Susan B. Anthony
The Quaker influence--Hers was a Quaker family. The Quakers believed in education and Susan received excellent training. They believed in hard work, and Susan learned a strong work ethic from an early age. They believed in generosity and charity. They believed in peace, temperance and justice, and this was to affect her adult concerns about injustices toward women, as well as social problems that come from alcohol. The Quakers also believed that men and women were equal partners before God, and this must have had an important influence on her belief in women's rights.

The family influence--Susan B. Anthony was raised with Quaker discipline and austerity, but there was an independent spirit that came from both her father and mother. Her father, Daniel, was devout, but he went outside the church to marry the woman he loved. Her mother, Lucy, had loved music and dancing as a girl, but she gave this up to accept the rules of her husband’s Quaker faith. In her spirit, however, her mother never forgot her light-hearted youth. Daniel Anthony was concerned about social justice. When he ran his own cotton mill, he avoided buying slave-raised cotton. This lesson was not lost on Susan.

The move to New York--In Massachusetts, her father's cotton mill was very successful, and he was soon asked to manage mills at Batten Ville, New York. The family moved there in 1826 when Susan was 6 years old. Soon the family was in a large brick home.

Education--Susan's education began in the small district schools in New York. These were often in rooms built onto homes. At 15 she began to teach in one of these schools near her home. In 1837, at the age of 17, Susan was sent by her father to "Deborah Molson’s Friends Seminary," a respected private school in Philadelphia. Deborah Molson was the director and she was a strong disciplinarian. The word "Friends" in the