Susan B. Anthony's Quaker upbringing greatly influenced the role she played in nineteenth-century America. Quakers did not believe in armed conflict or slavery, and they were among the first groups to practice full equality between men and women. Other American women did not experience the freedom and respect Anthony did while growing up. She worked to change that disparity, by becoming a leader in the crusade for women's rights. Born in 1820 in a New England farmhouse, Anthony was the daughter of Lucy Read Anthony and Daniel Anthony. Daniel was a cotton-mill owner who instilled in his children the ideas of self-reliance, self-discipline, and self-worth. Both Anthony's parents were strong supporters of the abolitionist and temperance movements due to their Quaker background. They also believed in the importance of work, and Anthony performed many tasks in her father's factory while attending school. Anthony completed her schooling at the age of seventeen and began teaching!
             school in New York state. She was soon fired from this job after protesting her wage was one-fifth that of which her male colleagues earned. She went on to secure a better position as principal of the Girls' Department of the Canajoharie Academy in Rochester, New York. In 1849, after having taught for more than ten years, Anthony began to focus her energies on social improvements and joined the local temperance society, only to be faced with inequality once again. She was denied the chance to speak at a Sons of Temperance meeting because she was a woman, she thus founded the Daughters of Temperance, the first woman's temperance organization. She began writing temperance articles for The Lily , the first woman-owned newspaper in the United States. Through the paper's editor, Amelia Bloomer , Anthony met women involved in the abolitionist movement and in the recently formed woman's suffrage movement. At a temperance meeting in 1851, Anthony met women's rig...