Susan B. Anthony

            Another need-to know pillar of women’s history in Rochester is Susan B. Anthony.  Celebrity seems a silly word to attach to her name- not grand enough or nearly worthy of her accomplishments. However, she is more than deserving of the title and more.
She entirely rewrote how women in not only Rochester, but the country, even the world would live their lives. She helped win women the right to not only vote but to live, dream and accomplish things that before her, men had only been deemed capable of. She made Rochester her home to not only herself but also her activist movements.
            Originally born in Adams, Massachusetts (Feb. 15^th, 1820), Anthony and her family moved to Rochester in 1845. The Anthony’s had a long run of activism in their family lines. Their latest focus was the anti-slavery movement and Rochester was the home to several key activists, such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Several of her family meetings were actually attended by the two men.  
            Through working for the American Anti-Slavery Society, Anthony pushed for equality for all American citizens. Her and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the Women’s National Loyal League in 1863 that pushed for citizenship and the right to vote for all citizens, including women and all races, to apart of the 13^th and 15^th amendment. However, their campaign went unheard and the right to vote for women was left out.
            Together, they began to publish a newspaper, The Revolution. The newspaper, which ran in Rochester, produced content that’s purpose was to “establish justice for all.”
            Also founding the American Equal Rights Association in 1866, Stanton and Anthony continued to fight women’s suffrage on the Constitutional level.  The organization later split into two separate movements, the American Equal Rights Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association. The later half of the group moved its fight to a state-by-state approach. This was different from Anthony and Stanton’s Constitutional approach. The two groups would merge together later on.
            Anthony was arrested in 1872 along with three of her sisters, for voting in an election. She was found guilty and was fined $100 dollars she refused to pay. Although she was not jailed for her refusal, this kept the case from going to the Supreme Court, where an ultimate ruling could have killed or enforced the movement.
            The two suffrage movements formed back into one organization, calling itself the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1887. Stanton was president while Anthony was named vice-president.
            Anthony moved to president once Stanton retired in 1892 and Anthony continued to lead the movement until 1900. Anthony was 80 years old when she retired. Four years later, she went on to attend and preside over the International Council of Women in Berlin. She was also named honorary president of Carrie Chapman Catt’s International Woman Suffrage Alliance.
            Anthony died at home, in Rochester, in 1906. She was laid to rest in Mount Hope cemetery in Rochester (also the final resting place of Frederick Douglass).
            It wasn’t until 14 years later that women gained the right to vote through the  passing Nineteenth Amendment, appropriately nicknamed the Susan B. Anthony, Amendment in 1920.