Susan B. Anthony Biography

Susan B. Anthony was an American feminist who played a major role in the women's suffrage movement and served as the president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She was committed to social equality and was also a civil rights activist and abolitionist. Born into a Quaker family with strong activist traditions, she developed a sense of justice early on and ventured into social activism as a teenager. Her father as well as several other members of her family, were abolitionists, and as a young girl, she too became involved in the anti-slavery movement. She grew up to become a teacher and ultimately became the head of the girls' department at Canajoharie Academy. She became acquainted with the prominent abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the fiery feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton and was inspired to become a full-time social activist herself. She left the academy and joined Stanton in founding the New York Women's State Temperance Society. The duo then went on to initiate the American Equal Rights Association, which campaigned for equal rights for both women and African Americans. A very active figure in the women’s suffrage movement, she tirelessly campaigned to gain support for women’s right to vote. A strong willed and independent woman, she never married and dedicated her entire life to the causes she believed in.