Person

Susan B. Anthony

(b. 1820) activist

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Susan B. Anthony, Pro-Life Heroine?

Behind a quiet house museum are anti-abortion activists with a mission: to claim America’s most famous historical feminist as their own.

Read a Newly Rediscovered Letter From Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

A window into the day-to-day workings of the movement for the enfranchisement of women.
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‘Hag of Misery’

The abortionist Madame Restell is central to the story of how American women’s reproductive freedom was dismantled in the second half of the nineteenth century.
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No Better Soil

In the first half of the 19th century, upstate New York was a hotbed of movements for reform. How visible is that history today?
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony with backdrop of abortion protest posters

What Did the Suffragists Really Think About Abortion?

Contrary to contemporary claims, Susan B. Anthony and her peers rarely discussed abortion, which only emerged as a key political issue in the 1960s.

100 Years Later, These Activists Continue Their Ancestors’ Work

A new generation of activists traces its ancestry and inspiration to key figures in the suffrage movement.
Program for the National American Woman Suffrage Association procession in Washington, DC, 1913, featuring a woman on a horse heralding votes for women and leading marchers toward the capitol.

The Thorny Road to the 19th Amendment

A new book chronicles the twists and turns of the 75-year-path to securing the vote for women.
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What Antiabortion Advocates Get Wrong About the Women Who Secured the Right to Vote

The most famous suffragists largely weren't anti-abortion and wanted women to have more control over their bodies.
Collage of old political cartoons related to the question of women's suffrage.

Massachusetts Debates a Woman’s Right to Vote

A brief history of the Massachusetts suffrage movement, and it's opposition, told through images of the time.

How Women Got the Vote Is a Far More Complex Story Than the History Textbooks Reveal

An immersive story about the bold women who helped secure the right to vote is on view at the National Portrait Gallery.
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How New York’s New Monument Whitewashes the Women’s Rights Movement

It offers a narrow vision of the activists who fought for equality.

The Long Road to Women’s Suffrage

The “Anthony Amendment” was introduced with no luck for 41 years. And even then, it wasn’t for everyone.

Public Memory and Reproductive Justice in the Trump Era

Who in the reproductive rights debate can claim Susan B. Anthony?

How the Suffrage Movement Betrayed Black Women

As the U.S. celebrates the centennial of the 19th Amendment, it’s vital to remember that some of its heroes were less than heroic.
Women's liberation movement demonstrating in Washington D.C.

The Waves of Feminism, and Why People Keep Fighting Over Them, Explained

If you have no idea which wave of feminism we’re in right now, read this.

The Raiment of Resistance

If women were going to be judged by their appearance, then the suffragists wanted to shape their own image.

How Women Changed American Politics

How feminism and antifeminism created Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
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The Abandonment of Betty Friedan

What does the academy have against the mother of second-wave feminism?
Photograph of people admiring the statue dedicated to Bett Freeman.

Statue Honors Once-Enslaved Woman Who Won Freedom in Court

Bett Freeman's story and the legal precedent her case established are now forever remembered in Sheffield, Massachusetts.
Members of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union break open barrels of liquor seized during Prohibition, 1929.

Roe Is the New Prohibition

The pro-life movement needs to know that such culture wars result not in outright victory for one side but in reaction and compromise.