Susan B. Anthony
By Rose Freudberg
Contributions
Susan B. Anthony began her work in reform working for the Temperance Movement to ban the consumption of alcohol. She hoped to put an end to the abuse wives and children were suffering from men who were drinking. In 1851, she traveled to a Temperance conference in Seneca Falls, NY and befriended Elizabeth Cady Stanton. In 1852, she attended a meeting of the Sons of Temperance, but was not allowed to speak because she was a woman. She realized women would never be able to fight for reforms without the right to participate in government. She then began to fight for the women's suffrage movement, organizing a door-to-door campaign for signatures on a petition to gain women the right to vote. Anthony and Stanton together wrote the History of Woman Suffrage and formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. She also attempted to vote illegally in 1872 and was arrested along with 16 other women. Sadly, during her lifetime, Anthony was never able to cast a legal ballot as the national right for women to vote was not passed until 1920. She was honored in 1979 by being the first woman to be depicted on US currency.