She continued to teach until 1852, but all the while she was taking a keen interest in every reform movement. The more she studied and pondered over the condition of women, the stronger grew her conviction that they would never receive proper pay or recognition, never be able to do the work God intended them to do in the world, unless they should be given equal political rights with man.
Miss Anthony did not at first advocate full suffrage for women; at that period it appeared a thing quite impossible for them to obtain. Wisely she worked for what she believed was within the range of possibility to secure. She was much interested in the temperance movement, and spoke frequently in public for that cause. It happened one day that the Sons of Temperance invited the Daughters of Temperance to their Convention at Albany. The Daughters accepted the invitation and attended, but the Sons would not allow them to speak,—which so angered Miss Anthony and some other women that they left the hall and held a meeting of their own outside. Out of this episode grew the Women's New York State Temperance Society, founded in 1852, and afterward developing into the Women's Christian Temperance Union.
By this time Miss Anthony was well known as a lecturer. But when she actually called a Convention of Women at Albany to urge the public to recognize the wrongs, and demand the rights of her sex, considerable comment followed. In the sixth decade of the Nineteenth Century women had not become so active in public affairs that one of them could call a Convention and the general public take no notice.
The right to vote on educational questions was at length granted women in New York State, and the credit for this is due to Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Miss Anthony's friendship with Mrs. Stanton started her in new fields of action. Mrs. Stanton's husband was a lawyer and journalist, who had been a student in Lane Theological Seminary. A noted abolitionist, he went as delegate to the World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Mrs. Stanton accompanied him, meeting there Lucretia Mott, who was the sole woman delegate. These two women called the first Woman's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls in 1848. Though Miss Anthony did not attend this meeting, she later became a complete convert, being already headed in the direction of woman's political and social emancipation.
As soon as Miss Anthony became convinced that only through the use of the ballot could woman succeed in obtaining the same rights in the business world as men, she entered heart and soul into the work of securing it, going to many cities of the North and the South to lecture, often speaking five or six times a week. Her platform manner was direct, straight-forward, and convincing; her good humor, unfailing; her quickness to see and grasp an opportunity for retort, noteworthy.
In 1860 the New York Legislature passed a bill giving to married women the possession of their earnings and the guardianship of their children. This was largely due to Miss Anthony's exertions. For many years she had kept up a constant agitation on the injustice of depriving women of these fundamental rights.
Belonging to the Abolition Party, she had worked during the war with the Women's Loyal Legion for the abolition of slavery. In 1867 Mrs. Stanton, Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony went to Kansas in the interests of woman suffrage; there the three women secured nine thousand votes in favor of the cause. Their work, however, had no immediately visible effect, but to-day, forty-five years later, women in that State enjoy the privilege of the ballot.
As a citizen of Rochester wishing to test her right to the suffrage, she voted at the National election of 1872. For so doing she was arrested, tried, and fined one hundred dollars and costs. With her characteristic defiance of injustice, Miss Anthony refused to pay the fine, which to this day remains unpaid.
Beloved by her co-workers, to strangers Miss Anthony appeared stern and uncompromising. Yet all her friends testify to her lovable qualities and generous nature. Mrs. Stanton, her intimate friend for eighteen years, said of her: