Susan B. Anthony: A Reminiscence, by Eugene V. Debs

What it is

This is a reminiscence of Susan B. Anthony by Eugene V. Debs, printed in the Socialist Woman in January 1909. Debs writes that he met Anthony only twice, first at Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1880, and again shortly before her death at her home in Rochester, New York. The text is available as a digital copy on Wikisource.

Why it matters

Debs was a socialist leader, and this article shows how a figure from a different political movement viewed the suffrage cause. He describes first reading about Anthony and deciding to arrange meetings for her, with the help of the writer Ida Husted Harper, who later became Anthony's biographer. The article reveals how suffrage was connected to wider social reform efforts of the period.

Look closer

• What does Debs say first attracted him to the suffrage movement, and what does that reveal about his own views?
• Why might a socialist magazine print a memory of a suffrage leader several years after her death?
• Which parts of Anthony's life does Debs describe from his own experience, and which does he take from what others said?