she happened into a teachers' convention and heard
Charles Anthony, of the Albany academy, a distant relative, make an
address on "The Divine Ordinance of Corporal Punishment." It was a
severe and cruel justification of the unlimited use of the rod, but,
although more than three-fourths of the teachers present were women,
not a word was uttered in protest. Throughout the proceedings not a
woman's voice was heard, none was appointed on committees or voted on
any question, and they were as completely ignored as so many outsiders.
Miss Anthony made up her mind that here also was a work to be done, and
that henceforth she would attend the State teachers' conventions every
year and demand for women all the privileges now monopolized by men.

On September 8, 1852, she went to her first Woman's Rights Convention,
which was held at Syracuse. She had read with avidity the accounts of
the Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana and Pennsylvania conventions, but this
was her first opportunity of attending one. At the preliminary meeting,
held the night before, she was made a member of the nominating
committee with Paulina Wright Davis, of Providence, R.I., chairman.
Mrs. Davis had come with the determination of putting in as president
her dear friend Elizabeth Oakes Smith, a fashionable literary woman of
Boston. Both attended the meeting and the convention in short-sleeved,
low-necked white dresses, one with a pink, the other with a blue
embroidered wool delaine sack with wide, flowing sleeves, which left
both neck and arms exposed. At the committee meeting next morning,
Quaker James Mott nominated Mrs. Smith for president, but Quaker Susan
B. Anthony spoke out boldly and said that nobody who dressed as she did
could represent the earnest, solid, hard-working women of the country
for whom they were making the demand for equal rights. Mr. Mott said
they must not expect all women to dress as plainly as the Friends; but
she held her ground, and as all the committee agreed with her, though
no one else had had the courage to speak, Mrs. Smith's name was voted
down. This is but one instance of hundreds where Miss Anthony alone
dared say what others only dared think, and thus through all the years
made herself the target for criticism, blame and abuse. Others escaped
through their cowardice; she suffered through her bravery.

Lucretia Mott was made president, and the Syracuse Standard said: "It
was a singular spectacle to see this Quaker matron pre