Susan B. Anthony's niece speaks of her gifts.
"Because of Aunt Susan's love for women and perseverance in her cause, I have
today the enjoyment of a great many more rights and privileges than my
mother had twenty-five years ago. And seventy years ago-when Aunt Susan
herself was young, there were no such things as woman's rights; all the
rights were masculine. Woman was ruled by a government and a law in which
she had no voice. If she felt herself wronged in any way she had no way of
making the fact known before the law, or no way in which she might suggest a
remedy for it. It was an unheard of thing for A woman to speak in public.
None of the colleges or universities admitted women students. She was barred
from nearly all profitable employments, and in those she was permitted to
follow she received only one-fourth the man's remuneration for the same
work; she could not become a doctor or lawyer, or, - except within the
Society of Friends, - a minister.
If she was married any wages she might earn were not hers, but must be
handed by the employer to her husband, who was in every way her master, the
law even giving him the power to chastise or punish her. The laws of divorce
were so framed as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women, in
every case the man always gaining the control of the children- even if he
were the offender in the case. A father could apprentice his children
without the leave of the mother, and at his death could appoint a guardian
for them, thereby taking them from the mother's control. Man endeavored in
every way possible to destroy woman's confidence in her powers, to lessen
her self-respect and to make her willing to lead a dependent, subservient
life. It really seemed as if man had assumed the powers of the Lord himself
in claiming it as his right to tell woman what she might or might not do,
and what was or was not her place."