Susan B. Anthony on "The Status of Woman, Past, Present and Future"

The article opens with the acknowledgement that within the past 50 years, many improvements in the rights of women are victories that have been gained by "…the hard-fought battles of other women…". Anthony adds that politics is the one arena in which women have made the least advancement, adding: "…If women could make the laws or elect those who make them, they would be in the position of sovereigns instead of subjects…".

Of course, despite Anthony's agitation for more than half a century, women would not be given the right to vote until 1920.

Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. She was president of (1892-1900) of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, which she founded with Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In 1872, Anthony was arrested in her hometown of Rochester, New York for voting in violation of laws that allowed only men to vote. She was convicted in a widely publicized trial. Although she refused to pay the fine, the authorities declined to take further action. In 1878, Anthony and Stanton arranged for Congress to be presented with an amendment giving women the right to vote. Introduced by Senator Aaron A. Sargent (R-CA), it was eventually ratified as the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920, and later became known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.

★ Susan B. Anthony Signed Pamphlet: "The Status of Woman, Past, Present and Future," DS. Rochester, N.Y., ca. 1898 #27972