Anna Howard Shaw was a leader of the American women's suffrage movement, a physician, and an ordained Methodist minister.
Despite opposition to her preaching, she continued for years, receiving a local preacher's license in 1873. She was rejected in 1880 from the Methodist Episcopal Church but was ordained but the Methodist Protestant Church.
Shaw became heavily involved in the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and eventually the American Woman Suffrage Movement. She was encouraged by Susan B. Anthony to join the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). Shaw helped to merge the American Woman Suffrage Association and the NWSA into the NAWSA. She opposed militant techniques used by fellow NAWSA members during World War I. She was president until her resignation in 1915.
During the war, she was the head of the Women's Committee of the United States Council of National Defense and was the first woman to receive the Distinguished Service Medal.
Shaw had a thirty-year relationship with her lover, Lucy Elmina Anthony, niece of Susan B. Anthony. Lucy was also a women's rights activist and leader. She served as secretary for both Shaw and Susan B.
