NEW YORK — On Nov. 5, 1872, nearly 50 years before the 19th Amendment granted women in the United States the right to vote, Susan B. Anthony and a small group of women cast their ballots for president in Rochester, N.Y., days after she had persuaded election inspectors to register them.

The move, which resulted in arrests and a trial — in which Anthony was found guilty — was an act of defiance and audacity that helped propel the long, slow march to women’s suffrage.

The New York Times covered the moment, sort of. One paragraph ran inside the paper the next morning, Nov. 6. The news was deemed insignificant in no uncertain terms — it was published under the heading “Minor Topics.’’

The item recognized that the event could lead to a momentous shift, acknowledging that Anthony was “leading to the polls the advance guard of the coming squadrons of female voters.’’ At the same time, it captured the dismissive misogyny of the era, referring to the women as “a little band of nine ladies.’’

The tone might seem shocking today, but it shouldn’t, said Louise Bernikow, an expert on US women’s history and a speaker on women’s political movements.

Newspapers at the time paid little attention to the push for women’s suffrage. “It was not a massively popular movement in 1872,’’ she said.

This brief item in the Times was only one example of how the paper reported on the efforts. An article published a decade later, on Oct. 16, 1882, was written in terms that would be deemed unquestionably sexist today.

“Literal people may ask, Why, then, does not woman have the right of suffrage?’’ it stated. “The answer is easy. She does not want it. Of course, it must be admitted that women, or some women, think they want the ballot. But they do not really want it.’’

It continued: “Philosophers have observed that the female desire is invariably kindled by that which is, or seems to be, unattainable.’’

New York Times