research Paper

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Susan Brownell Anthony Women have come a long way in society and much of the thanks go to Susan B. Anthony, who spent her life fighting for the rights of women. Susan B. Anthony was born February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts. She was brought up in a Quaker family with long activist traditions. Early in her life she developed a sense of justice. Although most girls did not receive a formal education in the early 1800's, Susan B. Anthony's father, Daniel, a 6th generation Quaker, believed in equal treatment for boys and girls. Therefore, Susan and her three sisters had the same opportunity for education as her two brothers. Susan attended a private Quaker boarding school in Philadelphia. The Anthony family was very active in the reform…show more content…
She helped to found the American Equal Rights Association. Anthony and a close friend and activist partner, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, founded the National Woman Suffrage Association. It was larger than the American Woman Suffrage Association, which it finally merged with. The two women traveled the United States together, giving speeches and urging equal treatment of women in the law and in society. Susan B. Anthony also opposed abortion, which she saw as another instance of a "double standard" imposed upon women. In the nineteenth century, the decision to undergo an abortion was very often decided by men. There were none of the standard contraceptive options available to women today. Antibiotics had yet to be invented, and abortion was a life threatening and unsanitary procedure for the woman. Anthony wrote that "when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is a sign that, by education or circumstances, she has been greatly wronged,” Susan B. Anthony encouraged women to register to vote and then vote, using the Fourteenth Amendment as justification. On November 5, 1872, Susan B. Anthony and others attempted to vote and some, including Anthony, are arrested. Later, she was tried for "illegally"…show more content…
Leon B. Bacon, a niece of Susan B. Anthony, stated later in life that “because of Aunt Susan's love for women and perseverance in her cause, I have today the enjoyment of a great many more rights and privileges than my mother had.” When Aunt Susan herself was young, there were no such things as woman's rights; all the rights were masculine. Women were ruled by a government and a law in which she had no voice. If she felt herself wronged in any way she had no way of making the fact known before the law. It was an unheard of thing for a woman to speak in public. None of the colleges or universities admitted women students. She was barred from nearly all profitable employments. If she did get one of those jobs, she received only one-fourth the man's salary for the same work. She could not become a doctor or lawyer, or a minister. If she was married, any wages she might earn were not hers, but must be handed by the employer to her husband, who was in every way her master. The law even gave him the power to chastise or punish her. The laws of divorce were helpless to the happiness of women. In every case, the man always gained the control of the children- even if he were the offender in the case. Men gained in every way possible to destroy a woman's confidence in her powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her lead a submissive life. She believed that a day would come when men would recognize women as their peers. Then, she believed there would be the perfect

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