1 of 10

Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906)

Susan Brownell Anthony (Massachusetts, 1820) is remembered for the tireless activism she exercised throughout the 19th century. Despite dedicating her life to the defense of women’s right to vote, she was one of many who never exercised it.

Nicknamed “the daring woman,” Anthony not only defended women’s rights. In 1866 she founded, together with fellow suffragette Elizabeth Stanton, the American Equal Rights Association, which supported different social struggles, including the abolition of slavery. He also advocated for women’s rights to property and divorce and advocated for more comfortable and less restrictive clothing for them.

In 1872, a time when she became well known, Anthony was arrested and tried for voting in the presidential election. She was found guilty and sentenced to pay a $100 fine. In her later years, she co-wrote a story about women’s suffrage, participated in negotiating the merger of the country’s suffrage groups, and continued to tour the country defending the right to vote. Finally, she died in New York in 1906.

US Library of Congress

2 out of 10

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (Johnstown, 1815) was an intellectual who dedicated her entire life to the fight against inequalities. She began in the abolitionist movement but gradually moved to suffragism.

In the first Convention in Defense of Women’s Rights celebrated in Seneca Falls In 1848, an important event attended by other suffragettes such as Susan B. Anthony, presented the Declaration of Feelings. This document, which marked the future of the feminist movement, was a text based on the Declaration of Independence and basically established that all men and women must be equal before the law, with the same rights and duties. It was signed by 68 women and 32 men.

Later, she tried to have the Fifteenth Amendment, approved in 1870, also include women’s right to vote, although she did not succeed. Throughout her life she wrote books, essays, speeches and articles whose central theme was the labor, social, economic and cultural situation of American women. One of her great milestones as an activist was the creation, together with Parker Pillsbury, one of the first men to openly declare herself a feminist, of the weekly magazine The Revolution. Their motto was: “Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.” Stanton died in New York in 1902, aged 86.

3 out of 10

Lucretia Mott (1793-1880)

The figure of Lucretia Coffin Mott (Massachusetts, 1793) is sculpted in marble along with those of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton, in a sculpture that can currently be visited in the United States Capitol.

Raised as a Quaker, Mott became a teacher and with her husband advocated for abolitionism and women’s suffrage. She toured much of the US, mainly the Northeast, giving speeches wherever she went thanks to her excellent gift for oratory.

She was co-founder and president of the National Woman Suffrage Association and with Elizabeth Stanton, she organized the first Annual Convention in the US on Women’s Rights (the one in Seneca Falls). Likewise, she was one of the signatories of the so-called Declaration of Sentiments. Following the abolition of slavery in 1865, Mott focused her efforts on women’s right to vote until her death in Pennsylvania in 1880.

4 out of 10

Lucy Stone (1818-1893)

From a very young age, Lucy Stone (Massachusetts, 1818) became aware of the inequalities between men and women. For example, she saw how men and women worked equally on her family’s farm, but it was her father who made the decisions. She also said that her brothers and sisters taught children, and they earned less. Thus, she quickly entered the feminist movement.

In 1843 she enrolled at Oberlin Collegiate Institute in Ohio, the first university to accept women in its classrooms, and became a the first Massachusetts woman to graduate. He was part of the organizing committee of the Seneca Falls convention and at times prioritized the suffrage movement over the abolitionist movement.

She married abolitionist Henry B. Blackwell in 1855 and was the first woman in the United States to keep her maiden name. He created the American Woman Suffrage Association, a split from the National Woman Suffrage Association, due to some disagreements in the way of acting. She believed that the best strategy to achieve the right to vote was to do it state by state.

Another of his great successes was founding the Woman’s Journal, a weekly publication that became a spokesperson for suffrage demands. Lucy Stone died in New Jersey in 1893.

5 out of 10

Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898)

Matilda Joslyn Gage (New York, 1826) stood out for being a “radical suffragist”, that is, she did not want to focus solely on the right to vote, but rather give women more civil rights. This ideology differed from that of other more conservative suffragettes. In this sense, she collaborated a lot with Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the development of her works.

In 1878 he bought the monthly magazine Ballot Box and renamed it as The National Citizen and Ballot Boxwhere she presented her ideas on suffrage and women’s civil rights.

He wrote several works such as pamphlets Woman as Inventor, Woman’s Rights Catechismor a book titled, Woman, Church and State. He also founded in 1890 and presided over the Women’s National Liberal Union, an organization that contradicted the feminist movements that defended the union of Church and state. She died in 1898 in Chicago.

6 out of 10

Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927)

One of the great figures who represent the fight for equality was undoubtedly Victoria Woodhull (Ohio, 1838): she was the first woman to run for president of the United States in 1872. She did so as a representative of the Equal Rights party, which advocated for women’s suffrage.

In 1871 she was also the first woman to speak before a US Congressional committee. Woodhull argued that women already had the right to vote and just had to use it, since the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution guaranteed that right to all citizens. Her argument gave a new perspective to the feminist struggle and her famous speech was applauded by the suffragettes and transferred to all the media.

In addition to women’s suffrage, Woodhull defended free love and the freedom to marry, divorce, and have children without government interference, which caused a real social upheaval. She spent the last years of her life in the United Kingdom and died in Worcestershire in 1927.

7 out of 10

Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947)

Carrie Chapman Catt (Wisconsin, 1859) began her activism as a suffragette in Iowa working as an organizer for the Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in that state. She later worked nationally for the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

Years later, Catt succeeded Anthony as NAWSA president, a position to which she was elected twice. Under Catt’s leadership, NAWSA won the support of the House and Senate of the United States, as well as state support, for the ratification of the amendment that in 1929 finally guaranteed women’s right to vote.

Previously, Catt had important roles in the campaigns of different states such as New York, which granted women the vote in 1917. She died in that same state 30 years later, in 1947.

8 out of 10

Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973)

Jeannette Rankin (Montana, 1880) was the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives and the first female member of Congress. She did it in 1916, four years before the female vote was approved throughout the country. She was a Republican, and she led a long life as a social worker, activist, and pacifist.

At the University of Washington she organized the nascent suffrage movement and played an important role in the fight to grant women the vote in Mountain in 1914, the state he represented in Congress two years later.

His term in the House ended before 1919, although he returned in 1940. He died in California in 1973.

9 out of 10

Belva Lockwood (1830-1917)

The struggle of Belva Lockwood (New York, 1830) took place mainly in the courts. He was one of the first women to be a lawyer since, in 1870, the National University announced that it would begin to admit women. Furthermore, in 1884 she presented herself as US presidential candidate and, like Victoria Woodhull, she did it for the Equal Rights party.

10 out of 10

Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (1842-1932)

Although Anna Elizabeth Dickinson (Pennsylvania, 1842) is not considered an orator de facto of the suffrage movement, she was involved in the defense of women’s right to vote and had important friendships with some of its most prominent representatives such as Stanton, Anthony or Mott.

She became a teacher and among her specialties were women’s rights. One of his most notable speeches was The rights and injustices of women, and he pronounced it in 1861 in Philadelphia. Starting in the 90s, she had to stop practically all of her activities because she began to suffer from paranoia and was admitted for some periods of time against her will to mental health institutions. She died in New York in 1932.