Susan Topics



The training and education of the girl of the present have seldom been discussed except from one standpoint—her suitable preparation for becoming an economical housekeeper, an inexpensive wife, a willing and self-forgetful mother, a cheap, unexacting, patient, unquestioning, unexpectant, ministering machine. The girl’s usefulness to herself, to her sex and race, her preferences, tastes, happiness, social, intellectual or financial prosperity, hardly have entered into the thought upon this question.
—Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)

We enunciate a grand principle, then we are timid and begin restricting its application. We are a nation of infidels to principle.
—Mary F. Eastman, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 7, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)