Talk:Susan B. Anthony

Unsourced

“Forget conventionalisms; forget what the world thinks of you stepping out of your place; think your best thoughts, speak your best words, work your best works, looking to your own conscience for approval.”

• There appears to be some support for this quote's legitimacy at Bartleby. Krychek (talk) 20:25, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
• I'm not so sure. The quote is not found in historical book, magazine and journal sources, published when Anthony was alive, or shortly after she died. It's not found in her diary, or her speeches, or in the comprehensive scholarly works published by the The Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Papers Project at Rutgers University. I think it was fabricated later, and falsely attributed. Binksternet (talk) 22:04, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Rare, hard to find citations

I found this treasure while researching the bicycling quote: http://www.rarenewspapers.com/view/621269?acl=851761768&imagelist=1 photo images of a 2/2/1896 New York World interview of Anthony by the famous path-breaking journalist, Nellie Bly. I'm sure there are other excellent quotes in there; it's a long article.--Starlists (talk) 18:33, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Excellent find. The newspaper piece is also quoted in The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: An Awful Hush, 1895 to 1906, edited by Ann D. Gordon. The quote starts on page 24 and is dated "c. 31 January 1896." Apparently the editors did not have access to the original shown in your link. Binksternet (talk) 19:33, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! I included what I could on the main page, after a quick read. (Unfortunately, one or two key paragraphs are missing from the source, starting after "...of Quakers to know they teach of the Bible as if it were a history. Not that it is especially sacred." I am curious to know what she said about the bible after the text was cut off...)--Starlists (talk) 19:46, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Here's the subsequent text copied from The Selected Papers. Binksternet (talk) 22:33, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

"...Not that it is especially sacred. So you see in what a free way I was brought up."

"Tell me about your first school," I pleaded. "Were you frightened?"

"I wasn't a bit timid," she said frankly. "I was only fifteen, but I thought I was the wisest girl in all the world. I knew it all. No one could make me think anything else. The first time I taught was in 1835. An old Quaker lady came to our house for a teacher for her children and several of her neighbors', making in all a class of eight. I accepted the position. I lived in her family, and for teaching the children three hours before dinner and three hours after, I got $1 a week and my board.

“After that, as I wanted to finish my own studies, I taught in the summer and went to school in the winter. And my father was the richest man in the county, too. For several terms I taught district school and boarded around among my pupils. My pay was $1.50 a week. In 1838 I gave up teaching and came to Philadelphia to a boarding-school."

“Did you ever whip any of your scholars?” I inquired anxiously.

"Oh, my, yes!" she laughed. “I whipped lots of them. I recall one pupil I had, I was very young at the time. I had been warned that he had put the last master out of the window and that he would surely insult me. I went into that school boy when he began on me. I made him take off his coat and I gave him a good whipping with a stout switch. He was twice as large as I, but he behaved after that.

“In those days,” she said, “we did not know any other way to control children. We believed in the goodness of not sparing the rod. As I got older, I abolished whipping. If I couldn’t manage a child I thought it my ignorance, my lack of ability as a teacher. I always felt less the woman when I struck a blow.

“You spoke in your article the other day about the way some of our women dress,” Miss Anthony observed, suddenly changing the topic. “Forty-five years ago I tried a reform dress. But I gave it up. People couldn’t see a great intellect under grotesque clothes. Although I saw Horace Greeley go before an audience once with one trouser leg inside his boot and one outside!”

This right arm of mine

• page 6 of "A Lawyer Looks at the Equal Rights Amendment" by Rex E. Lee, published 1980 by Brigham Young University Press.
• page 30 of "Divided Sisters: Bridging the Gap Between Black Women and White Women" by Kathy Russel, published 1996 by Anchor Books

For some reason would not let me add sources. 70.51.193.44 20:33, 22 September 2018 (UTC)