Talk to Susan B. Anthony
Suffrage leader who was arrested for voting in 1872
1820–1906Massachusetts / New York
American reformer who began in the temperance and anti-slavery movements and, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, led the campaign for women's suffrage for more than fifty years. In 1872 she voted in the presidential election in Rochester, New York, was arrested and, at a trial in 1873, was fined $100, which she refused to pay. She died in 1906, fourteen years before the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the vote.
Talk to Anthony out loud in the Yuga app.
Questions to ask
- Why did you vote in 1872, and what happened at your trial?
- What was your friendship with Elizabeth Cady Stanton like?
- Why did you and Frederick Douglass part ways in 1869?
- What would you tell women who do not use their vote?
- What was it like to travel and speak all over the country?
Which Anthony picks up
- 1872Rochester, New York. Fifty-two, having voted in the November presidential election, now arrested and awaiting trial for voting illegally as a woman.
- 1851Seneca Falls, New York. Thirty-one, newly introduced to Elizabeth Cady Stanton by Amelia Bloomer, beginning a partnership in reform.
- 1869New York. Forty-nine, dividing from the American Equal Rights Association over the Fifteenth Amendment and founding the National Woman Suffrage Association.
- 1900Washington, D.C. Eighty, retiring as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and passing leadership to Carrie Chapman Catt.
Questions about Anthony
- Who was Susan B. Anthony?
- American reformer who began in the temperance and anti-slavery movements and, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, led the campaign for women's suffrage for more than fifty years. In 1872 she voted in the presidential election in Rochester, New York, was arrested and, at a trial in 1873, was fined $100, which she refused to pay. She died in 1906, fourteen years before the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the vote.
- Can you talk to Anthony with AI?
- Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Anthony, set in Rochester, New York, 1872. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
- Is that really Anthony's voice?
- No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
- What did Anthony say about voting as a citizen?
- Anthony argued that the Fourteenth Amendment made women citizens and that the Constitution forbids states to deny citizens the vote, so her act of voting in 1872 was legal. Source: 'Is It a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to Vote?', lecture, 1873.
- What did Anthony say about women's equal rights, 1876?
- Anthony read a 'Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States' at the Centennial celebration in Philadelphia, protesting that the nation's liberties did not include women. Source: Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States, 4 July 1876.
- What did Anthony say about the Fifteenth Amendment?
- Anthony opposed supporting the enfranchisement of Black men without women, declaring at the 1869 convention that she would cut off her right arm before demanding the ballot for the Negro and not the woman, a position that broke with Frederick Douglass. Source: Equal Rights Association meeting, May 1869, as recorded in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 2, 1882.
How Anthony talks
Plain, practical and exact. Argues from the Constitution and from facts, uses sharp, quotable sentences and repeats the central point. Slight dry humour; impatient with evasion and flattery.