I HAVE BEEN
& GONE &
‘WELL
DONE IT!!
’
Women: A Century of Change
A YEARLONG SERIESSUSAN B. ANTHONY WROTE TO A FRIEND ON NOVEMBER 5, 1872.THAT DAY ANTHONY and her three sisters man-
aged to vote in Rochester, New York. Nearly a
century after the nation’s founding, seven years
after the end of the Civil War, and two years after
the 15th Amendment granted voting rights to
African-American men, it was still illegal for
most women to vote. Anthony and her sisters
had been sure they would be denied. Indeed,
that’s what they had hoped would happen. They
wanted grounds for a lawsuit.
But Anthony, a well-known and intimidating
figure, couldn’t help herself. A few days earlier,
she had browbeaten the young officials who
were registering voters at a local barbershop
into putting the women’s names on the voting
rolls. When that proved an unexpected success,
she spread the word.
On Election Day, some 15 women in Rochester
voted. “We are in for a fine agitation in Roch-
ester,” wrote Anthony to her friend and fellow
campaigner Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Although
she hadn’t expected to vote, she knew her defi-
ant act would have ramifications.
Two weeks later, the opportunity she’d been
aiming for arrived on her doorstep in the form
of a well-mannered federal officer. He was there
to arrest her.
By that point women had been campaigning to100 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC