Who's Who - Susan B. Anthony

Susan was a very precocious child learning to read and write at the age of three. Susan was then home-schooled because her father was unimpressed with the education level at the local schools.

At seventeen, Anthony went off to a Quaker boarding school, but was forced to return home after only a single term. Her family was financially devastated by the economic downturn known as the "Panic of 1873". To assist her family Susan left home to teach at another Quaker boarding school.

Anthony met Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1851 and for the next five decades the Anthony and Stanton worked together on suffrage, equal rights, temperance and anti-slavery issues. Stanton was known as the more philosophical of the pair, while Anthony was considered the organizer and rally leader.

Anthony was tireless in her efforts, giving speeches around the country to convince others to support a woman's right to vote.Susan always suffered severe stage fright. Anthony sometimes had to grip the podium hard to restrain herself from shaking. Anthony wrote in 1878: "It always requires a painful effort to face an audience. I have never felt at perfect ease on a platform".

In 1872 she voted in the presidential election illegally. Anthony was arrested and tried unsuccessfully to fight the charges. She ended up being fined $100 – a fine she never paid.

In 1878 Anthony and Stanton arranged for Congress to be presented with an amendment giving women the right to vote. Popularly known as the Anthony Amendment, it became the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920