Women's Reform Movement Essay

1735 Words7 Pages

It’s important to remember our history as American women. The Women’s Reform Movement was crucial in the U.S. because it was a precursor to women being able to vote. Some of the key leaders were Susan B Anthony, Anna Howard Shaw, Carrie Chapman Catt, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone. They used various strategies such as lectures, pamphlets, lobbying for better education, women’s labor unions, speeches, and conventions. Speeches, particularly the one made by Susan B. Anthony, were influential in affecting the way people viewed the rights of women. Their efforts in the 1840’s eventually lead to the 19th amendment (which gave women the right to vote) being passed in 1920. The key leaders of the Women's Reform Movement of the 1840’s were …show more content…

Anthony was born on February 15, 1820 to a Quaker family. As a Quaker, she was against alcohol completely. She believed that male drunkenness influenced the violence caused by poverty among small, poor families. Unfortunately, no one would listen to her because she was a woman and no one took women seriously back then. In 1853, Susan began to advocate for property rights for married women. Susan was its second president and first vice president. Susan continued to fight for the the right vote until she died on March 13, 1906. One reason women look up to her is because she was fined $100 for casting an illegal ballot. She was seething about this, so she went on a speaking spree and gave her incredibly famous speech. She never paid the …show more content…

She gave the speech during the New York State equal suffrage campaign at the City Opera House in Ogdensburg, New York on June 21, 1915. She spoke for the women’s right to vote in an incredibly long speech about how men had a huge decision to make on November 2nd of that year. She argued that women had been placed on this earth by God for a reason and that men shouldn’t stop us from having basic human rights. She said that we can’t say that America is a republic when half the population can’t vote. The most famous quote from her speech is probably this