Susan Brownell Anthony entry, Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers

What it is

This is a dictionary entry on Susan Brownell Anthony by Joseph McCabe, published in A Biographical Dictionary of Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Freethinkers in 1945. The surrounding page holds other entries from the same dictionary, including ones on Ernst Abbe and And-Er-Rahman III. The entry was written about four decades after Anthony died in 1906.

Why it matters

The dictionary groups Anthony with people it calls freethinkers, which shows how a mid-twentieth-century reference work chose to classify her. A reader can compare this view with biographies and articles that focus on her role in the women's suffrage movement. The entry shows that Anthony was remembered in different ways by different writers.

Look closer

• Why might a dictionary of freethinkers include Anthony, and what does that choice suggest about how she is being framed?
• What does the writer choose to emphasize, and what does the short format leave out?
• How does a reference entry written decades after her death differ from a source written while she was alive?