How women won the right to vote

On Monday, we celebrated the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the president who won the Civil War and ended slavery. Today on Midday we're marking the birthday of another pioneer in the expansion of equal rights -- Susan B. Anthony. Anthony was born 186 years ago today in Adams, Massachusetts. She died before women got the right to vote. But when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution giving women the vote finally did pass, people called it the "Susan B. Anthony Amendment" in honor of her key role in winning women the right to vote.

Recently, University of Minnesota historian Sara Evans talked about Susan B. Anthony and other lesser-known champions of the women's suffrage movement in a speech at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul.

Sara Evans is the author of "Born For Liberty: A History of Women in America" and "Tidal Wave: How Women Changed America at Century's End," both of which are used in history classes across the country. In her talk at the History Center, Sara Evans said that many in the women's movement saw the fourteenth amendment as a slap in the face, because it gave African-American men the vote, but expressly denied that right to women.