American Heroes from Massachusetts~SUSAN B. ANTHONY (1820-1906)~by rldubour

 

SUSAN B. ANTHONY (1820-1906)

David and Lucy Anthony
Lived in Adams, Massachusetts.
A cotton manufacturer
Quakers and abolitionist.

Their second child of eight children
Named Susan Brownell Anthony.
In the year of eighteen-twenty
Her name will go on in history.

Parents enforced self-discipline
A precocious child at age three.
Was taught principle convictions
At that young age could write and read.

In eighteen-hundred-twenty-six
They moved to Battenville, New York.
Susan attends the local school
Would soon find out this would not work.

They would not teach her long division
The reason was of her gender.
Was then placed in a group home school
The local schools did offend her.

A teacher named Mary Perkins
Had fostered Susan’s strong beliefs.
In women’s rights and equality
This new image would not be brief.

Self-conscious of her youth and looks
And her speaking abilities.
Later sent to a boarding school
To help with insecurities.

At seventeen till twenty-nine
In New York State was a teacher.
At that time men earned four times more
Her goal for women’s rights had reached her.

 

In New York she was twenty-nine
Involved with anti-slavery.
For the Daughters of Temperance
Applauded for her bravery.

The constant target of abuse
From men of higher influence
Her goal was equal rights for all
With an attitude of benevolence.

November fifth, Eighteen-seventy-two
Susan Anthony was arrested
For voting for the president
The new amendment now is tested.

Under the fourteenth amendment
As a citizen she could vote.
Can not be denied the privilege
In her court papers she had wrote.

Was prominent and independent
She fought for American civil rights.
A leader and abolitionist
For women she never lost a fight!

AUTHOR NOTES*

 

 Susan_B._Anthony
Born; February 15, 1820 Died; March 13, 1906
It was in New York State that Anthony began to first take part in conventions and gatherings related to the temperance movement. She would eventually help to lead the women’s movement, traveling thousands of miles throughout the United States and Europe, and giving 75 to 100 speeches per year on suffrage and women’s rights, for 45 years. She traveled by carriage, wagon, train, mule, bicycle, stagecoach, ship, ferry boat, and even sleigh.
In 1856, Anthony further attempted to bring the African-American rights and women’s rights movements together when she became agent for William Lloyd Garrison’s American Anti-Slavery Society of New York state. On May 12, 1859, speaking at the Ninth National Women’s Rights Convention, Anthony asked “Where, under our Declaration of Independence, does the Saxon man get his power to deprive all women and Negroes of their inalienable rights.”
As a leading advocate of abolition, women’s rights, a founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association, and New York State’s agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society, Susan B. Anthony led a challenging and significant life.
On January 1, 1868, Susan B. Anthony first published a weekly journal entitled, The Revolution, published in New York City, and having as its motto: “The true republic – men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.” Anthony worked as the publisher and business manager, while Elizabeth Cady Stanton acted as editor.