Episode 032 · Out Nov 5, 2026

She voted in 1872 – and the U.S. put her on trial

On 5 November 1872, Susan B. Anthony and 14 other women voted in Rochester, New York – after signing up at a voter registration office in a barber shop. Two weeks later a deputy U.S. marshal arrested her for illegal voting; she held out her wrists for handcuffs, and he declined. At her trial in June 1873, Justice Ward Hunt directed the jury to find her guilty without deliberating. Fined $100, she told him: "I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty" – and she never did. She died in 1906. The 19th Amendment, nicknamed after her, was ratified in 1920 (many women of color still faced other barriers for decades). In 1979 she appeared on the U.S. dollar coin.

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