Figure in Humanities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Figure in Humanities - Essay Example ssues such as temperance, abolition, education, and health care are all issues that have been impacted by Anthonys work in gaining the womens right to vote. Throughout the 20th century women would bring issues of social importance to women into the public discourse. The issues of civil rights, divorce law, and reproductive rights would manifest in the landmark decisions of Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade. The work of Susan B Anthony would forever alter the size, shape, and texture of government in America. The name of Susan B Anthony is indelibly connected with the feminist movement and the womens right to vote, and though her campaign for womens rights was relatively short, her singular intensity gave the movement its power. By some accounts, Anthony was no more than a minor character in the womans movement of the 19th and 20th centuries. She was not present at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 that is credited with bringing the plight of the oppressed woman into the national spotlight, and died 14 years before the passing of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote (Chapman and Mills 3). Yet, because of her oratory skills at moving an audience, Anthony is still regarded as the "mother of all of us" (Chapman and Mills 3). In 1871 she toured the Northwest, and during a three month period gave speeches that would solidify the support needed for the right to vote in the Western states. During this tour she traveled 2000 miles and gave 60 lectures, while being dismissed by local newspapers as "being ugly, old (aged fifty one), and a spinster" (Blair 687). Yet, her work would have a monumental impact on the future of America. Humm writes that Anthony, "could not have imagined the radical transformation of the place and role of women in society wrought through the womens movement of the 1970s and beyond – perhaps the most radical change of the millennium and all within the past few years" (2). Anthonys dedication to the rights of women has