Susan B. Anthony: Rebel, Crusader, HumanitarianLutz, Alma
History
Susan B. Anthony: Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian
Lutz, Alma
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906
Addressing the large teachers' meeting in Troy, Susan declared that
mental sex-differences did not exist. She called attention to the
ever-increasing variety of occupations which women were carrying on
with efficiency. There were women typesetters, editors, publishers,
authors, clerks, engravers, watchmakers, bookkeepers, sculptors,
painters, farmers, and machinists. Two hundred and fifty women were
serving as postmasters. Girls, she insisted, must be educated to earn
a living and more vocations must be opened to them as an incentive to
study. "A woman," she added, "needs no particular kind of education to
be a wife and mother anymore than a man does to be a husband and
father. A man cannot make a living out of these relations. He must
fill them with something more and so must women."[96]
Her advanced ideas did not cause as much consternation as she had
expected and she was asked to repeat her speech at the Massachusetts
teachers' convention; but the thoughts of many in that audience were
echoed by the president when he said to her after the meeting, "Madam,
that was a splendid production and well delivered. I could not have
asked for a single thing different either in matter or manner; but I
would rather have followed my wife or daughter to Greenwood cemetery
than to have had her stand here before this promiscuous audience and
deliver that address."[97]
It was one thing to talk about coeducation but quite another to offer
a resolution putting the New York State Teachers' Association on
record as asking all schools, colleges, and universities to open their
doors to women. This Susan did at their next convention, and while
there were enough women present to carry the resolution, most of them
voted against it, listening instead to the emotional arguments of a
group of conservative men who prophesied that coeducation would
coarsen women and undermine marriage. Nor did she forget the Negro at
these conventions, but brought much criticism upon herself by offering
resolutions protesting the exclusion of Negroes from public schools,
academies, colleges, and universities.
Such controversial activities were of course eagerly reported in the
press, and Henry Stanton, reading his newspaper, pointed them out to
his wife, remarking drily, "Well, my dear, another notice of Susan.
You stir up Susan and she stirs up the world."[98]
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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