WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.500 Welcome to the Deep Dive, where we take your 00:00:02.500 --> 00:00:05.580 source materials, filter out the noise, and extract 00:00:05.580 --> 00:00:07.839 the most surprising and essential nuggets of 00:00:07.839 --> 00:00:11.220 knowledge. Today, we are undertaking, well, a 00:00:11.220 --> 00:00:14.339 monumental task, examining the life of a figure 00:00:14.339 --> 00:00:17.539 who is so often just confined to a single image 00:00:17.539 --> 00:00:19.780 on a coin. Right. Or a date on a constitutional 00:00:19.780 --> 00:00:22.920 amendment. Susan B. Anthony. Exactly. And what 00:00:22.920 --> 00:00:24.699 we found in the sources, it really, I mean, it 00:00:24.699 --> 00:00:27.239 fundamentally changes that perception. And that's 00:00:27.239 --> 00:00:29.960 our mission for this Deep Dive. We want to explore 00:00:29.960 --> 00:00:33.140 the entire radical arc of her career, which spans 00:00:33.140 --> 00:00:36.899 from 1820 right up to her death in 1906. Because 00:00:36.899 --> 00:00:39.060 to just call her a suffragist, while it's accurate, 00:00:39.259 --> 00:00:42.700 it's also profoundly incomplete. Yeah, it completely 00:00:42.700 --> 00:00:45.000 misses the incredible force of personality she 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:48.500 was and the strategic genius she brought to so 00:00:48.500 --> 00:00:50.759 many different reform movements over, what, six 00:00:50.759 --> 00:00:53.640 decades? It absolutely does. Our sources, they 00:00:53.640 --> 00:00:55.960 paint her not just as this pivotal women's rights 00:00:55.960 --> 00:00:59.759 activist, but as a... a tireless social reformer. 00:00:59.759 --> 00:01:02.340 She was so deeply committed to abolition, to 00:01:02.340 --> 00:01:04.659 temperance, and to labor rights. She really spent 00:01:04.659 --> 00:01:06.819 decades driving social and legislative change 00:01:06.819 --> 00:01:09.780 in the U .S. And maybe most importantly, she 00:01:09.780 --> 00:01:12.540 provided the organizational framework for modern, 00:01:12.620 --> 00:01:15.459 structured political activism. I mean, the kind 00:01:15.459 --> 00:01:17.859 of activism we still recognize today. Let's start 00:01:17.859 --> 00:01:20.099 with a moment of high drama, a moment she actually 00:01:20.099 --> 00:01:22.799 orchestrated herself. Okay. We're flashing forward 00:01:22.799 --> 00:01:26.420 to Rochester, New York, 1872. It is November 00:01:26.420 --> 00:01:29.819 18th and Susan B. Anthony is arrested and her 00:01:29.819 --> 00:01:33.040 crime. The wicked crime of casting a ballot in 00:01:33.040 --> 00:01:35.810 the presidential election. A direct. deliberate 00:01:35.810 --> 00:01:37.930 violation of the law at the time. She wasn't 00:01:37.930 --> 00:01:40.290 just, you know, protesting randomly. This was 00:01:40.290 --> 00:01:43.329 a calculated legal challenge. That arrest is 00:01:43.329 --> 00:01:45.969 the perfect entry point, I think, to understanding 00:01:45.969 --> 00:01:48.670 her uncompromising radicalism. We have sources 00:01:48.670 --> 00:01:51.689 that trace her entire path from when she first 00:01:51.689 --> 00:01:53.930 started collecting anti -slavery petitions at 00:01:53.930 --> 00:01:56.769 just 17 years old. 17. All the way to her death, 00:01:56.870 --> 00:01:59.450 which was a full 14 years before the 19th Amendment 00:01:59.450 --> 00:02:02.129 was finally ratified in 1920. And that amendment 00:02:02.129 --> 00:02:05.129 is now colloquially known as the Susan B. It 00:02:05.129 --> 00:02:08.229 is. She literally devoted her entire adult life 00:02:08.229 --> 00:02:10.990 to the cause and never lived to see its ultimate 00:02:10.990 --> 00:02:14.210 success. So why should you, the learner, invest 00:02:14.210 --> 00:02:16.710 this time in understanding the full breadth of 00:02:16.710 --> 00:02:19.770 her journey? Because I think she represents one 00:02:19.770 --> 00:02:22.110 of the most profound shifts in public perception 00:02:22.110 --> 00:02:23.930 in American history. That's a great way to put 00:02:23.930 --> 00:02:29.469 it. At first, harshly ridiculed, attacked in 00:02:29.469 --> 00:02:32.069 the press, accused of trying to, and I'm quoting, 00:02:32.270 --> 00:02:35.569 destroy the institution of marriage, all for 00:02:35.569 --> 00:02:37.870 advocating for women's independence. And yet 00:02:37.870 --> 00:02:40.330 she persevered long enough to have her 80th birthday 00:02:40.330 --> 00:02:42.210 celebrated at the White House. By the sitting 00:02:42.210 --> 00:02:44.849 president, William McKinley. That transition 00:02:44.849 --> 00:02:48.110 right there from public enemy number one to like 00:02:48.110 --> 00:02:51.330 a national icon, that is the heart of her legacy. 00:02:51.509 --> 00:02:54.490 It shows the power of relentless, sustained political 00:02:54.490 --> 00:02:57.419 pressure. It really does. And it offers a kind 00:02:57.419 --> 00:03:00.800 of blueprint for how radical ideas through organization 00:03:00.800 --> 00:03:03.219 and persistence can become accepted national 00:03:03.219 --> 00:03:06.020 policy. To really get the intensity of her conviction, 00:03:06.139 --> 00:03:08.120 you have to go back to the very bedrock of her 00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:10.599 upbringing. Her Quaker roots. Her Quaker roots 00:03:10.599 --> 00:03:13.539 in Adams, Massachusetts. And this wasn't just 00:03:13.539 --> 00:03:16.120 a casual religious background. It was a total 00:03:16.120 --> 00:03:20.479 immersion in social reform and a commitment to 00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:23.289 equality that just defined her family. That idea 00:03:23.289 --> 00:03:25.830 of social equality, which is so fundamental to 00:03:25.830 --> 00:03:28.030 the Quaker faith, really was foundational for 00:03:28.030 --> 00:03:30.689 her. It was. Her father, Daniel Anthony, was 00:03:30.689 --> 00:03:32.909 an abolitionist and a temperance advocate himself. 00:03:33.289 --> 00:03:36.110 But the family's radicalism was so strong, it 00:03:36.110 --> 00:03:38.210 actually led to a break with their own religious 00:03:38.210 --> 00:03:40.949 community. Right. Daniel was formerly disowned 00:03:40.949 --> 00:03:43.889 by his traditionalist Quaker congregation, and 00:03:43.889 --> 00:03:46.300 it was for two specific acts. The first makes 00:03:46.300 --> 00:03:48.340 sense. He married a non -Quaker, which was a 00:03:48.340 --> 00:03:50.439 clear religious breach. But the second one is 00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:51.840 the one that's really surprising. The second 00:03:51.840 --> 00:03:53.639 was allowing a dance school to operate in his 00:03:53.639 --> 00:03:56.139 home just to help make ends meet. Dancing was 00:03:56.139 --> 00:03:58.360 seen as a worldly, you know, sinful activity 00:03:58.360 --> 00:04:01.500 by traditional Quakers. So this act, as small 00:04:01.500 --> 00:04:04.259 as it sounds, was a final push for him. It was 00:04:04.259 --> 00:04:06.680 a push toward a more liberal, less structured 00:04:06.680 --> 00:04:09.680 form of Quakerism. What we might call today an 00:04:09.680 --> 00:04:12.120 increasingly radical belief system, one that 00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:14.960 was focused on social justice over strict dogma. 00:04:15.259 --> 00:04:17.839 That's a key point. Their reformist tendencies 00:04:17.839 --> 00:04:20.540 were strong enough to supersede even their core 00:04:20.540 --> 00:04:23.759 religious identity. Then, in 1845, the family 00:04:23.759 --> 00:04:26.379 relocates to a farm on the outskirts of Rochester, 00:04:26.680 --> 00:04:30.819 New York. And that move was so pivotal for Susan's 00:04:30.819 --> 00:04:33.319 development. Why there? What was it about Rochester? 00:04:33.930 --> 00:04:36.250 Well, the Rochester farm essentially became a 00:04:36.250 --> 00:04:38.870 salon for the most progressive thinkers of the 00:04:38.870 --> 00:04:41.949 era. It was the Sunday afternoon gathering spot 00:04:41.949 --> 00:04:45.689 for local activists, transcendentalists, abolitionists. 00:04:45.810 --> 00:04:47.269 And that's where she met Frederick Douglass. 00:04:47.410 --> 00:04:50.410 It was. He lived nearby and she developed a crucial 00:04:50.410 --> 00:04:52.990 and lifelong friendship with him there. Just 00:04:52.990 --> 00:04:55.310 imagine the constant high level intellectual 00:04:55.310 --> 00:04:58.170 exposure she had. They weren't just discussing 00:04:58.170 --> 00:05:01.889 abolition, but the future of society. labor everything 00:05:01.889 --> 00:05:04.790 and her father's vision for his children was 00:05:04.790 --> 00:05:06.930 incredibly progressive for the time wasn't it 00:05:06.930 --> 00:05:09.589 he really prepared them including the girls for 00:05:09.589 --> 00:05:12.949 economic independence he insisted on it all his 00:05:12.949 --> 00:05:15.069 children had to be self -supporting and he taught 00:05:15.069 --> 00:05:17.129 them business principles making sure they understood 00:05:17.129 --> 00:05:19.449 accounting and management so that foundational 00:05:19.449 --> 00:05:22.259 belief that women should be financially independent. 00:05:22.560 --> 00:05:25.740 That was the spark for her first major realization 00:05:25.740 --> 00:05:28.680 about inequality. It was, and that realization 00:05:28.680 --> 00:05:31.399 came pretty quickly, forced by circumstance. 00:05:31.879 --> 00:05:34.519 Her family suffered major financial ruin during 00:05:34.519 --> 00:05:37.240 the Panic of 1837. Which basically forced her 00:05:37.240 --> 00:05:39.139 to start working to help support them. Exactly. 00:05:39.220 --> 00:05:41.899 She taught for years and eventually rose to become 00:05:41.899 --> 00:05:44.100 headmistress of the female department at Kanerjah 00:05:44.100 --> 00:05:46.819 Harry Academy. She became a working woman by 00:05:46.819 --> 00:05:49.240 necessity. Her first public speech, though, came 00:05:49.240 --> 00:05:51.149 pretty early. was at a Daughters of Temperance 00:05:51.149 --> 00:05:54.970 meeting in 1849. It was. But the real aha moment 00:05:54.970 --> 00:05:57.470 that propelled her fully into the women's rights 00:05:57.470 --> 00:05:59.910 fight wasn't about the ballot, not at first. 00:06:00.089 --> 00:06:02.750 She later admitted, I wasn't ready to vote, didn't 00:06:02.750 --> 00:06:05.529 want to vote, but I did want equal pay for equal 00:06:05.529 --> 00:06:08.230 work. So it was a very practical, immediate focus 00:06:08.230 --> 00:06:10.269 rooted right in her professional experience. 00:06:10.529 --> 00:06:13.350 The distress over being paid so much less than 00:06:13.350 --> 00:06:16.350 men in similar teaching jobs, that daily injustice, 00:06:16.769 --> 00:06:19.170 that's what solidified her focus on economic 00:06:19.170 --> 00:06:21.569 rights first. That's a key distinction that's 00:06:21.569 --> 00:06:24.610 often lost. For Anthony, political rights were 00:06:24.610 --> 00:06:27.470 a tool to achieve economic equality and legal 00:06:27.470 --> 00:06:31.769 autonomy. So by 1849, the academy closed, and 00:06:31.769 --> 00:06:34.589 she made a drastic commitment. She left the family 00:06:34.589 --> 00:06:37.649 farm? She left the farm to become, in her words, 00:06:37.870 --> 00:06:41.550 fully engaged in reform work. For the rest of 00:06:41.550 --> 00:06:44.089 her life, she lived almost entirely on the fees 00:06:44.089 --> 00:06:47.000 she earned as a speaker and organizer. That level 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:49.540 of professionalization is just astonishing for 00:06:49.540 --> 00:06:52.019 the time. She wasn't some activist hobbyist. 00:06:52.040 --> 00:06:54.319 No. This was her career. This was her income, 00:06:54.519 --> 00:06:56.680 which meant she had to be constantly effective 00:06:56.680 --> 00:06:59.600 and constantly on the move. Precisely. And she 00:06:59.600 --> 00:07:02.100 embraced controversy immediately. She was so 00:07:02.100 --> 00:07:04.839 willing to experiment with public image. You're 00:07:04.839 --> 00:07:06.660 talking about the bloomer dress. The famous bloomer 00:07:06.660 --> 00:07:09.060 dress. She adopted it for a year, which was revolutionary. 00:07:09.160 --> 00:07:12.240 A short skirt worn over loose trousers. She found 00:07:12.240 --> 00:07:14.500 it far more sensible than the traditional heavy 00:07:14.500 --> 00:07:17.240 dresses that dragged on the ground. But the sources 00:07:17.240 --> 00:07:19.360 say she stopped wearing it, even though it was 00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:21.879 more practical. Yeah. Why make that calculated 00:07:21.879 --> 00:07:24.519 retreat? Well, it was a fascinating lesson for 00:07:24.519 --> 00:07:27.920 her in the strategic public image. She reluctantly 00:07:27.920 --> 00:07:29.899 stopped because her opponents and the press, 00:07:30.079 --> 00:07:32.379 they just seized on it. Right. It was all they 00:07:32.379 --> 00:07:34.000 would talk about. They mocked her constantly, 00:07:34.180 --> 00:07:36.720 focusing their ridicule entirely on her clothes 00:07:36.720 --> 00:07:39.259 rather than her political arguments. She realized 00:07:39.259 --> 00:07:41.699 the outfit was obscuring her message. So she 00:07:41.699 --> 00:07:44.519 understood that sometimes, you know. practicality 00:07:44.519 --> 00:07:48.040 has to yield to political necessity just to make 00:07:48.040 --> 00:07:50.459 sure the core message is heard. This brings us 00:07:50.459 --> 00:07:53.160 to the formation of, I mean, arguably the most 00:07:53.160 --> 00:07:55.600 enduring and consequential political partnership 00:07:55.600 --> 00:07:59.639 in American history. 1851. In 1851, Anthony was 00:07:59.639 --> 00:08:03.120 introduced to Elizabeth Cady Stanton by Amelia 00:08:03.120 --> 00:08:06.019 Bloomer herself, the woman who lent her name 00:08:06.019 --> 00:08:08.480 to the dress. And this was a genuine inflection 00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:10.779 point for the whole women's movement. It was. 00:08:10.839 --> 00:08:12.980 Their skills were just perfectly complementary. 00:08:13.060 --> 00:08:15.420 They established this highly dynamic and effective 00:08:15.420 --> 00:08:17.839 division of labor, especially when you consider 00:08:17.839 --> 00:08:19.720 their very different personal circumstances. 00:08:19.939 --> 00:08:22.079 Let's break down that famous division of labor. 00:08:22.220 --> 00:08:25.629 Stanton was the mind, right? The writer. the 00:08:25.629 --> 00:08:28.149 rhetorician often stuck at home in Seneca Falls. 00:08:28.350 --> 00:08:30.610 Correct. Stanton excelled at the intellectual 00:08:30.610 --> 00:08:33.610 stuff, the philosophy, the rhetoric, the heavy 00:08:33.610 --> 00:08:36.809 lifting of writing. She famously forged the thunderbolts. 00:08:37.029 --> 00:08:40.330 And Anthony, meanwhile, she was the physical 00:08:40.330 --> 00:08:43.480 engine. The one who took those ideas and mobilized 00:08:43.480 --> 00:08:46.720 them. She fired them. She excelled at organizing, 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:51.519 speaking, managing, raising funds. And less glamorously, 00:08:51.720 --> 00:08:55.039 she stirred the puddings of everyday logistics. 00:08:55.559 --> 00:08:57.679 And the logistical reality of that partnership 00:08:57.679 --> 00:09:00.259 required a deeply personal commitment from Anthony, 00:09:00.379 --> 00:09:02.299 right? I mean, Stanton was often homebound with 00:09:02.299 --> 00:09:05.179 seven children. The commitment was total. One 00:09:05.179 --> 00:09:07.480 biographer noted that Anthony was, quote, almost 00:09:07.480 --> 00:09:09.960 another mother to Mrs. Stanton's children. Wow. 00:09:10.600 --> 00:09:12.440 would literally move into the Stanton household 00:09:12.440 --> 00:09:14.960 for weeks or months at a time, supervising the 00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:17.399 children, running errands, just keeping the house 00:09:17.399 --> 00:09:19.700 quiet while Stanton was upstairs writing the 00:09:19.700 --> 00:09:21.379 seminal speeches and articles that would define 00:09:21.379 --> 00:09:24.000 the movement. Was that type of deep personal 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:26.039 sacrifice, I mean, literally embedding yourself 00:09:26.039 --> 00:09:28.720 in a friend's family life, was that common for 00:09:28.720 --> 00:09:31.159 activists back then? Or does it just underscore 00:09:31.159 --> 00:09:33.200 the extraordinary lengths they had to go to? 00:09:33.500 --> 00:09:35.639 I think it was extraordinary and it really speaks 00:09:35.639 --> 00:09:38.240 to the necessary desperation of 19th century 00:09:38.240 --> 00:09:41.059 female activism. They had no institutional support, 00:09:41.220 --> 00:09:44.360 no central office, certainly no political staff. 00:09:44.659 --> 00:09:46.399 They had to invent their own support structure. 00:09:46.659 --> 00:09:49.379 They did. And Anthony's constant presence is 00:09:49.379 --> 00:09:51.340 what allowed those thunderbolts to be forged 00:09:51.340 --> 00:09:53.980 in the first place. It's what led the New York 00:09:53.980 --> 00:09:56.139 state movement to become the most sophisticated 00:09:56.139 --> 00:10:00.149 in the entire country by 1854. Their early victories 00:10:00.149 --> 00:10:02.850 were focused on tangible legislative change, 00:10:03.049 --> 00:10:05.809 what we might call material feminism. Right, 00:10:05.889 --> 00:10:08.169 specifically married women's property rights. 00:10:08.250 --> 00:10:10.870 This wasn't abstract political theory. This was 00:10:10.870 --> 00:10:13.590 about economic autonomy and family survival. 00:10:14.029 --> 00:10:16.470 Because before these laws, a married woman was 00:10:16.470 --> 00:10:18.929 considered fiend covert. Which legally meant 00:10:18.929 --> 00:10:21.549 she ceased to exist outside of her husband's 00:10:21.549 --> 00:10:24.009 identity. Any property she brought into the marriage, 00:10:24.110 --> 00:10:26.429 any wages she earned, it all belonged to him. 00:10:26.570 --> 00:10:28.639 And Anthony understood that property rights rights 00:10:28.639 --> 00:10:31.299 were the key the key to unlocking freedom so 00:10:31.299 --> 00:10:33.720 she organized this massive physical campaign 00:10:33.720 --> 00:10:37.519 to change it She did. She organized a lecture 00:10:37.519 --> 00:10:39.899 and petition campaign in almost every single 00:10:39.899 --> 00:10:43.320 county in New York in 1855. And she was traveling 00:10:43.320 --> 00:10:46.620 relentlessly through difficult terrain, often 00:10:46.620 --> 00:10:49.159 in harsh weather. The sources talk about the 00:10:49.159 --> 00:10:52.100 sheer tenacity it required just to reach these 00:10:52.100 --> 00:10:54.480 remote areas in the horse and buggy days. And 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:57.659 all that hard physical work culminated in the 00:10:57.659 --> 00:11:00.840 1860 Married Women's Property Act. It was a huge 00:11:00.840 --> 00:11:03.639 leap forward. It gave wives the right to own 00:11:03.639 --> 00:11:06.039 separate property, to enter into contracts, and 00:11:06.039 --> 00:11:09.039 crucially, it gave them joint guardianship of 00:11:09.039 --> 00:11:11.460 their children. A foundation of legal personhood. 00:11:11.600 --> 00:11:14.480 It was. But we have to emphasize how precarious 00:11:14.480 --> 00:11:17.039 these victories were. During the Civil War, many 00:11:17.039 --> 00:11:19.440 of the protective elements of that 1860 Act were 00:11:19.440 --> 00:11:22.259 tragically rolled back in 1862. Which must have 00:11:22.259 --> 00:11:24.299 been devastating. And it demonstrated to Anthony 00:11:24.299 --> 00:11:26.879 that rights given by a legislature can be quickly 00:11:26.879 --> 00:11:30.059 taken away. That instability probably just reinforced 00:11:30.059 --> 00:11:32.080 her dedication to securing rights at the highest 00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:34.860 level for the Constitution. So as that partnership 00:11:34.860 --> 00:11:38.100 with Stanton solidified, the early 1850s saw 00:11:38.100 --> 00:11:40.720 Anthony juggling these three major reform pillars 00:11:40.720 --> 00:11:43.919 all at the same time. Temperance, teachers' rights, 00:11:44.019 --> 00:11:47.299 and anti -slavery. And each battle gave her a 00:11:47.299 --> 00:11:50.059 pretty painful education in political organizing 00:11:50.059 --> 00:11:52.879 and public opposition. Temperance in particular 00:11:52.879 --> 00:11:55.360 was the gateway issue for so many women because 00:11:55.360 --> 00:11:58.860 it was so acutely tied to their legal helplessness. 00:11:58.879 --> 00:12:01.539 Right. Why was temperance considered a women's 00:12:01.539 --> 00:12:04.730 rights issue? Because the law gave husbands complete 00:12:04.730 --> 00:12:07.750 control over everything, family finances, property, 00:12:07.990 --> 00:12:10.549 child custody. If a husband was an alcoholic, 00:12:10.889 --> 00:12:13.690 he could legally drink the family into destitution, 00:12:13.929 --> 00:12:16.370 abuse his wife. And she would have virtually 00:12:16.370 --> 00:12:19.450 no legal power to leave him or protect her children. 00:12:19.590 --> 00:12:22.389 Exactly. And Anthony's professional involvement 00:12:22.389 --> 00:12:24.889 started with this moment of just severe institutional 00:12:24.889 --> 00:12:27.990 sexism. A textbook example. She was elected as 00:12:27.990 --> 00:12:30.289 a delegate to a state temperance convention in 00:12:30.289 --> 00:12:33.470 1852, only to be told by the chairman that women 00:12:33.470 --> 00:12:35.409 delegates were only there to listen and learn. 00:12:35.529 --> 00:12:38.429 So Anthony and the other women, they immediately 00:12:38.429 --> 00:12:40.690 walked out, announced their own meeting, and 00:12:40.690 --> 00:12:43.149 formed the Women's State Temperance Society with 00:12:43.149 --> 00:12:45.309 Stanton as president. And they demonstrated real 00:12:45.309 --> 00:12:48.159 political muscle right away. They did. They collected 00:12:48.159 --> 00:12:51.039 28 ,000 signatures for a prohibition petition, 00:12:51.320 --> 00:12:53.820 which was a massive number for the time. This 00:12:53.820 --> 00:12:55.879 resulted in the first formal hearing initiated 00:12:55.879 --> 00:12:58.200 by a group of women before the New York legislature. 00:12:58.200 --> 00:13:01.480 But that initial success was, it was quickly 00:13:01.480 --> 00:13:04.299 derailed by internal conservative forces. It 00:13:04.299 --> 00:13:07.019 was fragile. And it was fragile because it strayed 00:13:07.019 --> 00:13:10.600 from the narrow goal of prohibition. At the organization's 00:13:10.600 --> 00:13:12.720 convention the next year, conservative members 00:13:12.720 --> 00:13:15.240 attacked Stanton for her radical advocacy of 00:13:15.240 --> 00:13:18.019 divorce rights for the wives of alcoholics. And 00:13:18.019 --> 00:13:20.610 Stanton was voted out. which led both her and 00:13:20.610 --> 00:13:23.649 Anthony to resign in frustration. And that whole 00:13:23.649 --> 00:13:26.470 episode taught Anthony a crucial lesson, which 00:13:26.470 --> 00:13:29.610 was that any issue focusing on women's subservient 00:13:29.610 --> 00:13:31.870 status, whether to alcohol or to conservative 00:13:31.870 --> 00:13:34.809 men, would be met with swift and harsh opposition, 00:13:35.029 --> 00:13:37.129 even from within the reform movement itself. 00:13:37.350 --> 00:13:40.009 The education system offered a similar very public 00:13:40.009 --> 00:13:43.289 venue for confrontation. At the 1853 New York 00:13:43.289 --> 00:13:45.610 State Teachers Association meeting, her attempt 00:13:45.610 --> 00:13:48.009 to speak triggered this dramatic and lengthy 00:13:48.009 --> 00:13:50.659 debate. The sources say the men debated for half 00:13:50.659 --> 00:13:53.000 an hour just about the propriety of a woman speaking 00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:55.539 publicly at all. It was less about what she had 00:13:55.539 --> 00:13:57.899 to say and more about policing gender roles in 00:13:57.899 --> 00:14:00.000 a public space. And when she was finally allowed 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:02.740 to continue, she delivered that famous retort. 00:14:03.039 --> 00:14:05.480 challenging the entire professional structure 00:14:05.480 --> 00:14:08.120 of the male teachers. Oh, she hit them right 00:14:08.120 --> 00:14:10.799 where it hurt their professional identity. She 00:14:10.799 --> 00:14:13.720 basically challenged the men by saying, if society 00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:16.120 believes women have plenty of ability to teach 00:14:16.120 --> 00:14:18.480 but are incompetent to be lawyers or doctors, 00:14:18.700 --> 00:14:20.960 then any man who chooses the teaching profession 00:14:20.960 --> 00:14:24.080 is tacitly admitting he has no more brains than 00:14:24.080 --> 00:14:26.860 a woman. That is just pure intellectual strategy, 00:14:27.159 --> 00:14:29.360 taking their own logic and turning it right back 00:14:29.360 --> 00:14:31.779 against them. She was absolutely uncompromising, 00:14:31.799 --> 00:14:34.120 and she used that platform to insist on tangible 00:14:34.120 --> 00:14:37.360 changes. Equal pay for female teachers, allowing 00:14:37.360 --> 00:14:39.480 women to serve as officers in the association, 00:14:39.759 --> 00:14:42.860 and pushing aggressively for coeducation at all 00:14:42.860 --> 00:14:45.100 levels, including colleges. And her push for 00:14:45.100 --> 00:14:48.179 coeducation, which was incredibly radical, was 00:14:48.179 --> 00:14:51.500 dismissed by opponents as, what, a vast social 00:14:51.500 --> 00:14:55.759 evil. A vast social evil. The first step in the 00:14:55.759 --> 00:14:58.399 school which seeks to abolish marriage. That's 00:14:58.399 --> 00:15:01.480 what they called it. Wow. Beyond these professional 00:15:01.480 --> 00:15:04.700 battles, Anthony's anti -slavery work was concurrent 00:15:04.700 --> 00:15:07.659 and deeply personal. She was collecting petitions 00:15:07.659 --> 00:15:10.559 against the gag rule as a teenager. And by 1856, 00:15:10.879 --> 00:15:13.419 she became the New York state agent for the American 00:15:13.419 --> 00:15:15.980 Anti -Slavery Society. Her personal commitment 00:15:15.980 --> 00:15:19.600 involved dangerous direct action. We know from 00:15:19.600 --> 00:15:21.620 the sources she was directly connected to the 00:15:21.620 --> 00:15:24.000 Underground Railroad. There's that diary entry. 00:15:24.299 --> 00:15:27.320 In 1861, she noted in her diary fitting out a 00:15:27.320 --> 00:15:30.539 fugitive slave for Canada with the help of Harriet 00:15:30.539 --> 00:15:32.620 Tubman, who was a lifelong friend and fellow 00:15:32.620 --> 00:15:34.679 activist. And the risk she took in her public 00:15:34.679 --> 00:15:37.539 anti -slavery advocacy was immense, especially 00:15:37.539 --> 00:15:39.720 as tensions escalated right before the Civil 00:15:39.720 --> 00:15:42.899 War. It took tremendous moral courage. Mob action 00:15:42.899 --> 00:15:45.940 was a frequent occurrence. In early 1861, her 00:15:45.940 --> 00:15:47.860 meetings were shut down in nearly every town 00:15:47.860 --> 00:15:50.000 from Buffalo to Albany. And the local authorities 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:51.919 often refused to protect them. That's right. 00:15:52.039 --> 00:15:56.320 She frequently required police... You mentioned 00:15:56.320 --> 00:15:59.139 the violence in Syracuse. Can you paint a picture 00:15:59.139 --> 00:16:00.700 for us of what she was facing on the lecture 00:16:00.700 --> 00:16:03.500 circuit? It was terrifying. Newspapers reported 00:16:03.500 --> 00:16:06.200 that in Syracuse, rotten eggs were thrown, benches 00:16:06.200 --> 00:16:09.039 broken, and knives and pistols gleamed in every 00:16:09.039 --> 00:16:12.000 direction. The opposition wasn't just disagreement. 00:16:12.080 --> 00:16:15.399 It was physical, organized violence designed 00:16:15.399 --> 00:16:18.409 to silence her. Yet she refused to stop. She 00:16:18.409 --> 00:16:21.850 refused. And despite all this overwhelming opposition, 00:16:22.250 --> 00:16:24.649 she maintained a vision of a racially integrated 00:16:24.649 --> 00:16:28.190 society that was far more radical than the mainstream 00:16:28.190 --> 00:16:30.990 abolition movement's goals at the time. Absolutely. 00:16:31.450 --> 00:16:33.889 Many abolitionists, including Lincoln at first, 00:16:34.009 --> 00:16:36.710 were focused just on ending slavery or sending 00:16:36.710 --> 00:16:39.309 formerly enslaved people to colonies outside 00:16:39.309 --> 00:16:43.169 the US. But Anthony, in an 1861 speech, she articulated 00:16:43.169 --> 00:16:46.029 a full vision of racial integration. She demanded 00:16:46.029 --> 00:16:48.799 the opening of all schools. all shops, all business 00:16:48.799 --> 00:16:51.559 avocations to the colored man. And she explicitly 00:16:51.559 --> 00:16:54.639 demanded the extension of all the rights of citizenship. 00:16:54.879 --> 00:16:57.340 Yes. This was a full -throated demand for equality, 00:16:57.740 --> 00:17:00.559 anticipating the post -war amendments, but advocating 00:17:00.559 --> 00:17:03.240 for true social integration decades before it 00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:06.099 became a political reality. So, the start of 00:17:06.099 --> 00:17:09.059 the Civil War. It forces Anthony and Stanton 00:17:09.059 --> 00:17:12.180 to make a strategic pivot. They had to. They... 00:17:12.750 --> 00:17:15.509 temporarily shelved the women's rights focus 00:17:15.509 --> 00:17:18.769 to concentrate entirely on abolition, which in 00:17:18.769 --> 00:17:21.470 the end actually solidified their organizational 00:17:21.470 --> 00:17:24.269 prowess. With the Women's Loyal National League 00:17:24.269 --> 00:17:27.450 in 1863. This was a brilliant tactical decision. 00:17:27.980 --> 00:17:30.059 They understood that the most immediate crisis 00:17:30.059 --> 00:17:32.940 was slavery. The League was organized to campaign 00:17:32.940 --> 00:17:35.599 for the 13th Amendment, and it became the first 00:17:35.599 --> 00:17:38.000 national women's political organization in the 00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:40.480 U .S. And it leveraged all the skills they had 00:17:40.480 --> 00:17:42.220 learned in those smaller New York campaigns. 00:17:42.539 --> 00:17:45.339 It did. And the sheer scale of the work they 00:17:45.339 --> 00:17:47.380 accomplished during that time, it really demonstrated 00:17:47.380 --> 00:17:49.480 the political potential of women as a national 00:17:49.480 --> 00:17:51.880 force, even without the vote. It resulted in 00:17:51.880 --> 00:17:53.960 the largest petition drive in U .S. history up 00:17:53.960 --> 00:17:56.980 to that point. Gathering nearly 400 ,000 signatures, 00:17:57.119 --> 00:18:00.240 which for context was about one in every 24 adults 00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:02.319 in the northern states. The political lesson 00:18:02.319 --> 00:18:05.460 was crystal clear. Women could mobilize on a 00:18:05.460 --> 00:18:08.000 massive scale. It proved the power of a formal 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:11.440 structure. And it provided women with a practical, 00:18:11.559 --> 00:18:14.960 powerful vehicle for political action at a time 00:18:14.960 --> 00:18:17.619 when petitioning was their only legal tool. But 00:18:17.619 --> 00:18:20.960 once the war ended, that unity between abolition 00:18:20.960 --> 00:18:23.640 and women's rights, which had been cemented in 00:18:23.640 --> 00:18:26.799 the American Equal Rights Association or AERA, 00:18:26.859 --> 00:18:29.730 it crumbled pretty quickly. It did. And this 00:18:29.730 --> 00:18:32.069 led directly to the critical political moment 00:18:32.069 --> 00:18:35.529 known as the male crisis. This is where political 00:18:35.529 --> 00:18:39.049 idealism collided brutally with legislative pragmatism. 00:18:39.230 --> 00:18:42.069 The crisis was the proposed 14th Amendment. Right. 00:18:42.210 --> 00:18:44.549 Which aimed to guarantee citizenship rights. 00:18:44.670 --> 00:18:47.390 But, and this is the crucial part, for the first 00:18:47.390 --> 00:18:50.190 time, it would introduce the word male into the 00:18:50.190 --> 00:18:52.589 Constitution when defining voting rights. Why 00:18:52.589 --> 00:18:54.990 was that one word so devastating for the women's 00:18:54.990 --> 00:18:57.230 movement? Because up until that point, the Constitution 00:18:57.230 --> 00:18:59.950 had been silent on sex. Adding the word male 00:18:59.950 --> 00:19:02.589 would legally enshrine a gender barrier. It would 00:19:02.589 --> 00:19:04.869 make women's suffrage infinitely harder to achieve. 00:19:05.069 --> 00:19:07.369 And Stanton saw it coming. She sounded the alarm, 00:19:07.509 --> 00:19:10.029 warning that if that word male be inserted, it 00:19:10.029 --> 00:19:11.789 will take us a century at least to get it out. 00:19:11.890 --> 00:19:14.390 And she was precisely right. It took 52 more 00:19:14.390 --> 00:19:16.990 years. Abolitionist leaders like Horace Greeley 00:19:16.990 --> 00:19:20.170 urged them to accept the 14th and 15th Amendments, 00:19:20.230 --> 00:19:22.930 arguing this was the Negro's hour and that women's 00:19:22.930 --> 00:19:25.289 rights could wait. And Anthony's response was 00:19:25.289 --> 00:19:28.210 just legendary in its uncompromising radicalism. 00:19:28.650 --> 00:19:30.690 It really represents the breaking point between 00:19:30.690 --> 00:19:33.589 coalition politics and ideological purity. What 00:19:33.589 --> 00:19:36.289 did she say? She refused to prioritize black 00:19:36.289 --> 00:19:39.430 male suffrage over universal suffrage, declaring, 00:19:39.529 --> 00:19:42.210 I would sooner cut off my right hand than ask 00:19:42.210 --> 00:19:44.349 for the ballot for the black man and not for 00:19:44.349 --> 00:19:47.579 women. Wow. For Anthony, having fought so hard 00:19:47.579 --> 00:19:50.220 for universal freedom, allowing the Constitution 00:19:50.220 --> 00:19:53.019 to explicitly establish an aristocracy of sex 00:19:53.019 --> 00:19:55.839 by enfranchising all men while excluding all 00:19:55.839 --> 00:19:58.579 women was just morally unacceptable. To articulate 00:19:58.579 --> 00:20:00.640 this uncompromising position, they needed their 00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:03.000 own platform. An independent platform. So they 00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:05.880 launched the Revolution Weekly newspaper in 1868. 00:20:06.059 --> 00:20:08.140 And its motto perfectly captured their spirit 00:20:08.140 --> 00:20:10.460 of defiance. Men, their rights, and nothing more. 00:20:10.559 --> 00:20:13.609 Women, their rights, and nothing less. Anthony 00:20:13.609 --> 00:20:15.569 managed the business subscriptions, printing, 00:20:15.690 --> 00:20:18.089 distribution while Stanton and Parker Pillsbury 00:20:18.089 --> 00:20:21.069 edited. They really envisioned it as this vital 00:20:21.069 --> 00:20:23.230 political instrument. They hoped it would become 00:20:23.230 --> 00:20:26.910 a daily paper owned and operated by women. countering 00:20:26.910 --> 00:20:29.750 the increasingly conservative reform periodicals 00:20:29.750 --> 00:20:32.049 of the time. But running a radical paper with 00:20:32.049 --> 00:20:34.809 no institutional backing is a massive undertaking, 00:20:35.089 --> 00:20:37.470 and the funding evaporated almost immediately. 00:20:37.789 --> 00:20:40.230 It did. Their initial and very controversial 00:20:40.230 --> 00:20:43.849 funder, George Francis Train, was jailed. So 00:20:43.849 --> 00:20:45.970 the financing collapsed. And Anthony, as the 00:20:45.970 --> 00:20:48.349 business manager, took on all the debt. All of 00:20:48.349 --> 00:20:50.990 it. Mounting debt that ultimately totaled around 00:20:50.990 --> 00:20:53.890 $10 ,000, a huge sum for the time, maybe a quarter 00:20:53.890 --> 00:20:56.440 of a million dollars today. And she spent the 00:20:56.440 --> 00:20:58.660 next six years of her life in constant motion, 00:20:58.799 --> 00:21:01.640 lecturing relentlessly across the country to 00:21:01.640 --> 00:21:04.420 pay off every single dollar herself. That just 00:21:04.420 --> 00:21:07.019 highlights her incredible personal sacrifice 00:21:07.019 --> 00:21:09.740 and commitment to financial independence, even 00:21:09.740 --> 00:21:11.759 when it meant carrying this disastrous financial 00:21:11.759 --> 00:21:14.160 burden. It really does. Before the final split 00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:16.140 in the movement, though, they made this critical 00:21:16.140 --> 00:21:18.680 attempt to form a massive coalition with the 00:21:18.680 --> 00:21:21.130 labor movement. The National Labor Union, or 00:21:21.130 --> 00:21:24.569 NLU, they envisioned a triple power of producers. 00:21:25.009 --> 00:21:28.390 Working men, women, and Negroes, all uniting 00:21:28.390 --> 00:21:30.910 to wrest power from non -producers. It sounds 00:21:30.910 --> 00:21:33.869 so powerful on paper. Why did that alliance also 00:21:33.869 --> 00:21:36.589 fail? It failed because of a fundamental clash 00:21:36.589 --> 00:21:39.750 between gender and class loyalty. The breaking 00:21:39.750 --> 00:21:43.509 point was the printer strike in 1869. Anthony, 00:21:43.690 --> 00:21:46.130 who was so focused on securing employment for 00:21:46.130 --> 00:21:48.549 women in skilled trades, a major goal of the 00:21:48.549 --> 00:21:51.470 revolution, she supported an employer -sponsored 00:21:51.470 --> 00:21:53.509 program to train women as printers. Which was 00:21:53.509 --> 00:21:55.789 seen by the NLU as supporting strikebreakers. 00:21:55.869 --> 00:21:58.650 Exactly. The male unionists viewed her actions 00:21:58.650 --> 00:22:01.190 as undermining solidarity, even though Anthony 00:22:01.190 --> 00:22:03.349 argued she was just giving working women access 00:22:03.349 --> 00:22:05.529 to profitable, skilled jobs that had previously 00:22:05.529 --> 00:22:08.369 been reserved only for men. That political miscalculation 00:22:08.369 --> 00:22:10.529 cost her dearly. She was quickly unseated as 00:22:10.529 --> 00:22:12.440 a delegate at the next NLU conference. Congress 00:22:12.440 --> 00:22:14.920 and that powerful labor alliance just collapsed. 00:22:15.420 --> 00:22:18.440 Despite that failure, they did use their newfound 00:22:18.440 --> 00:22:20.420 platform to secure a victory in the labor sphere, 00:22:20.500 --> 00:22:23.700 right? With Hester Vaughn. That win showed their 00:22:23.700 --> 00:22:27.319 political effectiveness in legal advocacy. They 00:22:27.319 --> 00:22:29.700 won a pardon for Hester Vaughn, a domestic worker 00:22:29.700 --> 00:22:32.660 convicted of infanticide, by arguing that the 00:22:32.660 --> 00:22:34.819 social and legal system treated working women 00:22:34.819 --> 00:22:37.380 unfairly and denied her fair representation. 00:22:37.579 --> 00:22:40.900 But that one win aside. The political differences 00:22:40.900 --> 00:22:43.259 over the 15th Amendment proved too great. It 00:22:43.259 --> 00:22:45.279 did. It led to the formal dissolution of the 00:22:45.279 --> 00:22:50.180 AERA in 1869 and the infamous split. So let's 00:22:50.180 --> 00:22:52.119 clearly define that schism for the listener. 00:22:52.259 --> 00:22:54.420 We ended up with the National Woman Suffrage 00:22:54.420 --> 00:22:57.819 Association, or NWSA. Led by Anthony and Scanton. 00:22:58.039 --> 00:22:59.640 And the American Woman Suffrage Association, 00:22:59.900 --> 00:23:03.259 or AWSA. Led by Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe. 00:23:03.279 --> 00:23:05.799 The core difference, as we said, was the 15th 00:23:05.799 --> 00:23:08.220 Amendment. The NWSA opposed it. They opposed 00:23:08.220 --> 00:23:10.319 the 15th Amendment because it prohibited the 00:23:10.319 --> 00:23:12.960 denial of suffrage based on race but not on sex. 00:23:13.359 --> 00:23:15.940 Anthony articulated this as creating an oligarchy 00:23:15.940 --> 00:23:18.420 of sex, which makes the men of every household 00:23:18.420 --> 00:23:21.460 sovereigns, masters, the women subjects, slaves. 00:23:21.759 --> 00:23:24.059 She saw the political elevation of all men as 00:23:24.059 --> 00:23:25.960 the constitutional subjugation of all women. 00:23:26.240 --> 00:23:28.440 And their strategies were different, too. The 00:23:28.440 --> 00:23:31.440 NWSA focused its energy on a national constitutional 00:23:31.440 --> 00:23:34.380 amendment and maintained political independence. 00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:37.420 They refused to ally with any party that didn't 00:23:37.420 --> 00:23:40.119 support their goal. And the AWSA. They were more 00:23:40.119 --> 00:23:42.279 pragmatic. They supported the 15th Amendment. 00:23:42.440 --> 00:23:44.700 They preferred a state -by -state strategy to 00:23:44.700 --> 00:23:47.059 win local victories. And they initially maintained 00:23:47.059 --> 00:23:49.559 close ties with the Republican Party. The hostility 00:23:49.559 --> 00:23:53.150 was intense. fueled by personal ambition, strategy, 00:23:53.430 --> 00:23:56.589 and ideology. It was. Yet, two decades later, 00:23:56.789 --> 00:23:59.089 Anthony was the driving force behind healing 00:23:59.089 --> 00:24:01.670 that rift. How did she, the person who stood 00:24:01.670 --> 00:24:04.170 for ideological purity, manage to bridge that 00:24:04.170 --> 00:24:06.369 gap? At the end of the day, she was the ultimate 00:24:06.369 --> 00:24:08.730 pragmatist when it came to organizational structure. 00:24:09.069 --> 00:24:11.410 By the late 1880s, Anthony recognized that the 00:24:11.410 --> 00:24:13.829 hostility was just draining the movement's resources 00:24:13.829 --> 00:24:16.410 and effectiveness. So she personally engineered 00:24:16.410 --> 00:24:20.359 the unification. She did, in 1890. forming the 00:24:20.359 --> 00:24:22.440 National American Woman Suffrage Association, 00:24:22.799 --> 00:24:25.839 or NASA. She focused less on past ideological 00:24:25.839 --> 00:24:28.640 arguments and more on future organizational strength, 00:24:28.839 --> 00:24:31.339 and she later served as NASA's president. She 00:24:31.339 --> 00:24:34.079 understood that victory required a single, united 00:24:34.079 --> 00:24:37.119 front. After that bitter political split, Anthony 00:24:37.119 --> 00:24:41.119 and the NWSA adopted this radical new legal strategy 00:24:41.119 --> 00:24:43.720 to force the issue. Yes, the attempt to vote 00:24:43.720 --> 00:24:45.660 and then challenge the laws under the 14th Amendment. 00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:48.460 They asserted that voting was a privilege or 00:24:48.460 --> 00:24:51.359 immunity of... citizens that the states couldn't 00:24:51.359 --> 00:24:54.119 abridge. It was a brilliant piece of civil disobedience 00:24:54.119 --> 00:24:56.440 designed to force the courts to interpret the 00:24:56.440 --> 00:24:59.019 rights conferred by postwar citizenship and the 00:24:59.019 --> 00:25:02.039 sequence of events in Rochester in 1872. It just 00:25:02.039 --> 00:25:04.759 shows Anthony's meticulous planning. She and 00:25:04.759 --> 00:25:07.380 nearly 50 other women registered to vote, arguing 00:25:07.380 --> 00:25:09.720 they met the definition of citizens on Election 00:25:09.720 --> 00:25:12.359 Day. She and 14 others successfully convinced 00:25:12.359 --> 00:25:14.680 hesitant inspectors to allow them to cast their 00:25:14.680 --> 00:25:17.359 ballots. They succeeded in voting, but the legal 00:25:17.359 --> 00:25:21.250 system struck back on. On November 18, 1872, 00:25:21.589 --> 00:25:25.069 a U .S. deputy marshal arrested Anthony. She 00:25:25.069 --> 00:25:27.789 was charged with illegally voting. But knowing 00:25:27.789 --> 00:25:29.869 that her ultimate goal wasn't acquittal but public 00:25:29.869 --> 00:25:32.650 education, she used the months before her trial 00:25:32.650 --> 00:25:35.390 to maximum effect. She basically pre -campaigned 00:25:35.390 --> 00:25:38.069 to the jury pool. Exactly. She toured Monroe 00:25:38.069 --> 00:25:40.549 and Ontario counties where the potential jurors 00:25:40.549 --> 00:25:43.150 resided, asking this pointed question in her 00:25:43.150 --> 00:25:46.269 speeches. Is it a crime for a U .S. citizen to 00:25:46.269 --> 00:25:48.630 vote? She was appealing directly to women everywhere 00:25:48.630 --> 00:25:51.609 to exercise their too long neglected citizens' 00:25:51.809 --> 00:25:54.109 right to vote. She turned her criminal case into 00:25:54.109 --> 00:25:56.569 a national political rally. The actual trial. 00:26:03.980 --> 00:26:06.279 Oh, it was a profound miscarriage of justice. 00:26:06.599 --> 00:26:09.160 The trial was presided over by Justice Ward Hunt, 00:26:09.380 --> 00:26:11.019 who had just been appointed to the U .S. Supreme 00:26:11.019 --> 00:26:13.240 Court but had virtually no experience as a trial 00:26:13.240 --> 00:26:15.960 judge. And to make it worse, Hunt refused to 00:26:15.960 --> 00:26:17.920 allow Anthony to testify in her own defense. 00:26:18.519 --> 00:26:20.980 Which, while technically legal under common law 00:26:20.980 --> 00:26:23.180 at the time for criminal defendants, meant she 00:26:23.180 --> 00:26:25.640 was completely unable to challenge the prosecution's 00:26:25.640 --> 00:26:27.740 narrative. But the moment that really defines 00:26:27.740 --> 00:26:30.140 the trial is when Judge Hunt took the verdict 00:26:30.140 --> 00:26:33.799 out of the jury's hands entirely. Can you explain 00:26:33.799 --> 00:26:35.640 the legal gravity of that move, the directed 00:26:35.640 --> 00:26:57.000 verdict? Wow. That sounds like a complete violation 00:26:57.000 --> 00:26:59.640 of due process. It is. It essentially turned 00:26:59.640 --> 00:27:01.779 the courtroom into a stage for the government 00:27:01.779 --> 00:27:04.460 to impose a political judgment, removing the 00:27:04.460 --> 00:27:06.900 cornerstone of the Anglo - American legal tradition, 00:27:07.160 --> 00:27:09.960 the jury's right to determine guilt. And this 00:27:09.960 --> 00:27:12.319 high -handed action just amplified the feeling 00:27:12.319 --> 00:27:14.460 of political persecution among her supporters. 00:27:14.720 --> 00:27:17.099 But that judicial fiasco led to one of the most 00:27:17.099 --> 00:27:19.079 famous speeches in the history of the women's 00:27:19.079 --> 00:27:21.400 rights movement. When Anthony was asked if she 00:27:21.400 --> 00:27:23.839 had anything to say before sentencing, she refused 00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:26.619 to stop talking. She delivered a masterpiece 00:27:26.619 --> 00:27:29.400 of defiance, repeatedly ignoring the judge's 00:27:29.400 --> 00:27:32.420 orders to sit down. She protested what she called 00:27:32.420 --> 00:27:35.430 a high -handed outrage upon my citizens' rights. 00:27:35.710 --> 00:27:38.529 She went even further. She dismantled the very 00:27:38.529 --> 00:27:40.890 system that had convicted her by pointing out 00:27:40.890 --> 00:27:44.289 the deep irony. She was denied a trial by a jury 00:27:44.289 --> 00:27:47.069 of her peers precisely because women were prohibited 00:27:47.069 --> 00:27:49.990 from serving on juries. So she argued the entire 00:27:49.990 --> 00:27:52.849 process was fundamentally corrupt. Exactly. Because 00:27:52.849 --> 00:27:55.470 it was administered by men for men. And when 00:27:55.470 --> 00:27:58.990 Justice Hunt sentenced her to a $100 fine, about 00:27:58.990 --> 00:28:02.490 $2 ,600 in today's money, her refusal was absolute. 00:28:02.890 --> 00:28:05.190 I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty, 00:28:05.509 --> 00:28:07.650 she declared, and she kept that promise until 00:28:07.650 --> 00:28:10.089 her death. But here's the strategic brilliance 00:28:10.089 --> 00:28:12.910 of the judge. Okay. Hunt refused to order her 00:28:12.910 --> 00:28:16.349 taken into custody for nonpayment. Why was that 00:28:16.349 --> 00:28:18.450 a strategic move by the judge? If she was jailed, 00:28:18.450 --> 00:28:19.869 she could have appealed the case, couldn't she? 00:28:20.240 --> 00:28:23.099 Exactly. If she had been jailed for nonpayment, 00:28:23.160 --> 00:28:25.660 she would have had a clear path to appeal her 00:28:25.660 --> 00:28:28.099 case, potentially all the way to the Supreme 00:28:28.099 --> 00:28:31.440 Court. By fining her and then refusing to enforce 00:28:31.440 --> 00:28:34.279 the sentence through incarceration, Hunt closed 00:28:34.279 --> 00:28:37.380 off her legal avenue for challenge. Ensuring 00:28:37.380 --> 00:28:39.799 the verdicts stood without a review by the nation's 00:28:39.799 --> 00:28:41.859 highest court. That's right. And the Supreme 00:28:41.859 --> 00:28:44.460 Court itself ended the judicial strategy two 00:28:44.460 --> 00:28:48.680 years later anyway. In 1875, they ruled in Minor 00:28:48.680 --> 00:28:51.039 v. Happersett that the Constitution of the United 00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:53.339 States does not confer the right of suffrage 00:28:53.339 --> 00:28:55.440 upon anyone. Which ended any hope of winning 00:28:55.440 --> 00:28:58.180 the vote through the courts. It did. And it confirmed 00:28:58.180 --> 00:29:00.380 that the only path forward was the one Anthony 00:29:00.380 --> 00:29:02.920 had already started, campaigning for a constitutional 00:29:02.920 --> 00:29:06.359 amendment. With the courts closed off, Anthony's 00:29:06.359 --> 00:29:09.200 focus shifted again. The battle wasn't just political 00:29:09.200 --> 00:29:12.299 anymore, it was also historical. Yes, she dedicated 00:29:12.299 --> 00:29:15.180 herself to chronicling the past and globalizing 00:29:15.180 --> 00:29:17.400 the struggle. She wanted to ensure her fight 00:29:17.400 --> 00:29:19.779 wasn't forgotten and to lay the groundwork for 00:29:19.779 --> 00:29:23.099 future generations. So, starting around 1876, 00:29:23.539 --> 00:29:27.619 Anthony, Stanton, and Matilda Joslyn Gage began 00:29:27.619 --> 00:29:30.140 this mammoth task of compiling the history of 00:29:30.140 --> 00:29:32.420 woman suffrage. And this wasn't just some fun 00:29:32.420 --> 00:29:35.259 side project. It was a desperate, self -funded 00:29:35.259 --> 00:29:38.119 attempt to preserve the movement's records before 00:29:38.119 --> 00:29:41.000 they were lost and, you know, to establish the 00:29:41.000 --> 00:29:42.940 movement's authoritative narrative. The sheer 00:29:42.940 --> 00:29:46.160 scale of this work is legendary. Six volumes, 00:29:46.220 --> 00:29:50.740 over 5 ,700 pages, spanning 41 years of publication. 00:29:51.299 --> 00:29:53.700 And the sources say Anthony, the great organizer, 00:29:54.160 --> 00:29:56.960 She absolutely hated the sedentary nature of 00:29:56.960 --> 00:29:59.500 the work. She physically despised being tied 00:29:59.500 --> 00:30:01.920 to a desk. She handled all the production details, 00:30:02.140 --> 00:30:04.460 the research, the correspondence, and she often 00:30:04.460 --> 00:30:06.359 wrote in her letters that the project makes me 00:30:06.359 --> 00:30:09.259 feel growly all the time. She famously stated, 00:30:09.440 --> 00:30:17.779 That quote is perfect. And we know the physical 00:30:17.779 --> 00:30:20.200 reality of the work was immense. She even had 00:30:20.200 --> 00:30:22.000 to limit the number of books she was storing 00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:23.990 in her sister's attic because the was literally 00:30:23.990 --> 00:30:26.569 threatening to collapse the structure. That anecdote 00:30:26.569 --> 00:30:29.069 really brings home the physical reality of historical 00:30:29.069 --> 00:30:31.630 preservation back then. But we have to address 00:30:31.630 --> 00:30:34.109 the critical context here. While the history 00:30:34.109 --> 00:30:36.910 preserved all this irreplaceable material, it 00:30:36.910 --> 00:30:39.069 was inherently biased, wasn't it? Oh, absolutely. 00:30:39.309 --> 00:30:41.390 Because it was written by the leaders of the 00:30:41.390 --> 00:30:44.730 NWSA faction, Anthony and Stanton, the history 00:30:44.730 --> 00:30:47.869 necessarily overstakes their roles and minimizes 00:30:47.869 --> 00:30:50.990 or entirely ignores rivals like Lucy Stone and 00:30:50.990 --> 00:30:53.910 the A .W .S .A. So for decades, this massive 00:30:53.910 --> 00:30:56.349 text. was the primary source for historians. 00:30:56.769 --> 00:30:59.470 Meaning it actively shaped the historical narrative 00:30:59.470 --> 00:31:01.710 and required later historians to work really 00:31:01.710 --> 00:31:04.029 hard to balance the record. It was as much a 00:31:04.029 --> 00:31:06.549 political document as a historical one. So Anthony's 00:31:06.549 --> 00:31:08.670 strategy then moved outward. She started looking 00:31:08.670 --> 00:31:11.049 beyond U .S. borders with a nine month tour of 00:31:11.049 --> 00:31:14.859 Europe in 1883. Her focus was on creating a formalized 00:31:14.859 --> 00:31:17.279 international structure to connect women's movements 00:31:17.279 --> 00:31:19.759 globally. And this led directly to the founding 00:31:19.759 --> 00:31:22.680 of the International Council of Women in Washington 00:31:22.680 --> 00:31:26.059 in 1888. This was a hugely significant event. 00:31:26.200 --> 00:31:28.680 It brought together delegates from 53 organizations 00:31:28.680 --> 00:31:31.859 across nine countries. And what's crucial about 00:31:31.859 --> 00:31:34.240 the ICW is that it wasn't just a suffrage group. 00:31:34.420 --> 00:31:37.019 No, it demonstrated this broad support for women's 00:31:37.019 --> 00:31:39.920 concerns. It included non -suffrage groups like 00:31:39.920 --> 00:31:42.759 professional groups, literary clubs, charitable 00:31:42.759 --> 00:31:45.519 organizations. It was a coalition designed to 00:31:45.519 --> 00:31:48.140 show that women were organized and powerful across 00:31:48.140 --> 00:31:50.619 various spheres of public life, not just at the 00:31:50.619 --> 00:31:53.160 ballot box. And this movement gained serious 00:31:53.160 --> 00:31:55.920 high -level political credibility almost immediately. 00:31:56.279 --> 00:31:59.700 It opened doors. President Cleveland hosted a 00:31:59.700 --> 00:32:01.579 reception for the delegates at the White House. 00:32:01.779 --> 00:32:04.539 And Queen Victoria hosted one for a later Congress 00:32:04.539 --> 00:32:07.420 in London. Anthony was being recognized as a 00:32:07.420 --> 00:32:10.299 major global political figure, moving seamlessly 00:32:10.299 --> 00:32:12.480 between different heads of state. One of her 00:32:12.480 --> 00:32:15.319 most clever acts of political maneuvering involved 00:32:15.319 --> 00:32:17.579 the World's Congress of Representative Women 00:32:17.579 --> 00:32:21.380 at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. She ensured 00:32:21.380 --> 00:32:23.420 women were recognized without rousing conservative 00:32:23.420 --> 00:32:26.400 opposition. How does she pull that off? She worked 00:32:26.400 --> 00:32:28.519 quietly and strategically behind the scenes. 00:32:28.720 --> 00:32:31.539 She knew that a public campaign by known suffragists 00:32:31.539 --> 00:32:33.779 would immediately draw opposition from conservative 00:32:33.779 --> 00:32:36.359 religious and political groups. So she covertly 00:32:36.359 --> 00:32:39.259 initiated a petition. Not from the radical suffragists, 00:32:39.400 --> 00:32:41.799 but signed by the wives and daughters of powerful 00:32:41.799 --> 00:32:45.059 figures. Supreme Court judges, senators, cabinet 00:32:45.059 --> 00:32:47.859 members. Using the social status of these political 00:32:47.859 --> 00:32:51.599 elites as cover. Precisely. This political maneuvering 00:32:51.599 --> 00:32:53.720 ensured the exposition officially recognized 00:32:53.720 --> 00:32:56.519 the role of women. The resulting event was huge, 00:32:56.759 --> 00:33:00.019 hosting delegates from 27 countries, and suffrage 00:33:00.019 --> 00:33:02.400 was discussed in almost all of the 81 sessions. 00:33:02.779 --> 00:33:05.619 It proved that women's voices could not be silenced, 00:33:05.640 --> 00:33:08.279 even on the grandest stage. And finally, we see 00:33:08.279 --> 00:33:10.259 her planning for the movement's long -term future 00:33:10.259 --> 00:33:13.420 through this global suffrage work, ensuring continuity. 00:33:14.009 --> 00:33:16.509 The capstone was the International Woman Suffrage 00:33:16.509 --> 00:33:20.430 Alliance, IWSA, founded in Berlin in 1904. This 00:33:20.430 --> 00:33:23.069 is primarily by Carrie Chapman Catt, one of Anthony's 00:33:23.069 --> 00:33:25.650 proteges. A pure suffered organization designed 00:33:25.650 --> 00:33:28.349 for the final global push. Anthony was named 00:33:28.349 --> 00:33:31.029 the honorary president and first member, an honor 00:33:31.029 --> 00:33:33.630 which gave her profound satisfaction in her final 00:33:33.630 --> 00:33:36.029 years. She knew the cause would continue under 00:33:36.029 --> 00:33:39.170 dedicated, trained leaders. That mentorship model 00:33:39.170 --> 00:33:43.289 was so key to her success. In 1891, at age 71, 00:33:43.609 --> 00:33:46.349 she finally settled into her sister Mary Stafford 00:33:46.349 --> 00:33:49.190 Anthony's home in Rochester after decades of 00:33:49.190 --> 00:33:51.670 living out of hotels and friends' houses. But 00:33:51.670 --> 00:33:54.170 she was still tireless. Her physical energy was 00:33:54.170 --> 00:33:57.569 legendary, even into her 70s. Sources mention 00:33:57.569 --> 00:34:00.829 her traveling extensively, even touring Yosemite 00:34:00.829 --> 00:34:04.470 on the back of a mule at age 75. But she made 00:34:04.470 --> 00:34:07.009 sure the next generation, the younger activists 00:34:07.009 --> 00:34:09.809 known as her nieces, including Kat and Anna Howard 00:34:09.809 --> 00:34:12.409 Shaw, were fully prepared to take the reins. 00:34:12.650 --> 00:34:14.369 Ensuring the movement's leadership didn't die 00:34:14.369 --> 00:34:16.750 with the founding generation. And she demonstrated 00:34:16.750 --> 00:34:19.309 this remarkable practical commitment to education, 00:34:19.550 --> 00:34:21.510 showing she fought not just for the right to 00:34:21.510 --> 00:34:24.070 vote, but for the necessary tools for women to 00:34:24.070 --> 00:34:26.579 succeed. She played a key role in raising funds 00:34:26.579 --> 00:34:28.579 for the University of Rochester to finally admit 00:34:28.579 --> 00:34:31.000 women students. And when the campaign stalled, 00:34:31.099 --> 00:34:33.260 she personally pledged her life insurance policy 00:34:33.260 --> 00:34:35.920 to close the final funding gap. This act just 00:34:35.920 --> 00:34:38.199 shows her absolute dedication to ensuring women 00:34:38.199 --> 00:34:40.940 had access to higher education. She saw it as 00:34:40.940 --> 00:34:43.000 critical to empowerment as the ballot itself. 00:34:43.300 --> 00:34:45.780 And the arc of public opinion finally caught 00:34:45.780 --> 00:34:48.380 up to her, culminating in that celebration at 00:34:48.380 --> 00:34:50.619 the White House for her 80th birthday, hosted 00:34:50.619 --> 00:34:53.139 by President William McKinley. It is the ultimate 00:34:53.139 --> 00:34:56.460 contrast. The woman who was once mobbed in Syracuse 00:34:56.460 --> 00:34:58.679 and arrested for the crime of voting was now 00:34:58.679 --> 00:35:01.360 being celebrated by the political elite. She 00:35:01.360 --> 00:35:04.480 transitioned from a radical extremist to a venerated 00:35:04.480 --> 00:35:06.860 senior political figure within her own lifetime, 00:35:07.039 --> 00:35:10.940 which is a rare feat for any revolutionary. Moving 00:35:10.940 --> 00:35:13.239 beyond her political biography, let's look at 00:35:13.239 --> 00:35:15.900 Anthony's personal philosophy, particularly her 00:35:15.900 --> 00:35:18.920 complex views on religion, which shaped her approach 00:35:18.920 --> 00:35:22.559 to work and her, uh, her famously single status. 00:35:22.900 --> 00:35:25.579 She was raised a Quaker, but her path was far 00:35:25.579 --> 00:35:27.900 from traditional. Her religious heritage was 00:35:27.900 --> 00:35:30.579 mixed by necessity. Her family moved from the 00:35:30.579 --> 00:35:32.980 traditional Quaker sect to a more liberal branch, 00:35:33.179 --> 00:35:35.000 and they eventually settled on attending the 00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:37.840 first Unitarian Church of Rochester. And Elizabeth 00:35:37.840 --> 00:35:40.760 Cady Stanton later described Anthony as an agnostic. 00:35:40.820 --> 00:35:43.750 She did. Though Anthony herself continued to 00:35:43.750 --> 00:35:46.869 identify with her Quaker roots, she valued the 00:35:46.869 --> 00:35:49.150 faith's commitment to internal moral guidance 00:35:49.150 --> 00:35:52.309 over external dogma. She seems to have had a 00:35:52.309 --> 00:35:55.570 very utilitarian approach to faith, almost equating 00:35:55.570 --> 00:35:58.489 work with worship. She articulated her personal 00:35:58.489 --> 00:36:01.250 theology by saying, work and worship are one 00:36:01.250 --> 00:36:04.090 with me. I cannot imagine a God of the universe 00:36:04.090 --> 00:36:06.650 made happy by my getting down on my knees and 00:36:06.650 --> 00:36:09.179 calling him great. Her focus was entirely on 00:36:09.179 --> 00:36:11.960 visible, demonstrable action and social improvement. 00:36:12.119 --> 00:36:14.360 And this spiritual honesty meant she refused 00:36:14.360 --> 00:36:17.780 to adopt a facade of belief. She stated pointedly 00:36:17.780 --> 00:36:19.960 that she could not dash her faith with my doubts 00:36:19.960 --> 00:36:22.699 when she was comforting her dying sister. Her 00:36:22.699 --> 00:36:24.420 views on marriage and her decision to remain 00:36:24.420 --> 00:36:26.840 single are particularly insightful. They're so 00:36:26.840 --> 00:36:29.280 deeply rooted in the legal and economic constraints 00:36:29.280 --> 00:36:32.139 women faced back then. Was this a conscious political 00:36:32.139 --> 00:36:34.860 choice or is it simply a matter of preference? 00:36:35.420 --> 00:36:37.679 I think it was overwhelmingly a conscious political 00:36:37.679 --> 00:36:40.400 choice, driven by necessity and legal status. 00:36:40.699 --> 00:36:43.219 We discussed the concept of femme covert earlier, 00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:45.619 the legal non -existence of a married woman. 00:36:45.820 --> 00:36:48.059 So Anthony recognized that as a single woman, 00:36:48.199 --> 00:36:51.039 a femme soul, she maintained her legal rights. 00:36:51.239 --> 00:36:54.059 She could sign contracts, manage money, travel 00:36:54.059 --> 00:36:56.000 freely without a husband's permission. Which 00:36:56.000 --> 00:36:58.179 was absolutely essential for running a national 00:36:58.179 --> 00:37:01.159 political movement. It was non -negotiable. Marrying 00:37:01.159 --> 00:37:03.659 meant surrendering the very autonomy required 00:37:03.659 --> 00:37:06.610 to be the orc. organizational engine of the women's 00:37:06.610 --> 00:37:08.550 rights movement. And her personal statements 00:37:08.550 --> 00:37:11.949 about singleness were defiantly strong. She stated 00:37:11.949 --> 00:37:15.409 she never found a man necessary to my happiness. 00:37:15.730 --> 00:37:18.050 And to a journalist, she explained her rationale 00:37:18.050 --> 00:37:20.630 for avoiding marriage very clearly. She said 00:37:20.630 --> 00:37:22.489 had she married young, she would have been a 00:37:22.489 --> 00:37:26.219 drudge or a doll for 59 years. Think of it. that 00:37:26.219 --> 00:37:28.460 quote just perfectly encapsulates the high stakes 00:37:28.460 --> 00:37:31.400 of marriage for 19th century women it often meant 00:37:31.400 --> 00:37:33.699 the total cessation of a public professional 00:37:33.699 --> 00:37:36.690 life and she saw this as a systemic issue In 00:37:36.690 --> 00:37:39.829 1877, she predicted an epoch of single women 00:37:39.829 --> 00:37:42.429 if women would not accept marriage with subjugation. 00:37:42.610 --> 00:37:45.130 She was signaling that until the legal relationship 00:37:45.130 --> 00:37:47.190 between husband and wife was based on equality, 00:37:47.670 --> 00:37:50.190 marriage itself remained a political trap for 00:37:50.190 --> 00:37:53.190 ambitious women. Finally, we really must address 00:37:53.190 --> 00:37:55.469 the modern dispute surrounding her views on abortion. 00:37:56.550 --> 00:37:59.010 It's a topic that has often been politicized 00:37:59.010 --> 00:38:02.230 using her name. What does the scholarly consensus 00:38:02.230 --> 00:38:05.389 based on the full body of her papers tell us? 00:38:05.880 --> 00:38:08.719 Yeah, it is crucial here to rely on the findings 00:38:08.719 --> 00:38:11.179 of experts who work directly with the primary 00:38:11.179 --> 00:38:13.139 source material. I'm talking about the decades 00:38:13.139 --> 00:38:16.260 -long project that compiled and edited the Elizabeth 00:38:16.260 --> 00:38:19.139 Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony papers. Andy 00:38:19.139 --> 00:38:21.940 Golden and Lynn Scher, lead researchers on that 00:38:21.940 --> 00:38:24.579 project, have stated very clearly that Anthony 00:38:24.579 --> 00:38:26.719 never voiced an opinion about the sanctity of 00:38:26.719 --> 00:38:29.719 fetal life or about using state power to require 00:38:29.719 --> 00:38:32.460 pregnancies to be carried to term. So when modern 00:38:32.460 --> 00:38:35.400 groups cite her as an outspoken critic of abortion, 00:38:35.440 --> 00:38:38.559 What is the scholarly consensus on the sources 00:38:38.559 --> 00:38:41.079 they are using? Are they authentic? The consensus 00:38:41.079 --> 00:38:43.139 among these primary source scholars is complex. 00:38:43.460 --> 00:38:45.420 They agree that the statements often cited are 00:38:45.420 --> 00:38:47.920 either misattributed entirely, taken drastically 00:38:47.920 --> 00:38:50.579 out of context, or most commonly referred to 00:38:50.579 --> 00:38:52.599 the desperate social circumstances that drove 00:38:52.599 --> 00:38:54.519 women to seek abortions in the 19th century. 00:38:54.760 --> 00:38:57.360 So Anthony and her colleagues saw abortion as 00:38:57.360 --> 00:39:00.690 a tragic symptom of women's subjugation. Exactly. 00:39:00.849 --> 00:39:03.309 Their lack of legal control over their bodies, 00:39:03.409 --> 00:39:05.909 their finances, their marriage contracts. She 00:39:05.909 --> 00:39:08.429 focused on removing the root causes, the lack 00:39:08.429 --> 00:39:11.570 of rights, rather than advocating for state prohibition 00:39:11.570 --> 00:39:14.269 of the act itself. Her goal was women's control 00:39:14.269 --> 00:39:17.590 and empowerment, not state interference. Susan 00:39:17.590 --> 00:39:20.070 B. Anthony's final years were characterized by 00:39:20.070 --> 00:39:22.550 this unwavering certainty in the ultimate victory. 00:39:22.769 --> 00:39:27.449 She died on March 13, 1906, at age 86, from heart 00:39:27.449 --> 00:39:30.489 failure and pneumonia. still 14 years shy of 00:39:30.489 --> 00:39:32.750 the 19th Amendment's ratification. Her final 00:39:32.750 --> 00:39:34.670 public words, which she delivered at her birthday 00:39:34.670 --> 00:39:37.610 celebration just days earlier, became the rallying 00:39:37.610 --> 00:39:39.869 cry that defined the movement's final push. What 00:39:39.869 --> 00:39:42.269 did she say? She acknowledged the vast network 00:39:42.269 --> 00:39:44.269 of women who had committed themselves, stating, 00:39:44.530 --> 00:39:46.670 There have been others also just as true and 00:39:46.670 --> 00:39:48.530 devoted to the cause I wish I could name everyone, 00:39:48.769 --> 00:39:50.949 but with such women consecrating their lives, 00:39:51.130 --> 00:39:53.909 failure is impossible. She never saw the national 00:39:53.909 --> 00:39:56.530 victory, but she witnessed enormous progress 00:39:56.530 --> 00:39:59.989 in cultural acceptance. She expressed pride in 00:39:59.989 --> 00:40:02.909 the greater revolution than in the sphere of 00:40:02.909 --> 00:40:05.309 woman during this 50 years. By the time of her 00:40:05.309 --> 00:40:07.710 death, women had achieved full suffrage in four 00:40:07.710 --> 00:40:10.550 Western states, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and 00:40:10.550 --> 00:40:13.630 Idaho. And more broadly, legal rights for married 00:40:13.630 --> 00:40:16.289 women had been established in most states, undoing 00:40:16.289 --> 00:40:19.389 that theme covert status she fought so hard against. 00:40:19.650 --> 00:40:21.150 And there was a colossal shift in education. 00:40:21.659 --> 00:40:24.300 36 ,000 women were attending colleges and universities, 00:40:24.619 --> 00:40:28.059 up from almost zero in the mid -1800s. She fought 00:40:28.059 --> 00:40:30.440 for the right to be a full person, not just the 00:40:30.440 --> 00:40:32.659 right to cast a ballot. Her legacy was almost 00:40:32.659 --> 00:40:35.480 immediately solidified. The 19th Amendment, ratified 00:40:35.480 --> 00:40:38.539 in 1920, was justly known as the Susan B. Anthony 00:40:38.539 --> 00:40:40.920 Amendment. And she became the first female citizen 00:40:40.920 --> 00:40:43.599 to be depicted on U .S. coinage with the 1979 00:40:43.599 --> 00:40:46.800 dollar coin, cementing her role as a primary 00:40:46.800 --> 00:40:51.559 figure in American history. The first physical 00:40:51.559 --> 00:40:53.539 memorial dedicated to Anthony was established 00:40:53.539 --> 00:40:56.460 by African -American women. It is a profound 00:40:56.460 --> 00:40:59.960 historical testament. In 1907, Hester C. Jeffrey, 00:41:00.239 --> 00:41:02.659 the president of the Susan B. Anthony Club, an 00:41:02.659 --> 00:41:04.840 organization of African -American women in Rochester, 00:41:05.179 --> 00:41:08.639 installed a stained glass window in a local AME 00:41:08.639 --> 00:41:11.639 Zion church. And Jeffrey noted that Anthony stood 00:41:11.639 --> 00:41:14.000 by the Negroes when it meant almost death to 00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:16.179 be a friend of the colored people. This memorial, 00:41:16.360 --> 00:41:19.039 it just underscores the cross -racial coalition 00:41:19.039 --> 00:41:22.199 she prioritized and maintained despite the painful 00:41:22.199 --> 00:41:25.000 political schism over the 15th Amendment. And 00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:28.480 finally, that defiant spirit from the 1873 trial, 00:41:28.659 --> 00:41:31.800 that refusal to submit to an unjust system, it 00:41:31.800 --> 00:41:34.460 resurfaced recently during the 2020 posthumous 00:41:34.460 --> 00:41:36.679 pardon controversy. It did. When a posthumous 00:41:36.679 --> 00:41:38.420 presidential pardon was announced, the president 00:41:38.420 --> 00:41:40.880 of the National Susan B. Anthony Museum and House 00:41:40.880 --> 00:41:43.599 declined the offer. They argued that accepting 00:41:43.599 --> 00:41:45.980 the pardon would wrongly validate the unjust 00:41:45.980 --> 00:41:49.119 1873 trial. A very outcome Anthony fought against. 00:41:49.320 --> 00:41:51.519 So her original refusal to pay the fine remains 00:41:51.519 --> 00:41:54.280 this powerful, active symbol of moral victory 00:41:54.280 --> 00:41:57.400 over a corrupt legal process. The incredible 00:41:57.400 --> 00:42:00.079 complexity of her life, the tireless organizer, 00:42:00.440 --> 00:42:03.239 the massive debtor, the friend of Frederick Douglass 00:42:03.239 --> 00:42:05.780 and Harriet Tubman, the agitator. who battled 00:42:05.780 --> 00:42:08.679 mobs and the strategist who invented modern lobbying, 00:42:08.980 --> 00:42:12.159 it's overwhelming. Her life was defined by the 00:42:12.159 --> 00:42:14.860 intensity of the struggle. And she clearly foresaw 00:42:14.860 --> 00:42:17.400 the danger of future generations taking her hard 00:42:17.400 --> 00:42:20.380 -won liberties for granted. She did. In 1894, 00:42:20.559 --> 00:42:23.380 she voiced this very fear. She said, we shall 00:42:23.380 --> 00:42:25.900 someday be heated, and when we shall have our 00:42:25.900 --> 00:42:28.460 amendment. Everybody will think it was always 00:42:28.460 --> 00:42:31.199 so. They have no idea of how every single inch 00:42:31.199 --> 00:42:33.360 of ground that she stands upon today has been 00:42:33.360 --> 00:42:35.360 gained by the hard work of some little handful 00:42:35.360 --> 00:42:37.559 of women of the past. That brings us to our closing 00:42:37.559 --> 00:42:39.699 thought for you. When we look at the immense 00:42:39.699 --> 00:42:42.340 battles she fought, from establishing equal pay 00:42:42.340 --> 00:42:44.940 and coeducation to securing basic property rights, 00:42:45.199 --> 00:42:48.119 what area of social justice today might we similarly 00:42:48.119 --> 00:42:50.579 be taking for granted, assuming they were always 00:42:50.579 --> 00:42:53.079 so? What forgotten battles from the past are 00:42:53.079 --> 00:42:55.300 shaping the very institutions and liberties we 00:42:55.300 --> 00:42:57.860 rely on now? You should think about Anthony's 00:42:57.860 --> 00:43:01.760 most crucial tools. Persistence, the creation 00:43:01.760 --> 00:43:04.800 of clear organizational structure, and the power 00:43:04.800 --> 00:43:08.019 of radical, uncompromising friendship. Her blueprint 00:43:08.019 --> 00:43:10.940 for sustained, decades -long activism is still 00:43:10.940 --> 00:43:14.539 so relevant. We have to ask ourselves, what fundamental 00:43:14.539 --> 00:43:16.340 rights are being fought for right now that future 00:43:16.340 --> 00:43:18.360 generations will simply assume were always there? 00:43:18.750 --> 00:43:20.889 Consider the current value of the incomparable 00:43:20.889 --> 00:43:23.190 organizer's approach. We hope this deep dive 00:43:23.190 --> 00:43:25.050 into the historical sources has provided you 00:43:25.050 --> 00:43:27.630 with a new appreciation for the long game of 00:43:27.630 --> 00:43:28.230 social change.