Born: November 12, 1815, Johnstown, New York
Died: October 26, 1902, New York, New York
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the first leaders of the American woman's rights movement. An excellent writer and speaker, she and Susan B. Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 and worked together to secure women's right to vote. Throughout her life, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a spokesperson for the rights of women, and her daughter, Harriot Stanton Blatch, carried on her mother's work.
In 1851, Stanton started working with Susan B. Anthony, a well-known abolitionist. The two women made a great team. Anthony managed the business affairs of the women's rights movement while Stanton did most of the writing. Together they edited and published a woman's newspaper, the Revolution, from 1868 to 1870. In 1869, Anthony and Stanton formed the National Woman Suffrage Association. They traveled all over the country and abroad, promoting woman's rights.
Anna Howard Shaw, another suffragist, wrote a description of the relationship between Stanton and Anthony in The Story of a Pioneer: "She [Miss Anthony] often said that Mrs. Stanton was the brains of the new association, while she herself was merely its hands and feet; but in truth the two women worked marvelously together, for Mrs. Stanton was a master of words and could write and speak to perfection of the things Susan B. Anthony saw and felt but could not herself express.
Not everyone thought that what Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were working towards was a good idea. This 1896 political cartoon pokes fun at Stanton and Anthony by suggesting they be considered as important as George Washington. Today, we wouldn't think it's funny because just as George Washington is considered a "forefather" of American democracy, Stanton and Anthony are "foremothers" of the struggle for women's equality.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her daughter, Harriot, 1856
"The Apotheosis of Suffrage," a cartoon mocking Stanton and Anthony
CREDIT: Coffin, George Yost, artist. "The Apotheosis of Suffrage." 1896