(Click here for Part 1.)
Welcome to Part 3 of our quest to choose which woman should be featured on the $10 bill. Since the Republican presidential candidates struggled with this question during the second GOP debate, here's a brief recap of the judging criteria detailed in Part 1:
A. To be considered, each candidate must be:
1. Dead
2. Female
3. American B. Candidates will then be judged in the following 4 categories:
1. Popularity Index: name recognition
2. Symbolic Value Index: status as an icon or symbol for a movement or cause
3. Achievement Index: overall contribution to "our inclusive democracy”
4. Irreplaceability Index: unlikeliness that another person could have made that same societal contribution
In each of these categories, candidates will be rated on a scale from 1-10, and the scores from all four categories will then be added together to declare a winner.
We already graded Rosa Parks; now it's time to rate Rand Paul's choice.
Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) was a prominent suffragist and abolitionist who was arrested for voting in 1872. She co-founded and presided over the National American Woman Suffrage Association, helped create the International Council of Women, and served as the New York Stage agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Popularity Index: 8/10
Most people born and schooled in the United States have heard of Anthony; however, many Americans could not tell you what, exactly, she did, as she is often confused with other prominent white women, such as Clara Barton, Betsy Ross, Lucy Stone, and her good friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Most Americans know Anthony, but aren’t entirely sure why.
Symbolic Value Index: 8/10
Anthony is one of two women to have appeared on US currency—Sacagawea is the other—but the commemorative coin was only in production for about a year. (The Treasury originally wanted to put the Statue of Liberty on the coin, a suggestion which—rightfully so—did not go over well with women). Since the US Treasury is seeking to salute the 100th anniversary of female suffrage, putting the movement’s biggest star on the $10 bill would certainly make sense.
Women’s suffrage can hardly be talked about without mentioning Anthony, the movement’s unquestioned pioneer: After all, the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, is also known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. But whereas Parks is the unparalleled female icon of the Civil Rights Movement, Anthony shares her icon status with fellow suffragists such as Stanton and Stone.
Achievement Index: 10/10
Anthony was an ardent supporter of both abolition and women’s suffrage, and it’s difficult to overstate her many achievements.
As an agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society, she organized meetings and circulated abolitionist pamphlets. She co-founded the Women’s National Loyal League to petition for the 13th Amendment and published her own newspaper, The Revolution, in which she highlighted lynchings and other racist acts. After the Civil War and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment —which abolished slavery—she turned her attention to women’s rights. She traveled the nation speaking and passing out leaflets, and she appeared before every congress from 1869 until her death in 1906—that’s over 35 years—to ask that women gain the right to vote. She served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, and spearheaded the World’s Congress of Representative Women at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
Anthony fought for women’s rights beyond suffrage, too. She campaigned for female educational opportunities, battled for a woman’s right to own property, demanded equal pay for women, and served as the founding president of the Workingwomen’s Central Association. With large thanks to her, the New York State Married Women’s Property Bill allowed married women to own property, make their own money, and take custody of their children.
She also called for an eight-hour workday and co-founded the Women’s New York State Temperance Society.
Anthony said in 1894, “We shall someday be heeded, and when we shall have our amendment to the Constitution of the United States, everybody will think it was always so, just exactly as many young people think that all the privileges, all the freedom, all the enjoyments which woman now possesses always were hers. They have no idea of how every single inch of ground that she stands upon today has been gained by the hard work of some little handful of women of the past.”
Irreplaceability Index: 6/10
As discussed earlier, Anthony was not alone in her efforts, working alongside Stanton for most of her career as an activist. But though other women (and men) joined in her crusades, none had more success than Anthony.
In Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States, Eleanor Flexner wrote, “If Lucretia Mott typified the moral force of the movement, if Lucy Stone was its most gifted orator and Mrs. Stanton its most outstanding philosopher, Susan Anthony was its incomparable organizer, who gave it force and direction for half a century.”
Anthony was born to a Quaker father who encouraged all of his children—sons and daughters alike—to be strong and self-supporting. She was a persuasive writer who published her own newspaper and a fearless fighter who forced others to hear her voice. Others may have taken her place, but her fighter’s mentality could not be easily replicated.
Final score: 32/40
Check Part 3 to see Clara Barton's score.
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