8/18/2020
Susan B. Anthony was Arrested for Voting when Women Couldn’t. Now Trump will Pardon Her
Historians in the Newstags: suffrage, pardons, Donald Trump, Susan B. Anthony, pandering
On Election Day in 1872, nearly 50 years before women gained the right to vote, Susan B. Anthony walked into a polling site in Rochester, N.Y., and cast her ballot. A federal marshal later showed up at her door to arrest her for wrongfully and willfully voting. She was ultimately tried and fined $100.
On Tuesday, the 100-year anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment that granted women the right to vote, President Trump announced he would pardon Anthony.
One of the most prominent leaders in the fight for women’s suffrage, Anthony spent decades traveling the country, giving speeches, petitioning Congress and publishing a suffragist newspaper. Alongside Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association and organized the first Woman Suffrage Convention in Washington. When the 19th Amendment passed, more than 14 years after her death, it became widely known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.
Other aspects of Anthony’s legacy have stirred debate among historians and advocates. Conservatives have long celebrated Anthony, saying she was fervently antiabortion. The Susan B. Anthony List, a nonprofit organization in her name, focuses on promoting and supporting antiabortion politicians. But others reject this interpretation of the suffragist’s views, claiming the Susan B. Anthony List “hijacked Anthony’s name and fame to promote their own cause.”
After appearing at Tuesday’s event at the White House, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, celebrated the “sweet moment,” tweeting that Anthony “fought for the rights of all, including the unborn.”
But historians who have closely studied Anthony’s life say the suffragist would not have wanted to be pardoned. Anthony’s conviction was a point of pride for her, a symbol of the lengths to which those in power would go to prevent women from voting, said Ann Gordon, a former Rutgers University professor and editor of “The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.”
comments powered by Disqus
News
- The Debt Ceiling Law is now a Tool of Partisan Political Power; Abolish It
- Amitai Etzioni, Theorist of Communitarianism, Dies at 94
- Kagan, Sotomayor Join SCOTUS Cons in Sticking it to Unions
- New Evidence: Rehnquist Pretty Much OK with Plessy v. Ferguson
- Ohio Unions Link Academic Freedom and the Freedom to Strike
- First Round of Obama Administration Oral Histories Focus on Political Fault Lines and Policy Tradeoffs
- The Tulsa Race Massacre was an Attack on Black People; Rebuilding Policies were an Attack on Black Wealth
- British Universities are Researching Ties to Slavery. Conservative Alumni Say "Enough"
- Martha Hodes Reconstructs Her Memory of a 1970 Hijacking
- Jeremi Suri: Texas Higher Ed Conflict "Doesn't Have to Be This Way"
Trending Now
- New transcript of Ayn Rand at West Point in 1974 shows she claimed “savage" Indians had no right to live here just because they were born here
- The Mexican War Suggests Ukraine May End Up Conceding Crimea. World War I Suggests the Price May Be Tragic if it Doesn't
- The Vietnam War Crimes You Never Heard Of