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A suggestion to the Buffalo Exposition; - Let us have a chamber of female horrors. Illustration by Louis Dalrymple in Puck, v. 49, no. 1256 (1901 April 3), centerfold. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.25513
A suggestion to the Buffalo Exposition; - Let us have a chamber of female horrors. Illustration by Louis Dalrymple in Puck, v. 49, no. 1256 (1901 April 3), centerfold. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.25513

Susan B. Anthony: Birthday Toast and Cartoon Roast?

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Susan B. Anthony. Photo by C. M. Bell, 1891 March 2. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/bellcm.02005
Susan B. Anthony. Photo by C. M. Bell, 1891 March 2. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/bellcm.02005

No one relishes being made fun of, especially when celebrating a birthday. But Susan B. Anthony, who was born February 15, 1820, will perhaps not turn over in her grave if we acknowledge just how prominently she appeared in cartoons during the years she actively campaigned for and wrote about the history of women’s suffrage.

Historian Lisa Tetrault, in The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014), argues that Susan B. Anthony, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, actively and strategically shaped the collective memory of the women’s suffrage movement. In doing so, Anthony came to occupy a central role in the story—so much so that Tetrault quotes a 1900 Washington Evening Star headline proclaiming: “Work of Susan B. Anthony: Her Name is Synonymous with the Movement” (p. 180).

Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that one can spot Anthony’s strong features showing up regularly in cartoons of the era. What can prove more of a challenge, now that we are more distant from issues of the day, is understanding the message of the cartoons and whether Anthony’s pr