- Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902). For more than 50 years (1851-1902), these two leading analysts and activists for women’s rights were close friends and co-workers. They emerged from different backgrounds and brought different but complementary skills and talents to their work. Anthony was a great organizer and speaker. Stanton specialized in analysis and writing. Anthony was a spinster who was free to travel and indifferent to hardships. The vote was her central concern, on the theory that all other advances would follow on its heels. Stanton was a homebody who liked to take her time and be comfortable, as much as a household of 7 children would allow. She considered the vote as only one necessity for women’s advancement. She authored a rewrite of the Bible—outrageous for its day—refocusing the scriptures from a feminist perspective. In 1869, the two women founded the National Woman Suffrage Association, the first of the major groups whose work would culminate in votes for women in 1920.
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