February 15, 2017 • 37 mins
Who really was Susan B. Anthony, figurehead of American women's suffrage? In celebration of her birthday, Cristen and Caroline explore Anthony's fascinating biography and the less well-known, controversial aspects of her singleminded crusade for the women's vote.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You from how stupports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristin
and I'm Caroline, and I am surprised we haven't done
this podcast sooner, Caroline, indeed, because we're talking about none
other than Susan B. Anthony. That's right, one of the
(00:26):
mothers of the women's rights movement. Um, what's interesting reading
about Susan B. Anthony is just how incredibly single minded
she was. I mean, she was a an advocate and
an evangelist for for women's rights, but kind of pretty
much at the expense of every other social movement that
was happening in her day. Yeah, I feel like when
(00:48):
we hear about Susan B. Anthony, it's in very broad
terms of she's this amazing figure in women's history, but
we aren't offered many of the details. And there are
so many fascinating details, and we're talking about her this
time of year, in particular because her birthday was February fifteenth.
(01:11):
She was born in eighteen twenty in Adams, Massachusetts, and
she never married, never had kids, And I mean, I
don't understand how she would have had kids, because how
she even had time to do all of the things
that she did astounds me because not only was she
an advocate for women's rights and voting rights, she was
(01:34):
also an advocate for reform and labor education, voting, dress, marriage, divorce. Yeah.
And you know, talking about her being single minded, Kristen
and I have talked about dress reform on the podcast
before and women wearing pants and so on and so forth,
and good old Susan b actually gave it a shot.
She she tried to wear reform dress for a while,
(01:55):
but the negativity, the the abuse that she endured for
for wearing these new fangled clothes, she was like, screw this.
Everybody's seeing my clothes and not hearing my message. So
Susan Anthony of all people, gave up on dress reform
because she was like, no, you were gonna hear what
I have to say about women's rights. Yeah. And because
of that single minded determination, she also clashed with other
(02:21):
feminists or suffragists of the day, especially one woman named
Lily Blake, who was highly instrumental in organizing the suffrage
movement in pushing for women's rights to vote. But you
probably haven't heard the name Lily Blake because the thing
about the history of women's suffrage in the United States
(02:42):
is that Susan B. Anthony made a lot of it. Yes,
but she also wrote it to Yeah, and so she
was basically like a pr master Susan B. Anthony was.
I mean, she wrote, you know, history of Women's Suffrage
that kind of presented it all as one seamless integrated
move movement. Uh, you know that just carried all women
(03:05):
as one with it, and that's not really the course. Yeah.
I mean, as a study that we found in the
Canadian Review of American Studies points out, because Susan B.
Anthony was so masterful and effective at sort of controlling
this narrative of that nineteenth century women's movement, that the
contributions of women like Lily Blake, Lucy Stone, uh, Matilda
(03:29):
Joscelyn Engage and others were, as we minimized to the
point of not really being included at all. Yeah. And
there were a lot of women, even her very close
partner in crime, Elizabeth Katie Stanton, a lot of women
who were thinking like, well, no, I also want to
advocate for other social movements. I want African Americans to
(03:51):
have the right to vote. I want them to be
on equal footing. I want African American men and women
to be equal with white men and women, but Susan B.
Anthony was not having it, to the point where she
did not even agree with the passage of the fifteenth
Amendment because it did not support women's right to vote.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves, because there is
(04:11):
a lot to talk about. But let's first talk about
where Susan B. Anthony came from, because she has interesting roots.
So she was born, as I mentioned in eighteen twenty two,
Quaker abolitionists, so abolition was very much in her blood right,
and they would have all sorts of anti slavery friends
(04:32):
and family coming over to gather at her parents farm.
Even people like Frederick Douglas and William Lloyd Garrison came
by for these discussions. Yeah. And the first thing that
she did when she grew up was become a teacher,
and that was really when she started becoming active with
(04:52):
advocating for reform, because it was through teaching in the
late eighteen forties and into the eighteen fifties that she
started advocating for things like co education, equal education opportunities
regardless of people's race, better pay for female teachers. Yeah,
and she argued that all schools, colleges, and universities should
(05:13):
open their doors to women and previously enslaved African Americans.
And during this time in the eighteen forties and fifties,
while she was head of the girls department at a school,
she joined the Daughters of Temperance, which was a group
that tried to draw attention to the effects of drunkenness
on families and campaigned for stronger liquor laws. And in
eighteen forty eight she actually delivered her first public speech
(05:34):
for them. But as well see, even though she was
heavily involved with them, she kind of wasn't into that
movement wholeheartedly either. Yeah. And it's in eighteen fifty one
that Amelia Bloomer, who speaking of dress reform, Amelia Bloomer
of Bloomers Fame, introduces Susan B. Anthony to Elizabeth Katie Stanton,
(05:58):
and those two, like you said, they become essentially partners
in crime in a way of organizing the suffrage movement
and protesting against men who wouldn't allow them to speak.
And they really join up forces to promote the women's
movement and abolition and Temperance for a little while at least,
(06:18):
right And in eighteen fifty two, Anthony attendts her first
women's rights convention in Syracuse, the famous Meeting in Syracuse,
but uh, things don't go so well. Uh moving down
the road. In eighteen fifty three, Uh, Susan B. Anthony
was refused the right to speak at the state Convention
of the Sons of Temperance in Albany, So she and
(06:38):
buddy Elizabeth Katie Stanton founded the Women's State Temperance Society,
the first temperance group organized by and four women. Because
she's like, Okay, hello, women are part of this movement,
to we're a big part of this movement, and you're
not even gonna let us speak. Okay, We'll go over
here and start our own group. Yeah. And I feel
like that formation of the Women's State Temperance Society, that
rebellion and movement away from the Sons of Temperance is
(07:03):
one of those first really significant milestones of the suffrage movement.
And it's it's kind of that activism that starts to
really fuel this movement for getting women the right to vote.
And at the same time too, she's also heavily involved
in the abolition movement. For instance, in eighteen fifty six,
(07:24):
she becomes an agent for the American Anti Slavery Society,
and with that she starts to encounter the first real
public opposition to her and her her activism. For instance,
she ended up being hanged in effigy and her image
was dragged through the streets. Things were thrown at her.
(07:44):
Not everybody was happy about s b A supporting abolition,
but that's certainly didn't discourage her from supporting the cause
of abolishing slavery and having equal rights for African American citizens.
For in since in eighteen sixty three, she along with
Elizabeth Katie Stanton, organized the Women's National Loyal League, which
(08:07):
petitioned for the thirteen Amendment. And as this anti slavery
movement is happening, we also at the same time have
progress being made in terms of women's rights as well,
at least on the state level. Right in eighteen sixty
with the weight of Susan Anthony behind it, the New
(08:27):
York Married Women's Property Bill was enacted, which allowed married
women to own property, keep their own wages, and have
child custody. And it actually became a model for women's
property laws in other states. And this, uh, this social movement,
the social success proceeded in eighteen sixty eight, UH the
publication of the Revolution, which was a newspaper that Anthony
(08:48):
published with Stanton, and the masthead of the publication said
men their rights and nothing more, Women their rights and
nothing less. Yeah. And so what you see throughout the
eighteen sixties is Anthony and Elizabeth Katie Stanton really splitting
their time between abolition, work, labor reform, women's rights. Um.
(09:09):
For instance, on the labor front, they were in New
York advocating for eight hour work days and equal pay
for equal work, which, okay, the City of the Union
was very recent and President Obama was saying equal pay
for equal work. We're still talking about that, um, but
pretty revolutionary for the time to be saying that in
(09:31):
eighteen sixty eight. And Anthony was encouraging women who were
working in sewing and printing in New York to form
their own unions because at the time they were barred
from men's unions, right, and then men were not really
too pleased with her involvement as a delicate to the
National Labor Conference in eighteen sixty eight she persuaded the
(09:53):
Committee on Female Labor to call for votes for women
uh and equal pay for equal work, but the men
at this conference deleted her reference to the vote. Yeahs um.
But after the Civil War and by the end of
the eighteen sixties, we really see this shift and that
(10:14):
real emergence of the single mindedness of Susan B. Anthony
with that sole focus toward suffrage. Because after the Civil
War she essentially shifts from the anti slavery movement. After
the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments granted equal rights to African
Americans and voting rights to all citizens regardless of race,
(10:38):
but not as some politicians had promised her, not regardless
of sex, so women still couldn't vote, right. So she
at this point, along with a lot of other suffragists,
were kind of throwing their hands at in the air,
saying seriously, like, we worked for all of this and um.
At this point in eighteen sixty and you have the
(11:00):
suffrage movement splitting, going one way with Anthony and Stanton's
National Woman's Suffrage Association gunning for an amendment for women
to vote, and then you have the American Woman's Suffrage
Association taking a state by state strategy, and basically Anthony
and Stanton's group was considered a radical organization that did
not support the fifteenth Amendment on the ground on the
(11:21):
grounds that did enfranchised black men but not white or
black women. Then you have the more moderate AWSA formed
by Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe. It was basically like,
let's let's try to just make some gradual movements. Let's,
you know, not try to tackle everything all at once.
Let's get this amendment pass so that black men can vote,
(11:42):
and then we'll we'll have our day. And Anthony's like, nah, well,
because around that time you have Wyoming becoming the first
territory to grant women the right to vote, and you
have movement in places like New York where you were
at least having like piecemeal rights being grant women with
that married Women's Property Bill. And what came to mind
(12:04):
when I was reading about this was arguments over um,
how best to advocate for gay rights, because at first
some have said that for gay marriage, at least, the
best is to have a nationwide amendment. But really what's
been happening now is more of obviously the state by
state approach. And then Finally, with one fell swoop, you
(12:26):
have a national amendment. And Stanton's and Anthony's National Women's
Suffrage Association has been painted as this radical group. But
this is also where uncomfortable issues about women's rights versus
enfranchisement for black people first comes up, because the fact
(12:51):
of the matter is in the process of splitting away
and really pushing for this nationwide amendment and being so
outraged over the passage of the fifteenth the moment which
granted black men, and exclusively black men, not women, the vote.
Stanton and Anthony did accept funding from UH some outright
(13:13):
racist UM politicians who were similarly opposed to enfranchisement, but
for very different reasons, and by different I mean racist,
yeah right, yeah, exactly, And this is UM. Back in
eighteen sixties seven, when suffrage for both women and blacks
failed in Kansas, Anthony and Stanton basically aligned themselves with
(13:35):
the openly racist leaders of the Kansas Democratic Party who
opposed enfranchising black voters, and these tactics this is coming
from the National Women's History Museum. Such tactics set the
stage for UH Stanton's assertions that women merited the vote
more than did freed slaves and recent immigrants. So it's
I mean, it's not all entirely a clean and clear
(13:57):
and pure movement, but speak king of it not being
a clean, clear cut movement. I mean we we also
don't hear very much in the history women's rights in
the United States about how suffrage underwent this major rift
that was largely due to that passage of the fifteenth Amendment,
and we need to remember that in addition to yes,
(14:20):
the important work that Susan Anthony and Katie Stanton were doing,
you still have Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward
how with their American Women's Suffrage Association, who are supporting
the fifteenth Amendment and also pushing for women's rights, and
the National Women's History Museum mentions how historian Rosalind Turberg
(14:42):
Penn argues that black women at the time were more
drawn to the a w s A than Susan B.
Anthony's n w s A because the A w s
A supported the enfranchisement of black men. Now, if you
talk to you know, if you if you dig into
issues of vote rights for black women as well, I
mean you do have so general truth In eighteen sixties seven,
(15:06):
similarly saying you know, she the ain't I a woman
like I feel as if I have as much of
a right as a man. There were there were also,
I mean, they were also having to come to terms
with the fact that still they couldn't vote right. But
it's difficult to think about being opposed to the fifte amendment,
you know. I mean, I think Anthony was so I can't,
(15:29):
I cannot. I'm not speaking for Susan Anthony. Let me
preface that, but um, I mean she was. I almost
think that she was so single minded, as we've said
that it's like anything anything, uh, you know, would would
have been seen as standing in the way of women's
right to vote. I mean, she herself, Susan Anthony said,
I will cut off this right arm of mine before
(15:51):
I will ever work or demand the ballot for the
negro and not the woman. Yeah, I mean. And and
the fact matter is to this in in the late
eighteen hundreds, this is not a time of perfect, you know,
race relations by any stretch in the United States. There
was a lot of segregation that would continue within the
(16:12):
suffrage movement, where you have Mary Church Harrell as president of,
for instance, the National Association of Colored Women that were
sort of organizing in their own way for rights, but
there would be larger events that would happen where some
suff white suffrage groups would ask for black suffrage groups
(16:33):
to say stay separate, to not march next to them,
to not integrate, which is so unfortunate to think about,
but it's something that that definitely happened that we have
to acknowledge absolutely. So we were just talking about, you know,
all of the divisions that are in this movement. That
the women's suffrage movement was by no means one smooth,
(16:53):
monolithic event that happened during this period. And we want
to get into some more of what Susan B. Anthony
was up to in this era, for instance, you know,
getting arrested. Um. But first we're going to take a
quick break and now back to the podcast. So we've
established that there was a major rift that happened within
(17:15):
the suffrage movement surrounding the fifteenth Amendment and the enfranchisement
of black men and sort of black women, but not
really because at the time still women didn't have the vote,
and that was the one thing that mattered to Susan B. Anthony.
By this time, in the early eighteen sixties, was that
women couldn't vote, and she was going to do everything
(17:38):
that she could to change that, including getting arrested. Right
in eighteen seventy two, Uh, Susan B. Anthony was arrested
along with twelve other women, including three of her sisters.
That's a very good supportive family when she went to
Rochester to cast a ballot. But the thing is, some
(17:58):
really weird stuff happened. It wasn't as cut and dry
as woman goes to vote, woman gets arrested for voting,
woman goes home with a slap on the wrist. No,
she actually ran into a lot of angry people along
the way. So it's a little screwy though. What happened
because Anthony essentially argued to election inspectors that by virtue
(18:20):
of the fourteenth Amendment, women had the right to vote
in federal elections. It was just not necessarily a state
by state right. And so finally, probably just to shut
her up, the inspectors gave in and registered Anthony and
her sisters and the other women, and so on November
five they go and they cast their ballots. But then
(18:40):
November eighteenth, it takes a while for this to happen.
A U s Deputy Marshall shows up at Anthony's house
and arrests her for voting illegally. And Anthony probably wanted
this to happen, I would say, because she wanted this
to travel all the way up to the Supreme Court,
because us the outcome of this case could result in
(19:04):
what would now be the Nineteenth Amendment. Right. And so
Anthony ends up getting reigned with other women and the
election inspectors who had allowed her to vote. She refused
to pay bail and applied for habeas corpus, but her
lawyer paid the bill, keeping the case from the Supreme Court.
So all this stuff is happening, and she's like, no,
(19:25):
dang it, I'm trying to do something here, and every
step of the way, everyone involved was being like no, no, no,
let's just sweep this under the rug so that you know,
you don't get to vote ever. Well, and the judge
in the case even instructed the all male jury to
go ahead and give a guilty verdict. It was pointless
for them to be there, which legal scholars now you know,
(19:46):
say that would never happen today. That's horrendously illegal. But
the judge was just like, oh my god, no, okay,
just it's going to be a guilty, verdict guilty. And
he fined her one hundred dollars and made her pay
courtroom fees, but when she didn't pay, he didn't imprison her,
therefore denying her the chance to appeal. But I love
(20:06):
this though. There was a letter that Anthony wrote to
Elizabeth Katie Stanton after she cast her, but before all
of this stuff started happening, and she wrote, well, I
have been and gone and done it. She was clearly
really proud of what had happened, cause she thought all this,
you know, this ripple effect was going to happen, granting
women the right to vote, and how frustrating that must
(20:29):
have been for her. Even though in the as far
as the national conversation regarding women's suffrage, it did have
an impact because she became depicted as the woman who dared.
There was this political cartoon of her um showing that,
you know, she was this pioneer who was going to
(20:50):
vote no matter what, and it got people talking, it
really did, and and she was not at any point
ready to give up. I mean, this is a woman
who went before Congress every year from eighteen six to
ask for passion passage of a suffrage amendment. I mean
she was committed, and in eighteen seventy seven she managed
to gather petitions from twenty six states with ten thousand signatures,
(21:14):
but Congress wasn't hearing about it. So ten years later,
not an easy ten years, but ten years later, in
eighteen eighties seven, the previously separate suffrage organizations in w
s A and AWSA merged into the National American Woman's
Suffrage Association, with Stanton as president and Susan B. Anthony
(21:36):
as VP. And I can only assume reading all that
I read about uh Susan B. Anthony's personality, I can
only imagine that she was sort of like, I'm going
to make you president, Like I have a feeling she
wouldn't stand to be VP if she didn't want to
be VP. Yeah, no, I And and she really did
rule with an iron fist. She didn't take very kindly
(21:59):
to other women who wanted to be as outspoken as
she was. I think she really enjoyed being the figurehead
of this movement. There are even times when she belittled
the work of Elizabeth Katie Stanton because it wasn't specifically
in line with her vision for how the women's rights
movement should go right, and she disagreed a lot with
(22:21):
Lily Blake, who we mentioned earlier, who was kind of
trying to say, listen, Susan, Suze, Suze, baby, these petitions
aren't maybe the most effective and efficient use of our resources.
But you know, Susan Anthony had a mission and a
vision and she was going to accomplish things the way
she wanted to accomplish them. And really, no matter the
(22:44):
good work that women like Lily Blake accomplished, she she
didn't care well. And the thing about it is too
she did two women like Lily Blake and others who
she simply did not want to hear from at conventions.
She did to them the same that was done to
her and Katie Stanton at that Men's Temperance convention so
long ago when they were refused the right to speak.
(23:07):
I mean, she wouldn't I don't think she outright wouldn't
let Lily Blake speak, but she kept her time so
short it was almost pointless for her to go up there.
So yeah, I mean it's I guess in order to
be such a powerful leader at that time, you kind
(23:27):
of had to be that ruthless maybe, but I do
think that her memory has been Whitewash is just sort
of some trio blazing state for women. Whereas she was,
she was not always a friend to all women, right exactly.
And I mean I think you'd be hard pressed to
find any social movement whose leaders are purely you know,
(23:50):
clear of conscience all the time. But you know, I
think it's interesting to delve into this. Uh. She did,
you know, eventually take over as president of the in
a ws A after Katie stanton Um and during the
eighteen nineties, we're kind of on the down slope of
her career. She's as she's getting older, she kept that
(24:12):
focus on education. I mean, you know, talk about a
single minded focus. Maybe when she felt more comfortable she
put a little bit more focused back into education. She did,
uh serve on the board of trustees of Rochester's State
Industrial School UM campaigning for co educational and equal treatment
and opportunities for boys and girls. She did raise also
(24:32):
fifty thou dollars in pledges to ensure the admittance of
women to the University of Rochester, which is amazing. And
this whole time she's working on the history of Women's Suffrage,
the book co authored by her and Elizabeth Katie Stanton
and Matilda Joscely Engage. But I feel like must have
felt like a total third wheel, because you would really
(24:54):
never hear her name mentioned. Um. But this was the
publication of this book in nineteen o too was significant
because it's sort of cemented the fact that history would
always look upon her. This was this was her writing
the historical record of her leadership essentially. Um. And not
(25:15):
to say that she didn't do so much, um, but
it is it is kind of um. It's it's telling
that she certainly wanted to write that book and to
be that heavily involved with its authorship. Um. But even
outside of the United States, for instance, in nineteen o four,
she presided over the International Council of Women in Berlin
(25:38):
and became an honorary president of Carrie Chapman Cat's International
Women's Suffrage Alliance. So even during her time, obviously by contemporaries,
she was recognized as the woman right And I think
I do want to say, I think it's interesting that
you know, she she did work so hard to gloss
over the riffs in the suffrage movement because I mean
(25:59):
think about today and people talk about women catfighting and
in fighting. You, oh, women are always women can't be
friends with each other, women can't trust each other, all
of that stuff. I think, in her own way, in
her own time, Susan Anthony was trying to be like, look,
we've got this. Yeah, it's okay, we're not fighting. We
are all working together for the same purpose. Granted she
(26:19):
might not have gone about it in the most delicate way,
but I think in her own way, she was trying
to make it seem like the strongest possible movement. Well,
and what's so startling too when you read about these
sometimes glossed over details about the women's rights movements, this
early suffrage movement, these first feminists, is that a lot
(26:42):
of the issues in the in fighting that you hear
about in terms of inclusivity, racial diversity, intersectionality. To toss
out a word that Susan B. Anthony I'm sure never used,
it's all the same thing. We're still having these same conversations.
Why is that? Why can't why? Why? Why? I just
want to know that follow up podcast why? Because it's
(27:04):
like history continues to repeat itself in different ways, whether
it's through um a book about the history of women's suffrage,
or on Twitter, you know, right, I mean, I think
you have women across the ages who are trying to
break out on their own and get what they see
as the rightful end to their efforts, you know, whatever,
(27:28):
that rightful end maybe you know, obviously Susan B. Anthony
was not campaigning for everyone's rights. Yeah, she was campaigning
for what she found to be the most important. And
it wasn't until after her death she died in nineteen
o six. It wasn't until fourteen years later that the
nineteenth Amendment, known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, was ratified,
(27:52):
which and I mean that's of course, you know, going
back to the fact that there were so many other
women involved and it was named after Susan Anthony. But
it is like, you know, this woman just you know,
spent every moment of her life living and breathing this
and then to not see it come to fruition, you know,
that's you know, well, think about the only time she
(28:14):
ever voted was in eighteen seventy two, when she was
subsequently arrested. Right, that's gotta be That's it's incredible to
think about But also I'm not and I'm not trying
this on s B. A. But even though the amendment
is called Susan B. Anthony Amendment, Elizabeth Katie Stanton wrote it,
(28:35):
you know, it's just yet again. I mean, but hey,
she she was the figurehead for better or worse. Yeah,
I mean, eventually, I guess for better. But what is um,
what is concerning though these days, is how Susan B.
Anthony's legacy has been co opted by more conservative groups. Um.
(28:56):
She's been used as a figurehead of sorts for anti
abortion groups. Actually, for some people who say, oh, well,
you know what, Susan Anthony today would not stand for
the same platforms as you know, self described feminist would
in the twenty one century. Right and groups like Feminists
(29:17):
for Life of America. UM, kind of base this notion
on quotes like it's important to help bring about a
better state of things for mothers generally, so they're unborn,
little ones could not be willed away from them. Uh.
They also based it on articles published in the publication
The Revolution calling abortion child murder or anti natal infanticide. Um.
(29:41):
But uh, there was a conversation that we saw with
debor Hughes, who's the president and CEO of the Susan B.
Anthony Museum, and she's saying, look, guys, you can't take
a modern day discussion about anti abortion or pro life,
for pro choice, or any of these things and apply
them to a woman who lived in the nineteenth century,
(30:01):
because the truth is that abortion today an abortion in
the nineteenth century were two very different things, and the
conversations were different well, and even the perception of pregnancy
was different. It wasn't until much later, until probably the
fourth or fifth month of pregnancy, when the so called
quickening happens, when you could first feel a baby's movements,
(30:24):
that you were actually considered pregnant, whereas today, obviously you
can know from days after conception, right, and so back
in the day, it was more an issue of the
fact that abortion was what we would call now late
term abortion, and it was so dangerous. There were not
nearly the medical advances that we have today, and so
(30:48):
it was more an effort to protect women and their
health than it was necessarily to talk about the fetus.
And as far as children being willed away from families,
that wasn't an abortion reference at all. Really, it had
to do with the fact that fathers at the time
we're basically able to sell their children into indentured servitude
(31:10):
and the mother couldn't do anything about it. Yeah, I mean,
women had absolutely no rights over anything, whether it be
property or if they were to get a divorce, there
would be no question over who would get child custody.
You know, they had nothing at the time. So that
was more a conversation regarding needing more rights for women
rather than outlawing abortion right. And Susan B. Anthony never
(31:34):
advocated for the criminalization of abortion, um and that that's
a topic that actually was discussed in her day and
she never hopped on that train at all. Single minded again,
so it is important then to you know, keep an
ear out if you hear about organizations like Feminist for
Life in America or the Susan B. Anthony List, which
is dedicated to getting a pro life candidates elected that
(31:58):
they are, you know, using the Susan B. Anthony name
in a way that she probably would not approve of.
I mean, honestly, thinking about Susan B. Anthony, I don't
think that she would want her I mean unless she
personally approves of it, you know, I don't think she
would appreciate having her name or likeness used on on
(32:19):
anything because she was a little bit of a control freak. Yeah,
zombie Susan B. Anthony is gonna be rural upset. Yeah,
this is true. So this episode has been a long
time in coming, uh, and I hope it's been as
enlightening for listeners as it has been for me. I know,
I learned a lot of stuff I didn't previously know
(32:39):
about Susan B. Anthony. Yeah, and I really I feel
like maybe we should now go and do an episode
on those unsung heroines of the suffrage movement whose names
have all but been lost to history, to Susan B.
Anthony's history exactly. So let us sell your thoughts though
mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can
email us. You can also tweet us your thoughts at mom'
(33:01):
stuff podcast or Facebook messages over on well on Facebook,
And we've got a couple of messages to share with
you about our episode on thyroids. Well, I've got a
letter here from Kelleen, and she writes, I just wanted
(33:22):
to thank you for doing the show on thyroid issues,
more specifically for highlighting Hashimotos I was diagnosed with hashimotos
a couple of years ago, but it took me five
years of going to a doctor after doctor trying to
convince them that I wasn't just lazy and or depressed.
Finally I found a wonderful doctor who really listened to
me and thought to run the right tests, and the
rest was exactly like Caroline's story. It was so amazing
(33:45):
to hear a podcast or anyone really discussing how hard
the struggle for diagnosis can be and what this really
means to your body. Trying to get diagnosed could make
me feel crazy at times, but the struggle didn't stop
once I was diagnosed. I really feel like trying to
manage this, trying to feel as close in our most
possible again, can be so very hard at times, and
so very few people understand that. I hope you were
(34:05):
doing well Caroline since your diagnosis and know that if
you ever struggle with it, you are totally not alone.
So thank you for bringing awareness to this topic. Hopefully
more women will hear it and really push for these
tests when they experienced these symptoms with gratitude killing well,
I'm glad. I'm glad that our conversation. UH struck a
chord with people. UM, I I wish I had heard
(34:28):
a podcast about thyroids myself, UM and I have a
message here from Lauren talking about her own thyroid experiences.
She says, I just wanted to thank you for the podcast,
if only you had done it six and a half
months earlier. She says that her story is much like mine,
and about a year and a half ago, at age
twenty seven, I went to go see my primary care
physician because I was extremely tired and pretty depressed. At
(34:50):
the time, I thought I may have been anemic. I
never even considered thyroid issues. My doctor ransom basic blood
work and included a screening of my t SH levels.
The results showed that my Ta t s H was
quite elevated, more than seventy five when the normal ranges
point forward to four, and my doctor diagnosed me with hypothyroidism.
I was prescribed eighty eight micrograms of levothyroxine and I
(35:11):
thought I was in the clear. Looking back, I probably
had hashimotives as well for quite some time prior to
being diagnosed. Fast forward about a year two, about seven
months ago, and I went in for my yearly physical
I mentioned to my doctor that my husband and I
were going to try to get pregnant, and she never
mentioned any issues that pregnancy could have on my thyroid
and hormone levels or vice versa. She only told me
(35:31):
to continue taking my medicine well. My husband and I
were successful at getting pregnant fairly quickly. At my first
prenatal checkup at nine weeks pregnant, my basic blood work
showed that my t SH levels were once again out
of whack at over fourteen. After doing some research, I
found that my thyroid levels really should have been managed
into a narrower range pre pregnancy, and that my medicine
should have been adjusted as soon as I found out
(35:53):
I was pregnant. I also read the numerous studies that
showed the effects of my hypothyroidism on my unborn child.
As a woman men in her first trimester, I was
already so hormonal and to find out that my chances
of losing the baby were higher than other women and
that my baby could have learning and developmental issues was
absolutely horrific. Luckily, I am now under the care of
an indo chronologist who is monitoring my thyroid issues much
(36:14):
more closely. Once my husband and I got over the
shock of the bad news, we started to joke that
if our daughter has developmental issues, we will just give
her a mama's thyroid issues bell curve. Yeah, still not funny,
but it's helping us to cope anyway. I hope your
podcast has reached some women so they will be better
informed and not have to go through what I did.
And then she wished me good luck with my thyroid issues,
(36:35):
which I really appreciate. Lauren, thank you for writing in
and telling us your story, and thanks to everyone who's
written in to share your stories with us. Mom Stuff
discovery dot com is where you can send your letters
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Do you need to head on over to Stuff Mom
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(37:00):
thousands of other topics. Is it how staff Works dot
com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You from how stupports
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristin
and I'm Caroline, and I am surprised we haven't done
this podcast sooner, Caroline, indeed, because we're talking about none
other than Susan B. Anthony. That's right, one of the
(00:26):
mothers of the women's rights movement. Um, what's interesting reading
about Susan B. Anthony is just how incredibly single minded
she was. I mean, she was a an advocate and
an evangelist for for women's rights, but kind of pretty
much at the expense of every other social movement that
was happening in her day. Yeah, I feel like when
(00:48):
we hear about Susan B. Anthony, it's in very broad
terms of she's this amazing figure in women's history, but
we aren't offered many of the details. And there are
so many fascinating details, and we're talking about her this
time of year, in particular because her birthday was February fifteenth.
(01:11):
She was born in eighteen twenty in Adams, Massachusetts, and
she never married, never had kids, And I mean, I
don't understand how she would have had kids, because how
she even had time to do all of the things
that she did astounds me because not only was she
an advocate for women's rights and voting rights, she was
(01:34):
also an advocate for reform and labor education, voting, dress, marriage, divorce. Yeah.
And you know, talking about her being single minded, Kristen
and I have talked about dress reform on the podcast
before and women wearing pants and so on and so forth,
and good old Susan b actually gave it a shot.
She she tried to wear reform dress for a while,
(01:55):
but the negativity, the the abuse that she endured for
for wearing these new fangled clothes, she was like, screw this.
Everybody's seeing my clothes and not hearing my message. So
Susan Anthony of all people, gave up on dress reform
because she was like, no, you were gonna hear what
I have to say about women's rights. Yeah. And because
of that single minded determination, she also clashed with other
(02:21):
feminists or suffragists of the day, especially one woman named
Lily Blake, who was highly instrumental in organizing the suffrage
movement in pushing for women's rights to vote. But you
probably haven't heard the name Lily Blake because the thing
about the history of women's suffrage in the United States
(02:42):
is that Susan B. Anthony made a lot of it. Yes,
but she also wrote it to Yeah, and so she
was basically like a pr master Susan B. Anthony was.
I mean, she wrote, you know, history of Women's Suffrage
that kind of presented it all as one seamless integrated
move movement. Uh, you know that just carried all women
(03:05):
as one with it, and that's not really the course. Yeah.
I mean, as a study that we found in the
Canadian Review of American Studies points out, because Susan B.
Anthony was so masterful and effective at sort of controlling
this narrative of that nineteenth century women's movement, that the
contributions of women like Lily Blake, Lucy Stone, uh, Matilda
(03:29):
Joscelyn Engage and others were, as we minimized to the
point of not really being included at all. Yeah. And
there were a lot of women, even her very close
partner in crime, Elizabeth Katie Stanton, a lot of women
who were thinking like, well, no, I also want to
advocate for other social movements. I want African Americans to
(03:51):
have the right to vote. I want them to be
on equal footing. I want African American men and women
to be equal with white men and women, but Susan B.
Anthony was not having it, to the point where she
did not even agree with the passage of the fifteenth
Amendment because it did not support women's right to vote.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves, because there is
(04:11):
a lot to talk about. But let's first talk about
where Susan B. Anthony came from, because she has interesting roots.
So she was born, as I mentioned in eighteen twenty two,
Quaker abolitionists, so abolition was very much in her blood right,
and they would have all sorts of anti slavery friends
(04:32):
and family coming over to gather at her parents farm.
Even people like Frederick Douglas and William Lloyd Garrison came
by for these discussions. Yeah. And the first thing that
she did when she grew up was become a teacher,
and that was really when she started becoming active with
(04:52):
advocating for reform, because it was through teaching in the
late eighteen forties and into the eighteen fifties that she
started advocating for things like co education, equal education opportunities
regardless of people's race, better pay for female teachers. Yeah,
and she argued that all schools, colleges, and universities should
(05:13):
open their doors to women and previously enslaved African Americans.
And during this time in the eighteen forties and fifties,
while she was head of the girls department at a school,
she joined the Daughters of Temperance, which was a group
that tried to draw attention to the effects of drunkenness
on families and campaigned for stronger liquor laws. And in
eighteen forty eight she actually delivered her first public speech
(05:34):
for them. But as well see, even though she was
heavily involved with them, she kind of wasn't into that
movement wholeheartedly either. Yeah. And it's in eighteen fifty one
that Amelia Bloomer, who speaking of dress reform, Amelia Bloomer
of Bloomers Fame, introduces Susan B. Anthony to Elizabeth Katie Stanton,
(05:58):
and those two, like you said, they become essentially partners
in crime in a way of organizing the suffrage movement
and protesting against men who wouldn't allow them to speak.
And they really join up forces to promote the women's
movement and abolition and Temperance for a little while at least,
(06:18):
right And in eighteen fifty two, Anthony attendts her first
women's rights convention in Syracuse, the famous Meeting in Syracuse,
but uh, things don't go so well. Uh moving down
the road. In eighteen fifty three, Uh, Susan B. Anthony
was refused the right to speak at the state Convention
of the Sons of Temperance in Albany, So she and
(06:38):
buddy Elizabeth Katie Stanton founded the Women's State Temperance Society,
the first temperance group organized by and four women. Because
she's like, Okay, hello, women are part of this movement,
to we're a big part of this movement, and you're
not even gonna let us speak. Okay, We'll go over
here and start our own group. Yeah. And I feel
like that formation of the Women's State Temperance Society, that
rebellion and movement away from the Sons of Temperance is
(07:03):
one of those first really significant milestones of the suffrage movement.
And it's it's kind of that activism that starts to
really fuel this movement for getting women the right to vote.
And at the same time too, she's also heavily involved
in the abolition movement. For instance, in eighteen fifty six,
(07:24):
she becomes an agent for the American Anti Slavery Society,
and with that she starts to encounter the first real
public opposition to her and her her activism. For instance,
she ended up being hanged in effigy and her image
was dragged through the streets. Things were thrown at her.
(07:44):
Not everybody was happy about s b A supporting abolition,
but that's certainly didn't discourage her from supporting the cause
of abolishing slavery and having equal rights for African American citizens.
For in since in eighteen sixty three, she along with
Elizabeth Katie Stanton, organized the Women's National Loyal League, which
(08:07):
petitioned for the thirteen Amendment. And as this anti slavery
movement is happening, we also at the same time have
progress being made in terms of women's rights as well,
at least on the state level. Right in eighteen sixty
with the weight of Susan Anthony behind it, the New
(08:27):
York Married Women's Property Bill was enacted, which allowed married
women to own property, keep their own wages, and have
child custody. And it actually became a model for women's
property laws in other states. And this, uh, this social movement,
the social success proceeded in eighteen sixty eight, UH the
publication of the Revolution, which was a newspaper that Anthony
(08:48):
published with Stanton, and the masthead of the publication said
men their rights and nothing more, Women their rights and
nothing less. Yeah. And so what you see throughout the
eighteen sixties is Anthony and Elizabeth Katie Stanton really splitting
their time between abolition, work, labor reform, women's rights. Um.
(09:09):
For instance, on the labor front, they were in New
York advocating for eight hour work days and equal pay
for equal work, which, okay, the City of the Union
was very recent and President Obama was saying equal pay
for equal work. We're still talking about that, um, but
pretty revolutionary for the time to be saying that in
(09:31):
eighteen sixty eight. And Anthony was encouraging women who were
working in sewing and printing in New York to form
their own unions because at the time they were barred
from men's unions, right, and then men were not really
too pleased with her involvement as a delicate to the
National Labor Conference in eighteen sixty eight she persuaded the
(09:53):
Committee on Female Labor to call for votes for women
uh and equal pay for equal work, but the men
at this conference deleted her reference to the vote. Yeahs um.
But after the Civil War and by the end of
the eighteen sixties, we really see this shift and that
(10:14):
real emergence of the single mindedness of Susan B. Anthony
with that sole focus toward suffrage. Because after the Civil
War she essentially shifts from the anti slavery movement. After
the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments granted equal rights to African
Americans and voting rights to all citizens regardless of race,
(10:38):
but not as some politicians had promised her, not regardless
of sex, so women still couldn't vote, right. So she
at this point, along with a lot of other suffragists,
were kind of throwing their hands at in the air,
saying seriously, like, we worked for all of this and um.
At this point in eighteen sixty and you have the
(11:00):
suffrage movement splitting, going one way with Anthony and Stanton's
National Woman's Suffrage Association gunning for an amendment for women
to vote, and then you have the American Woman's Suffrage
Association taking a state by state strategy, and basically Anthony
and Stanton's group was considered a radical organization that did
not support the fifteenth Amendment on the ground on the
(11:21):
grounds that did enfranchised black men but not white or
black women. Then you have the more moderate AWSA formed
by Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe. It was basically like,
let's let's try to just make some gradual movements. Let's,
you know, not try to tackle everything all at once.
Let's get this amendment pass so that black men can vote,
(11:42):
and then we'll we'll have our day. And Anthony's like, nah, well,
because around that time you have Wyoming becoming the first
territory to grant women the right to vote, and you
have movement in places like New York where you were
at least having like piecemeal rights being grant women with
that married Women's Property Bill. And what came to mind
(12:04):
when I was reading about this was arguments over um,
how best to advocate for gay rights, because at first
some have said that for gay marriage, at least, the
best is to have a nationwide amendment. But really what's
been happening now is more of obviously the state by
state approach. And then Finally, with one fell swoop, you
(12:26):
have a national amendment. And Stanton's and Anthony's National Women's
Suffrage Association has been painted as this radical group. But
this is also where uncomfortable issues about women's rights versus
enfranchisement for black people first comes up, because the fact
(12:51):
of the matter is in the process of splitting away
and really pushing for this nationwide amendment and being so
outraged over the passage of the fifteenth the moment which
granted black men, and exclusively black men, not women, the vote.
Stanton and Anthony did accept funding from UH some outright
(13:13):
racist UM politicians who were similarly opposed to enfranchisement, but
for very different reasons, and by different I mean racist,
yeah right, yeah, exactly, And this is UM. Back in
eighteen sixties seven, when suffrage for both women and blacks
failed in Kansas, Anthony and Stanton basically aligned themselves with
(13:35):
the openly racist leaders of the Kansas Democratic Party who
opposed enfranchising black voters, and these tactics this is coming
from the National Women's History Museum. Such tactics set the
stage for UH Stanton's assertions that women merited the vote
more than did freed slaves and recent immigrants. So it's
I mean, it's not all entirely a clean and clear
(13:57):
and pure movement, but speak king of it not being
a clean, clear cut movement. I mean we we also
don't hear very much in the history women's rights in
the United States about how suffrage underwent this major rift
that was largely due to that passage of the fifteenth Amendment,
and we need to remember that in addition to yes,
(14:20):
the important work that Susan Anthony and Katie Stanton were doing,
you still have Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward
how with their American Women's Suffrage Association, who are supporting
the fifteenth Amendment and also pushing for women's rights, and
the National Women's History Museum mentions how historian Rosalind Turberg
(14:42):
Penn argues that black women at the time were more
drawn to the a w s A than Susan B.
Anthony's n w s A because the A w s
A supported the enfranchisement of black men. Now, if you
talk to you know, if you if you dig into
issues of vote rights for black women as well, I
mean you do have so general truth In eighteen sixties seven,
(15:06):
similarly saying you know, she the ain't I a woman
like I feel as if I have as much of
a right as a man. There were there were also,
I mean, they were also having to come to terms
with the fact that still they couldn't vote right. But
it's difficult to think about being opposed to the fifte amendment,
you know. I mean, I think Anthony was so I can't,
(15:29):
I cannot. I'm not speaking for Susan Anthony. Let me
preface that, but um, I mean she was. I almost
think that she was so single minded, as we've said
that it's like anything anything, uh, you know, would would
have been seen as standing in the way of women's
right to vote. I mean, she herself, Susan Anthony said,
I will cut off this right arm of mine before
(15:51):
I will ever work or demand the ballot for the
negro and not the woman. Yeah, I mean. And and
the fact matter is to this in in the late
eighteen hundreds, this is not a time of perfect, you know,
race relations by any stretch in the United States. There
was a lot of segregation that would continue within the
(16:12):
suffrage movement, where you have Mary Church Harrell as president of,
for instance, the National Association of Colored Women that were
sort of organizing in their own way for rights, but
there would be larger events that would happen where some
suff white suffrage groups would ask for black suffrage groups
(16:33):
to say stay separate, to not march next to them,
to not integrate, which is so unfortunate to think about,
but it's something that that definitely happened that we have
to acknowledge absolutely. So we were just talking about, you know,
all of the divisions that are in this movement. That
the women's suffrage movement was by no means one smooth,
(16:53):
monolithic event that happened during this period. And we want
to get into some more of what Susan B. Anthony
was up to in this era, for instance, you know,
getting arrested. Um. But first we're going to take a
quick break and now back to the podcast. So we've
established that there was a major rift that happened within
(17:15):
the suffrage movement surrounding the fifteenth Amendment and the enfranchisement
of black men and sort of black women, but not
really because at the time still women didn't have the vote,
and that was the one thing that mattered to Susan B. Anthony.
By this time, in the early eighteen sixties, was that
women couldn't vote, and she was going to do everything
(17:38):
that she could to change that, including getting arrested. Right
in eighteen seventy two, Uh, Susan B. Anthony was arrested
along with twelve other women, including three of her sisters.
That's a very good supportive family when she went to
Rochester to cast a ballot. But the thing is, some
(17:58):
really weird stuff happened. It wasn't as cut and dry
as woman goes to vote, woman gets arrested for voting,
woman goes home with a slap on the wrist. No,
she actually ran into a lot of angry people along
the way. So it's a little screwy though. What happened
because Anthony essentially argued to election inspectors that by virtue
(18:20):
of the fourteenth Amendment, women had the right to vote
in federal elections. It was just not necessarily a state
by state right. And so finally, probably just to shut
her up, the inspectors gave in and registered Anthony and
her sisters and the other women, and so on November
five they go and they cast their ballots. But then
(18:40):
November eighteenth, it takes a while for this to happen.
A U s Deputy Marshall shows up at Anthony's house
and arrests her for voting illegally. And Anthony probably wanted
this to happen, I would say, because she wanted this
to travel all the way up to the Supreme Court,
because us the outcome of this case could result in
(19:04):
what would now be the Nineteenth Amendment. Right. And so
Anthony ends up getting reigned with other women and the
election inspectors who had allowed her to vote. She refused
to pay bail and applied for habeas corpus, but her
lawyer paid the bill, keeping the case from the Supreme Court.
So all this stuff is happening, and she's like, no,
(19:25):
dang it, I'm trying to do something here, and every
step of the way, everyone involved was being like no, no, no,
let's just sweep this under the rug so that you know,
you don't get to vote ever. Well, and the judge
in the case even instructed the all male jury to
go ahead and give a guilty verdict. It was pointless
for them to be there, which legal scholars now you know,
(19:46):
say that would never happen today. That's horrendously illegal. But
the judge was just like, oh my god, no, okay,
just it's going to be a guilty, verdict guilty. And
he fined her one hundred dollars and made her pay
courtroom fees, but when she didn't pay, he didn't imprison her,
therefore denying her the chance to appeal. But I love
(20:06):
this though. There was a letter that Anthony wrote to
Elizabeth Katie Stanton after she cast her, but before all
of this stuff started happening, and she wrote, well, I
have been and gone and done it. She was clearly
really proud of what had happened, cause she thought all this,
you know, this ripple effect was going to happen, granting
women the right to vote, and how frustrating that must
(20:29):
have been for her. Even though in the as far
as the national conversation regarding women's suffrage, it did have
an impact because she became depicted as the woman who dared.
There was this political cartoon of her um showing that,
you know, she was this pioneer who was going to
(20:50):
vote no matter what, and it got people talking, it
really did, and and she was not at any point
ready to give up. I mean, this is a woman
who went before Congress every year from eighteen six to
ask for passion passage of a suffrage amendment. I mean
she was committed, and in eighteen seventy seven she managed
to gather petitions from twenty six states with ten thousand signatures,
(21:14):
but Congress wasn't hearing about it. So ten years later,
not an easy ten years, but ten years later, in
eighteen eighties seven, the previously separate suffrage organizations in w
s A and AWSA merged into the National American Woman's
Suffrage Association, with Stanton as president and Susan B. Anthony
(21:36):
as VP. And I can only assume reading all that
I read about uh Susan B. Anthony's personality, I can
only imagine that she was sort of like, I'm going
to make you president, Like I have a feeling she
wouldn't stand to be VP if she didn't want to
be VP. Yeah, no, I And and she really did
rule with an iron fist. She didn't take very kindly
(21:59):
to other women who wanted to be as outspoken as
she was. I think she really enjoyed being the figurehead
of this movement. There are even times when she belittled
the work of Elizabeth Katie Stanton because it wasn't specifically
in line with her vision for how the women's rights
movement should go right, and she disagreed a lot with
(22:21):
Lily Blake, who we mentioned earlier, who was kind of
trying to say, listen, Susan, Suze, Suze, baby, these petitions
aren't maybe the most effective and efficient use of our resources.
But you know, Susan Anthony had a mission and a
vision and she was going to accomplish things the way
she wanted to accomplish them. And really, no matter the
(22:44):
good work that women like Lily Blake accomplished, she she
didn't care well. And the thing about it is too
she did two women like Lily Blake and others who
she simply did not want to hear from at conventions.
She did to them the same that was done to
her and Katie Stanton at that Men's Temperance convention so
long ago when they were refused the right to speak.
(23:07):
I mean, she wouldn't I don't think she outright wouldn't
let Lily Blake speak, but she kept her time so
short it was almost pointless for her to go up there.
So yeah, I mean it's I guess in order to
be such a powerful leader at that time, you kind
(23:27):
of had to be that ruthless maybe, but I do
think that her memory has been Whitewash is just sort
of some trio blazing state for women. Whereas she was,
she was not always a friend to all women, right exactly.
And I mean I think you'd be hard pressed to
find any social movement whose leaders are purely you know,
(23:50):
clear of conscience all the time. But you know, I
think it's interesting to delve into this. Uh. She did,
you know, eventually take over as president of the in
a ws A after Katie stanton Um and during the
eighteen nineties, we're kind of on the down slope of
her career. She's as she's getting older, she kept that
(24:12):
focus on education. I mean, you know, talk about a
single minded focus. Maybe when she felt more comfortable she
put a little bit more focused back into education. She did,
uh serve on the board of trustees of Rochester's State
Industrial School UM campaigning for co educational and equal treatment
and opportunities for boys and girls. She did raise also
(24:32):
fifty thou dollars in pledges to ensure the admittance of
women to the University of Rochester, which is amazing. And
this whole time she's working on the history of Women's Suffrage,
the book co authored by her and Elizabeth Katie Stanton
and Matilda Joscely Engage. But I feel like must have
felt like a total third wheel, because you would really
(24:54):
never hear her name mentioned. Um. But this was the
publication of this book in nineteen o too was significant
because it's sort of cemented the fact that history would
always look upon her. This was this was her writing
the historical record of her leadership essentially. Um. And not
(25:15):
to say that she didn't do so much, um, but
it is it is kind of um. It's it's telling
that she certainly wanted to write that book and to
be that heavily involved with its authorship. Um. But even
outside of the United States, for instance, in nineteen o four,
she presided over the International Council of Women in Berlin
(25:38):
and became an honorary president of Carrie Chapman Cat's International
Women's Suffrage Alliance. So even during her time, obviously by contemporaries,
she was recognized as the woman right And I think
I do want to say, I think it's interesting that
you know, she she did work so hard to gloss
over the riffs in the suffrage movement because I mean
(25:59):
think about today and people talk about women catfighting and
in fighting. You, oh, women are always women can't be
friends with each other, women can't trust each other, all
of that stuff. I think, in her own way, in
her own time, Susan Anthony was trying to be like, look,
we've got this. Yeah, it's okay, we're not fighting. We
are all working together for the same purpose. Granted she
(26:19):
might not have gone about it in the most delicate way,
but I think in her own way, she was trying
to make it seem like the strongest possible movement. Well,
and what's so startling too when you read about these
sometimes glossed over details about the women's rights movements, this
early suffrage movement, these first feminists, is that a lot
(26:42):
of the issues in the in fighting that you hear
about in terms of inclusivity, racial diversity, intersectionality. To toss
out a word that Susan B. Anthony I'm sure never used,
it's all the same thing. We're still having these same conversations.
Why is that? Why can't why? Why? Why? I just
want to know that follow up podcast why? Because it's
(27:04):
like history continues to repeat itself in different ways, whether
it's through um a book about the history of women's suffrage,
or on Twitter, you know, right, I mean, I think
you have women across the ages who are trying to
break out on their own and get what they see
as the rightful end to their efforts, you know, whatever,
(27:28):
that rightful end maybe you know, obviously Susan B. Anthony
was not campaigning for everyone's rights. Yeah, she was campaigning
for what she found to be the most important. And
it wasn't until after her death she died in nineteen
o six. It wasn't until fourteen years later that the
nineteenth Amendment, known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, was ratified,
(27:52):
which and I mean that's of course, you know, going
back to the fact that there were so many other
women involved and it was named after Susan Anthony. But
it is like, you know, this woman just you know,
spent every moment of her life living and breathing this
and then to not see it come to fruition, you know,
that's you know, well, think about the only time she
(28:14):
ever voted was in eighteen seventy two, when she was
subsequently arrested. Right, that's gotta be That's it's incredible to
think about But also I'm not and I'm not trying
this on s B. A. But even though the amendment
is called Susan B. Anthony Amendment, Elizabeth Katie Stanton wrote it,
(28:35):
you know, it's just yet again. I mean, but hey,
she she was the figurehead for better or worse. Yeah,
I mean, eventually, I guess for better. But what is um,
what is concerning though these days, is how Susan B.
Anthony's legacy has been co opted by more conservative groups. Um.
(28:56):
She's been used as a figurehead of sorts for anti
abortion groups. Actually, for some people who say, oh, well,
you know what, Susan Anthony today would not stand for
the same platforms as you know, self described feminist would
in the twenty one century. Right and groups like Feminists
(29:17):
for Life of America. UM, kind of base this notion
on quotes like it's important to help bring about a
better state of things for mothers generally, so they're unborn,
little ones could not be willed away from them. Uh.
They also based it on articles published in the publication
The Revolution calling abortion child murder or anti natal infanticide. Um.
(29:41):
But uh, there was a conversation that we saw with
debor Hughes, who's the president and CEO of the Susan B.
Anthony Museum, and she's saying, look, guys, you can't take
a modern day discussion about anti abortion or pro life,
for pro choice, or any of these things and apply
them to a woman who lived in the nineteenth century,
(30:01):
because the truth is that abortion today an abortion in
the nineteenth century were two very different things, and the
conversations were different well, and even the perception of pregnancy
was different. It wasn't until much later, until probably the
fourth or fifth month of pregnancy, when the so called
quickening happens, when you could first feel a baby's movements,
(30:24):
that you were actually considered pregnant, whereas today, obviously you
can know from days after conception, right, and so back
in the day, it was more an issue of the
fact that abortion was what we would call now late
term abortion, and it was so dangerous. There were not
nearly the medical advances that we have today, and so
(30:48):
it was more an effort to protect women and their
health than it was necessarily to talk about the fetus.
And as far as children being willed away from families,
that wasn't an abortion reference at all. Really, it had
to do with the fact that fathers at the time
we're basically able to sell their children into indentured servitude
(31:10):
and the mother couldn't do anything about it. Yeah, I mean,
women had absolutely no rights over anything, whether it be
property or if they were to get a divorce, there
would be no question over who would get child custody.
You know, they had nothing at the time. So that
was more a conversation regarding needing more rights for women
rather than outlawing abortion right. And Susan B. Anthony never
(31:34):
advocated for the criminalization of abortion, um and that that's
a topic that actually was discussed in her day and
she never hopped on that train at all. Single minded again,
so it is important then to you know, keep an
ear out if you hear about organizations like Feminist for
Life in America or the Susan B. Anthony List, which
is dedicated to getting a pro life candidates elected that
(31:58):
they are, you know, using the Susan B. Anthony name
in a way that she probably would not approve of.
I mean, honestly, thinking about Susan B. Anthony, I don't
think that she would want her I mean unless she
personally approves of it, you know, I don't think she
would appreciate having her name or likeness used on on
(32:19):
anything because she was a little bit of a control freak. Yeah,
zombie Susan B. Anthony is gonna be rural upset. Yeah,
this is true. So this episode has been a long
time in coming, uh, and I hope it's been as
enlightening for listeners as it has been for me. I know,
I learned a lot of stuff I didn't previously know
(32:39):
about Susan B. Anthony. Yeah, and I really I feel
like maybe we should now go and do an episode
on those unsung heroines of the suffrage movement whose names
have all but been lost to history, to Susan B.
Anthony's history exactly. So let us sell your thoughts though
mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can
email us. You can also tweet us your thoughts at mom'
(33:01):
stuff podcast or Facebook messages over on well on Facebook,
And we've got a couple of messages to share with
you about our episode on thyroids. Well, I've got a
letter here from Kelleen, and she writes, I just wanted
(33:22):
to thank you for doing the show on thyroid issues,
more specifically for highlighting Hashimotos I was diagnosed with hashimotos
a couple of years ago, but it took me five
years of going to a doctor after doctor trying to
convince them that I wasn't just lazy and or depressed.
Finally I found a wonderful doctor who really listened to
me and thought to run the right tests, and the
rest was exactly like Caroline's story. It was so amazing
(33:45):
to hear a podcast or anyone really discussing how hard
the struggle for diagnosis can be and what this really
means to your body. Trying to get diagnosed could make
me feel crazy at times, but the struggle didn't stop
once I was diagnosed. I really feel like trying to
manage this, trying to feel as close in our most
possible again, can be so very hard at times, and
so very few people understand that. I hope you were
(34:05):
doing well Caroline since your diagnosis and know that if
you ever struggle with it, you are totally not alone.
So thank you for bringing awareness to this topic. Hopefully
more women will hear it and really push for these
tests when they experienced these symptoms with gratitude killing well,
I'm glad. I'm glad that our conversation. UH struck a
chord with people. UM, I I wish I had heard
(34:28):
a podcast about thyroids myself, UM and I have a
message here from Lauren talking about her own thyroid experiences.
She says, I just wanted to thank you for the podcast,
if only you had done it six and a half
months earlier. She says that her story is much like mine,
and about a year and a half ago, at age
twenty seven, I went to go see my primary care
physician because I was extremely tired and pretty depressed. At
(34:50):
the time, I thought I may have been anemic. I
never even considered thyroid issues. My doctor ransom basic blood
work and included a screening of my t SH levels.
The results showed that my Ta t s H was
quite elevated, more than seventy five when the normal ranges
point forward to four, and my doctor diagnosed me with hypothyroidism.
I was prescribed eighty eight micrograms of levothyroxine and I
(35:11):
thought I was in the clear. Looking back, I probably
had hashimotives as well for quite some time prior to
being diagnosed. Fast forward about a year two, about seven
months ago, and I went in for my yearly physical
I mentioned to my doctor that my husband and I
were going to try to get pregnant, and she never
mentioned any issues that pregnancy could have on my thyroid
and hormone levels or vice versa. She only told me
(35:31):
to continue taking my medicine well. My husband and I
were successful at getting pregnant fairly quickly. At my first
prenatal checkup at nine weeks pregnant, my basic blood work
showed that my t SH levels were once again out
of whack at over fourteen. After doing some research, I
found that my thyroid levels really should have been managed
into a narrower range pre pregnancy, and that my medicine
should have been adjusted as soon as I found out
(35:53):
I was pregnant. I also read the numerous studies that
showed the effects of my hypothyroidism on my unborn child.
As a woman men in her first trimester, I was
already so hormonal and to find out that my chances
of losing the baby were higher than other women and
that my baby could have learning and developmental issues was
absolutely horrific. Luckily, I am now under the care of
an indo chronologist who is monitoring my thyroid issues much
(36:14):
more closely. Once my husband and I got over the
shock of the bad news, we started to joke that
if our daughter has developmental issues, we will just give
her a mama's thyroid issues bell curve. Yeah, still not funny,
but it's helping us to cope anyway. I hope your
podcast has reached some women so they will be better
informed and not have to go through what I did.
And then she wished me good luck with my thyroid issues,
(36:35):
which I really appreciate. Lauren, thank you for writing in
and telling us your story, and thanks to everyone who's
written in to share your stories with us. Mom Stuff
discovery dot com is where you can send your letters
and to find all of our other social media links,
as well as every single podcast, blog post, and video.
Do you need to head on over to Stuff Mom
Never Told You dot com for more on this and
(37:00):
thousands of other topics. Is it how staff Works dot
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