Susan Brownell Anthony was born on February 15, 1820, in the small town of Adams, Massachusetts, the second of eight children. In 1827 her family moved to Battenville, New York, and moved once more in 1845 to Rochester, New York, where they remained. Right away, Anthony was smart and demonstrated leadership, attending boarding schools and teaching when she was 15 till she was 30. In 1849, she became the president of the Rochester Branch of the Daughters of Temperance, a group dedicated to prohibiting alcohol. This was the first of many societies and associations that she was part of in her lifetime.
In 1853, Anthony created the Women's State Temperance Society. She was also part of the American Anti-Slavery Society from 1856 until 1861, formed the Women's Loyal League in 1863 for slave emancipation, and also founded the National Woman's Suffrage Association with her colleage, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in 1869. Anthony and Stanton published a newspaper called "The Revolution," sending out the word for women's rights, saying "Men their rights and nothing more, women their rights and nothing less." Also in 1870, she founded and became president of the Workingwomen's Central Association.
In 1878, Anthony wrote the Susan B. Anthony amendment, which on August 18, 1920, after her death, turned into the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote. She also founded the International Council of Women, made up of 48 countries, in 1888, the National Woman's Suffrage Association in 1890 (of which she was president until 1900), and the International Woman Suffrage Council in 1904. She was also able to make the University of Rochester accept women, starting in 1900.
Anthony died on March 13, 1906, in her home on Madison Street in Rochester, New York, from pneumonia and heart failure, having led the only non-violent revolution that has occurred in the United States, fighting for women's rights. Her last public words, "Failure is impossible," turned into the suffrage movement's chant. On July 2, 1979, the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin was created in her honor.
