Susan B. Anthony: The Making of America, Book 4

SUSAN B. ANTHONY packed an almost unimaginable amount of social activism into her 86 years. She was an abolitionist, a campaigner for women's rights, a labor activist, an educational reformer, and a crusading newspaper owner. Born in 1820, she was raised in a well-to-do (most of the time) Quaker family by a father who believed strongly that his daughters should be educated women. Anthony became a teacher and eventually headmistress of a school, both remarkable achievements for a young woman. But when her father introduced her to abolitionists Fredrick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison, Anthony set out on a new path as an activist and never looked back. She began organizing anti-slavery meetings and lectures at a time when a woman speaking in public (not to mention in support of such a controversial cause) was considered almost scandalous. In 1851, she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was already a leader in the women's suffrage movement. For the next 50 years, they would lead the fight for women's rights. Anthony lobbied Congress each year for the rest of her life, advocating for women's right to vote. She lived to see women get the vote in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Idaho but died at age 86, 14 years before the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, finally giving women the right to vote in every state.