Susan Brownell Anthony was one of the leaders of suffragettes. In the 1900s women in the United States fought to gain equal rights with men. She was an American activist and fighter for civil rights of women, who played one of the key roles in the US suffragette movement in the XIX century. In addition, she fought for social equality and against slavery.
Susan Brownell Anthony was born on February 15, 1820, in Adams, Massachusetts in a Quaker family. She was one of seven children. At the age of three the girl could read and write. When she was 6 years old her family moved to Battenville, New York.
After school, Anthony worked as a teacher and experienced the problem of gender inequality: women’s salary was a quarter of the men’s one.
In 1845 the family moved to Rochester. Her father worked with important abolitionists.
Susan traveled widely, spoke at public meetings, and began to take an interest in women’s issues.
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Patrick Henry was an American orator and revolutionary, who helped shape the first government of the United States. He helped to write the first constitution of the state of Virginia. He was an active fighter for independence. His powerful speeches about liberty and self-government still inspire people today.
Patrick Henry was born on May 29, 1736 in Virginia, into a family of lesser gentry.
He married Sarah Shelton and was the father of six children. She died in 1775. Two years later he married Dorothea Dandridge, who was half his age.
In 1760 he became a lawyer. Soon he began speaking out against the British government. In 1763, Henry was a lawyer at the trial of the tobacco tax, the outcome of which had a great influence on the development of the movement for the independence of the American colonies. He strongly believed that the American colonies should be free of British rule.
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Daniel Boone was an American frontiersman and explorer, who blazed a trail through the Cumberland Gap, a pass in the Appalachian Mountains. His trail opened the West to settlement and made him a hero. He was the greatest woodsman in United States history.
Daniel Boone was born on November 2, 1734 in Pennsylvania. He learned blacksmithing, weaving, hunting, and trapping. 16-year-old Daniel and his family moved to the North Carolina frontier. He hunted and trapped in the wilderness.
On August 14, 1756 Boone married Rebecca Bryan and they settled down in the Yadkin Valley. They had ten children.
In 1767 Boone first passed through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. On May 1, 1769, Boone and his companions opened the way to the Far West by blazing a trail through the Cumberland Gap. This trail soon became a highway to the frontier.
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Betsy Ross was the Philadelphia seamstress and upholsterer. She was the woman who sewed the first U.S. flag in 1776. On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress, on a motion from John Adams, adopted the stars and stripes as the national flag.
Elizabeth Griscom was born on January 1, 1752 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was the eighth of 17 children. Her father, Samuel, operated a building business. The business was established by her great-grandfather Andrew Griscom, who had emigrated from England in 1680. Her parents, Samuel and Rebecca Griscom, belonged to the Society of Friends (Quakers), so in their house there was an atmosphere of strict discipline. Betsy learned embroidery from her great-aunt Sarah Griscom.
In 1773 she married John Ross. Ross and her husband opened an upholstery and sewing shop on Arch Street, Philadelphia. John was a member of the state militia. He was killed three years later in an explosion.
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Clara Barton was the founder of the American Red Cross. She went down in history as the angel of the battlefield for her work tending to wounded soldiers in the American Civil War. Her work made her a symbol of humanitarianism.
Clara Harlow Barton was born on December 25, 1821 in Oxford, Massachusetts. She was the youngest child in a family. Her father, Stephen Barton, was a farmer and state legislator. The girl was educated at home. At the age of 15 Clara began teaching at nearby schools. Later she taught school in Massachusetts and New Jersey.
In 1853 she was appointed as copyist in the Patent Office in Washington, D.C., becoming the first woman in America to hold such a government post.
In 1861 the American Civil War began. The soldiers were suffering and dying because there were not enough medical supplies. Barton organized a private agency to buy supplies. In 1862 she worked as an unpaid nurse.
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Ethan Allen was an American soldier, war hero for independence of the United States, a politician, philosopher, writer, as well as a farmer and businessman. He is best known as one of the founders of the US state of Vermont. He won an important early victory in the American Revolution. He led the Green Mountain Boys against the British and captured Fort Ticonderoga in 1775.
Ethan Allen was born on January 21, 1738, in Litchfield, Connecticut. Allen was the eldest son of a substantial farmer. His father died early and Allen had to take care of his mother and seven other children.
He wrote a number of pamphlets on such diverse subjects as the taking of Ticonderoga, Vermont’s controversies with New York, and religion.
In 1757 he fought in the French and Indian War. In 1762 Allen became an ironworker. Several years later he moved to Vermont, which was not a separate colony at the time. Allen organized the Green Mountain Boys. After the start of the American Revolution, the group fought the British.
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Jane Addams was an American social reformer and peace activist who devoted her life to helping the poor. She founded Hull House to serve needy immigrants in Chicago, Illinois.
Jane Addams was born on September 6, 1860, in Cedarville, Illinois. She was the eighth child in the family. Jane was just two when her mother died, so, the girl and her siblings were brought up by their father. Their father was an idealist and philanthropist, and a state senator of Illinois for 16 years.
In 1882 she graduated from Rockford Female Seminary and then went to Europe. In 1887 she visited Toynbee Hall in England. The reformers tried to improve the lives of workers exploited by the Industrial Revolution.
In 1889 Addams and Ellen Gates Starr rented a big house in Chicago, which was opened to immigrants. The women called their social settlement Hull House. They helped revolutionize social services for the poor and immigrants.
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