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Susan B. Anthony, a la Shmoop.

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No doubt about it - America has some crazy laws.

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In Iowa, it is against the law to kiss for longer than five minutes.

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In Vermont, it is illegal to go more than a week without bathing.

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But perhaps the craziest of all was that until 1920, it was illegal for women to vote in the United States.

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We often cite Susan B. Anthony for changing this law,

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but was it really Susan’s Suffrage?

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Anthony’s activism began after the Civil War, when she pointed out the slight hypocrisy

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in allowing freed black men to vote... but not women.

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She founded the American Equal Rights Association,

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and then got arrested for trying to vote in New York in 1872.

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She then refused to pay the ordered fine.

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Until 1900, she was president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

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Susan passed away in 1907, never having been granted the right to vote.

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What really got the Women’s Suffrage movement going was the Prohibition and Progressive

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Era, which embraced purity and avoidance of crime.

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Progressive Era politicians realized that women’s votes could benefit their campaigns.

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The participation of women in World War I was the final push…

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…and the Nineteenth Amendment granting women the right to vote was passed in 1920.

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So what are your thoughts?

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Was Susan B. Anthony the pivotal figure in the Women’s Suffrage Movement?

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Or would women have been granted the right to vote anyways?

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Just because it makes good political sense?

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Shmoop amongst yourselves.

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