Indictment for illegal voting, 1872

Conviction of Susan B. Anthony, 06/1873 05848_2004_001

Susan B. Anthony devoted more than fifty years of her life to the cause of woman suffrage. After casting her ballot in the 1872 Presidential election in her hometown of Rochester, New York, she was arrested, indicted, tried, and convicted for voting illegally.

At her two-day trial in June 1873, which she later described as “the greatest judicial outrage history has ever recorded,” she was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of $100 and court costs.

U.S. vs. Susan B. Anthony, Record of Conviction, 6/28/1873.
National Archives, Records of District Courts of the United States

This document is being featured in conjunction with the National Archives’ National Conversation on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality.  

 

The “National Conversation on Rights and Justice” is presented in part by AT&T, Ford Foundation, Seedlings Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the National Archives Foundation.

Special thanks to Perkins Coie for their support in this event in New York City.

Past Featured Records

Bring Them Home, Uncle Sam
Soldiers arrive home aboard the S.S. Haverford as the transport ship pulls into Philadelphia, 1918. Records of War Department General and Special Staffs On Display 10/31/2024 – 12/4/2024 More than two million American service members were overseas with the American Expeditionary Forces when the guns fell silent on November 11, 1918, ending World War I. Americans would continue to ...
Betty Ford: Raising Breast Cancer Awareness
On Display 10/03/2024 - 10/30/2024 Just weeks after she became First Lady, Betty Ford was diagnosed with breast cancer. On September 26, 1974, doctors discovered a lump in her breast during a routine medical examination. She underwent a mastectomy two days later. Breaking with social conventions of the time, Betty Ford shared her cancer diagnosis with the public. This ...
Title IX
An Act of June 23, 1972, Public Law 92-318, 86 STAT 235, to Amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, the Vocational Educational Act of 1963, the General Education Provisions Act (Creating a National Foundation for Postsecondary Education and a National Institute of Education), the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Public Law 874, Eighty-First Congress, and Related Acts, ...
Court-Martial record of Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin, March 10, 1778.
On March 10, 1778, Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin became the first U.S. soldier court-martialed for “attempting to commit sodomy” with another soldier. His sentence was to be literally drummed out of the Continental Army by its regiments’ fifes and drums. Enslin was told “never to return.” More than 230 years after Enslin’s court martial, gay men, lesbians, ...
Indictment for illegal voting, 1872
Susan B. Anthony devoted more than fifty years of her life to the cause of woman suffrage. After casting her ballot in the 1872 Presidential election in her hometown of Rochester, New York, she was arrested, indicted, tried, and convicted for voting illegally. At her two-day trial in June 1873, which she later described as "the greatest judicial outrage ...