Susan B. Anthony signature

Leader of the American women’s suffrage movement (1820–1906)

Inspired by Susan B. Anthony’s signature

A rendering in a modern handwriting font, made for this page. It is not the real signature; see where to view the original below. Where to see the original ↓Style: Cedarville Cursive, slant 4°

Your name in this style

Type your name to see it in a style inspired by this signature.

Type your name

Open this style in the generator

Cedarville Cursive · 4°

Who Susan B. Anthony was

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) grew up in a Quaker family in Massachusetts and New York, worked as a teacher, and became one of the leading organizers of the campaigns for women’s rights and against slavery. With Elizabeth Cady Stanton she led the National Woman Suffrage Association, founded in 1869.

In 1872 she voted in the presidential election in Rochester, New York, was arrested and convicted, and refused to pay the $100 fine. The Nineteenth Amendment, which secured women’s right to vote in 1920, was widely known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.

The story of the signature

Anthony signed “Susan B. Anthony”, with the initial of her middle name, Brownell. She signed a great deal: letters, petitions, autograph albums and documents for the organizations she ran.

Signatures were also her working tools. In the 1850s she canvassed New York State collecting names on petitions for married women’s property rights and for suffrage. Her own name appears with those of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone and others on an 1865 petition to Congress.

After her conviction for voting, she petitioned Congress in 1874 to remit her fine. The signature from that petition is one of the examples reproduced on Wikimedia Commons (see the sources below).

What makes it distinctive

The middle initial

The B., for Brownell, has become part of how she is remembered.

Written to be read

A campaigner’s signature, clear enough to be read on a petition or in a letter to a stranger.

A public act

On petitions her name sits next to her fellow campaigners’, a reminder that a signature can be a public statement as well as a private mark.

How to give your signature a similar feel

Include your middle initial if you want a signature that is easier to tell apart from others with the same name. Type it on the Type tab of the signature generator, as in “Susan B. Anthony”.
Cedarville Cursive has a schoolbook joined hand that suits a teacher’s clear writing; keep Slant low and Size medium.
Aim for legibility: make each capital distinct and keep a clear space between the middle initial and the surname.
If you sign forms and petitions often, compare readable styles in the signature fonts gallery.

Where to see the original

These links lead to archives, libraries, museums and Wikimedia Commons.

Questions about Susan B. Anthony’s signature

What does the B in Susan B. Anthony stand for?

Brownell. Her full name was Susan Brownell Anthony.

Why was Susan B. Anthony arrested?

For voting in the 1872 presidential election in Rochester, New York, when women were not allowed to vote. She was convicted in 1873 and refused to pay the fine.

Did she live to see women win the vote?

No. She died in 1906, and the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920.