| 1820: February 15 |
Susan Brownell Anthony is born near Adams, Mass. |
| 1839 |
Anthony begins duties as an assistant teacher at a boarding school in New Rochelle, N. Y. |
| 1846 |
Anthony takes a job as the headmistress of the female department of Canajoharie Academy. |
| 1848: July 19-20 |
The first woman's rights convention in the U. S. is held in Seneca Falls, N. Y. Participants sign a "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions." |
| 1851 |
Anthony resigns her job at Canajoharie Academy and moves to her father's farm near Rochester. She takes up the causes of temperance and the abolition of slavery. |
| 1851 |
May Anthony meets for the first time Elizabeth Cady Stanton, recognized as the most important figure of the time in the woman's rights movement. |
| 1852 Sept. |
Anthony attends her first woman's rights convention in Syracuse. Anthony becomes convinced that "the right women needed above every other...was the right of suffrage." |
| 1855 |
Anthony travels through all fifty-four of New York's counties promoting abolition, temperance, women's suffrage, and other women's rights issues. |
| 1856 |
Anthony becomes New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Association. |
| 1865 |
Anthony and other female suffragists fight to keep the words "male citizens" out of the proposed 14th Amendment. |
| 1866 |
Anthony, Stanton, and other suffragists petition Congress for "universal suffrage." |
| 1867 |
Anthony moves to Lawrence, Kansas, where she heads the suffrage headquarters and will lead a campaign for women's suffrage, which is to be voted on by Kansas males. The measure is defeated by a 3 to 1 margin. |
| 1868 |
Anthony becomes proprietor of the weekly paper, The Revolution, which promotes women's issues through editorials written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. |
| 1869 |
The women's rights movements splits into two factions, with Anthony and Stanton heading the more radical National Woman's Suffrage Association. The Wyoming Territory is organized with a woman's suffrage provision, the nation's first. |
| 1870 |
The 15th Amendment gives the franchise to blacks. The NWSA refuses to work for ratification because the amendment offers no protection for women. |
| 1871: Jan. 11 |
The first woman, Victoria Woodhull, addresses a committee of Congress, the House Judiciary Committee. She argues that the 14th Amendment gives women the right to vote and urges Congress to pass legislation implementing woman's suffrage. |
| 1872: Nov. 1 |
Anthony attempts to register to vote in Rochester. To the surprise of many, she is allowed to do so. |
| 1872: Nov. 5 |
Anthony votes in the federal election-- the straight Republican ticket-- and on a 2 to 1 vote, the election inspectors agree to accept her vote. |
| 1872: Nov. 18 |
Anthony is arrested at her home and charged with "illegal voting." |
| 1873: Jan. 24 |
Anthony is indicted on charges of illegal voting. She pleads "not guilty." |
| 1873: Feb.-June |
Anthony travels around the area giving a lecture entitled, "Is it a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to Vote?" |
| 1873: June 17 & 18 |
Anthony is tried in Canandaigua, New York before Judge Ward Hunt. Anthony is barred from testifying and Judge Hunt directs the jury to find her guilty. She is sentenced to pay a fine of $100 and the costs of prosecution. She refuses to pay. |
| 1874: Jan. 12 |
Anthony submits a two-page petition to Congress asking that the "unjust fine" for illegal voting be remitted. Congress does not act on her petition. |
| 1875 |
In Minor vs Happersett, the U. S. Supreme Court unanimously concludes that the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment does not protect the right of women to vote. |
| 1976 |
On our nation's 100th birthday, Anthony distributes "A Woman's Declaration of Rights" in Philadelphia. |
| 1878: Jan. 10 |
Senator Arlen A. Sargent of California introduces a constitutional amendment: "The right of citizens to vote shall not be abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex." This same amendment would be introduced each session of Congress over the next 41 years. |
| 1881 |
Anthony forms a strategic alliance with Frances Willard and the Women's Christian Temperance Union. For this action, she is criticized by Stanton, Gage, and others. |
| 1887 |
For the first time, the full Senate votes on the women's suffrage amendment. It loses 34 to 16. |
| 1896 |
Anthony spends eight months in California campaigning for women's suffrage in California, but the measure loses at the polls. |
| 1900 |
By 1900, four states (Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and Idaho) have granted women full suffrage. Anthony resigns as president of the National American Women's Suffrage Association. |
| 1902 |
Anthony appears for the last time before the Senate's Select Committee on Women's Suffrage to ask for a constitutional amendment. |
| 1904 |
Anthony attends a world conference on women's suffrage in Berlin. |
| 1906: March 13 |
Anthony dies at her home in Rochester. 10,000 mourners come to her funeral. |
| 1912 |
Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive (Bull Moose) Party becomes the first national political party to adopt a women's suffrage plank. |
| 1913 |
Suffragists mount a large parade in Washington on the day before President Wilson's inauguration. |
| 1916 |
Jeanette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to the U. S. Congress. |
| 1917 |
Women win the vote in New York state. |
| 1919: |
May The Nineteenth Amendment guaranteeing women the vote passes both houses of Congress and goes to the states for ratification. |
| 1920: |
August 26 Tennessee becomes the 36th state to ratify, and the Nineteenth Amendment is adopted. |
