"A Heroic Life": 1820-1860

The first Woman’s Rights Convention met on July 19 and 20, 1848 in Seneca Falls, NY; two weeks later a reconvened session met in Rochester. Susan B. Anthony, who was then headmistress of the Female Department at the Canajoharie Academy, did not attend the conventions. Her parents and sister Mary, however, were present at the Rochester meeting and signed petitions in support of the resolutions.

In September 1852 a woman’s rights convention was held in Syracuse, NY. This was Susan B. Anthony’s first convention, but despite being a relative newcomer, she served on the nominating committee and as one of the secretaries. Others attending the convention were Lucretia and James Mott, Lucy Stone, Ernestine Rose, Gerrit Smith, Samuel J. May, Antoinette L. Brown, Amy Post, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Elizabeth Oakes Smith and Paulina Wright Davis. Anthony read a letter from Elizabeth Cady Stanton who was about to give birth to her fifth child and not able to attend.
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On October 1, 1855 Susan B. Anthony writes to Amy Post that she has lined up Wendell Phillips, Theodore Parker, William Lloyd Garrison, and Charles Lenox Remond as speakers for a series of anti-slavery lectures to be given in Rochester in November. The letter was written from the Worcester Hydropathic Institute, where Anthony was supposedly resting and recuperating from a back ailment.
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Susan B. Anthony's published remarks on anti-slavery in the National Anti-Slavery Standard, 1858.

On March 8, 1858 Anthony attended an anti-slavery meeting in Albany, NY. Her remarks were published in the March 20, 1858 issue of the National Anti-Slavery Standard.
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Stanton and Anthony often led the way on controversial issues. At the 1860 Woman's Rights Convention Stanton made several resolutions in favor of divorce under certain circumstances. The resolutions caused a furor. Even such staunch supporters as Wendell Phillips backed away from the divorce question as seen in this letter to Anthony of June 5, 1860.
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"A Heroic Life": 1820-1860