Election Day marks 152 years since Susan B. Anthony illegally voted
Suffragist leader Susan B. Anthony recorded her action to an 1865 solar eclipse. (Photo: WHEC)
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – This year, Election Day falls on Nov. 5, just like it did in 1872.
The country was still contending with a deep divide over the war and Reconstruction – and Susan B. Anthony wanted her voice heard.
The incumbent president, Republican Ulysses S. Grant, had lead the Union Army to victory in the Civil War just a couple of years before. Newspaper publisher Horace Greeley, endorsed by both the Democratic and Liberal Republican parties, was hoping to unseat him.
By then, Anthony had been fighting for women’s suffrage for years. On Nov. 5, 1872, at the age of 52, she walked to a polling place on West Main Street and cast her ballot. She was joined by 13 other women.
MORE: What to know about visiting Susan B. Anthony’s headstone on Election Day
Two weeks later, in the parlor of her Madison Street home, Anthony was arrested. The case was heard in Canandaigua the next June. The court found her guilty and fined her $100 – equivalent to more than $2,500 today.
Anthony would not live to see women attain the right to vote. It came in 1920, 14 years after her death.
In the 2016 election – which featured the first female presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton – voters trekked to Mount Hope Cemetery to place their “I Voted” stickers on Anthony’s grave.
The tradition continues, as does Anthony’s legacy. This year, her home, now a museum, was a polling site for early voting.
