Susan B. Anthony

“I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty.”

Born in 1820 in Massachusetts, Susan B. Anthony was raised to believe men and women were equal.

At 26, she was running a school.

And discovered her male colleagues earned 4x her salary.

At 31, she tried to speak at a temperance convention.

The male organizers told her to “listen and learn.”

So she walked out, and launched the Women’s State Temperance Society with Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

That meeting kicked off a 50-year partnership.

Anthony was the operator. Stanton was the writer.

During the Civil War, they founded the Women’s Loyal National League.

The first national women’s political organization in U.S. history.

Their petition to abolish slavery gathered nearly 400,000 signatures. A record at the time.

Then they turned to suffrage.

They co-founded the American Equal Rights Association to demand voting rights for both Black Americans and women.

In 1869, after a split in the movement, they founded the National Woman Suffrage Association.

And in 1890, helped merge it with its rival to create NAWSA, the most powerful suffrage group in the country.

Anthony was everywhere.

She gave over 100 speeches a year, organized campaigns in every state, and ran the movement out of her own home.

She lived off lecture fees.

She even used her life insurance policy to help women gain admission to the University of Rochester.

She also helped create…
- The International Council of Women (still active today)
- The World’s Congress of Representative Women
- And the International Woman Suffrage Alliance.

But she wasn’t just fighting for the vote.

She was fighting for everything: property rights, equal education, equal pay, legal divorce, female labor unions, and standardized training for nurses.

She was attacked by mobs, had eggs thrown at her, and was hung in effigy.

None of it stopped her.

In 1872, she walked into a polling station in Rochester and cast a vote for president, illegally.

She was arrested, indicted, and fined $100.

She refused to pay, and instead responded: “I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty.”

And the judge made sure she couldn’t appeal, because he knew she’d take the fight to the Supreme Court.

In 1878, Congress received the first version of a women’s suffrage amendment: the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.

It took 42 more years to pass.

Anthony died in 1906 at age 86.

She didn’t live to see the amendment ratified.

But she knew it was coming.

In 1979, she became the first real woman to appear on U.S. currency.