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Susan Brownell Anthony was born February 15,1820 in Adams Massachusetts to Daniel and Lucy Anthony. Susan was the second born of eight children in a strict Quaker family. Her father, Daniel Anthony, was a stern man, a Quaker Abolitionist and a cotton manufacturer. He believed in guiding his children, not directing them. He did not allow them to experience the childish amusesments of toys,games,and music,which were seen as distractions from the inner light. Instead he enforced self-discipline, principled convictions, and belief in one's own self-worth.

Susan was a precocious child and she learned to read and write at the age of three. In 1826, the Anthonys moved from Massachusetts to Battensville,N.Y. where Susan attended a district school. When the teacher refused to teach Susan long division, Susan was taken out of school and taught in a "home school" set up by her father. The school was run by a woman teacher, Mary Perkins. Perkins offered a new image of womanhood to Susan and her sisters.

She was independent and educated and held a position that had traditionally been reserved to young men. Ultimately, Susan was sent to boarding school near Philadelphia. Susan teached at a female academy, Eunice Kenyon's Quaker boarding school, in upstate New York from 1846-49. After, she settled in her family home in Rochester, New York. It was here that she began her first public crusade on behalf of temperance.