The
struggle for women's suffrage in America began in the 1820s with the
writings of Fanny Wright. In her book,
Course of Popular Lectures (1829)
and in the Free Enquirer
Wright not only advocated women being given the vote but the
abolition of slavery, free secular education,
birth control and more liberal divorce laws.
Wright received little support for her views and the next significant
development did not take place until 1840 when two members of the
Society of Friends, Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, travelled
to London as delegates to the World
Anti-Slavery Convention. Both women were furious when they, like
the British women at the convention, were refused permission to speak
at the meeting. Stanton later recalled: "We resolved to hold
a convention as soon as we returned home, and form a society to advocate
the rights of women."
However, it was not until 1848 that Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organised
the Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls. Stanton's resolution
that it was "the duty of the women of this country to secure
to themselves the sacred right to the elective franchise" was
passed, and this became the focus of the group's campaign over the
next few years.
In 1866 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia
Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Lucy
Stone helped establish the American Equal Rights Association.
The following year, the organisation became active in Kansas where
Negro suffrage and woman suffrage were to be decided by popular vote.
However, both ideas were rejected at the polls.
In 1869 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan
B. Anthony formed a new organisation, the National
Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). The organisation condemned
the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments as blatant injustices to women.
The NWSA also advocated easier divorce and an end to discrimination
in employment and pay.
Another group, the American Woman Suffrage
Association (AWSA) was formed in the same year in Boston.
Leading members of the AWSA included Lucy
Stone and Julia Ward Howe. Less militant
that the National Woman Suffrage Association,
the AWSA was only concerned with obtaining the vote and did not campaign
on other issues. The campaign for women's suffrage had its first success
in 1869 when the territory of Wyoming gave women the vote. However,
an amendment to the federal Constitution concerning woman suffrage
that was introduced into Congress in 1878 was overwhelmingly defeated.
In the 1880s it became clear that it was not a good idea to have two
rival groups campaigning for votes for women. After several years
of negotiations, the AWSA and the NWSA merged in 1890 to form the
National American Woman Suffrage Association
(NAWSA). The leaders of this new organisation include Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony,
Mary Livermore, Carrie
Chapman Catt, Olympia Brown, Amelia
Bloomer, Frances Willard, Matilda
Joslyn Gage and Anna Howard Shaw.
Over the next twenty years a large number of women became involved
in the struggle for women's rights. This included Jane
Addams, Crystal Eastman, Helen
Keller, Emma Goldman, Rose
Schneiderman, Ida Wells-Barnett, Inez
Milholland, Nina Alexender, Cornelia
Barnes, Blanche Ames, Edwina
Dumm, Rose O'Neill, Fredrikke
Palmer, Ida Proper, Lou
Rogers, Mary Wilson Preston, Mary
Sigsbee, Ellen Gates Starr, Mary
McDowell, Edith Abbott, Grace
Abbott, Alzina Stevens, Florence
Kelley, Julia Lathrop, Alice
Hamilton, Rheta Childe Dorr, Alice
Beach Winter, Margaret Robins, Margaret
Haley, Helen Marot, Agnes
Nestor, Madeline Breckinridge,
Sophonisba Breckinridge and Nell
Brinkley.
Working with journals such as the Women
Voter, The Women's Journal,
Woman Citizen and The
Masses, the suffragists mounted vigorous campaigns to gain
the vote. They tended to concentrate their energies in trying to persuade
state legislatures to submit to their voters amendments to state constitutions
conferring full suffrage to women. Individual states gradually yielded
to these demands. In 1893 women got the vote in Colorado, followed
by Utah (1896), Idaho (1896), Washington (1910), California (1911),
Arizona (1912), Kansas (1912), Oregon (1912), Illinois (1913), Nevada
(1914) and Montana (1914).
Harry Osborn, Two More Bright Spots on the Map,
Maryland Suffrage News (14th November, 1914)
While studying
at the School of Economics and Political Science
(LSE) in London, Alice Paul, joined the
Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU)
and her activities resulted in her being arrested and imprisoned three
times. Like other suffragettes she went on hunger
strike and was forced-fed.
Paul returned home to the United States and in 1913 she joined with
Lucy Burns and Olympia
Brown to form the Congressional Union for
Women Suffrage (CUWS) and attempted to introduce the militant
methods used by the Women's Social and Political
Union in Britain. This included organizing huge demonstrations
and the daily picketing of the White House. Over the next couple of
years the police arrested nearly 500 women for loitering and 168 were
jailed for "obstructing traffic". Alice
Paul was sentenced to seven months imprisonment but after going
on hunger strike she was released.
Lou Rogers, Tearing off the Bonds
(Judge Magazine, 19th October, 1912)
In January, 1918, Woodrow
Wilson announced that women's suffrage was urgently needed as
a "war measure". The House of Representatives passed the
federal woman suffrage amendment 274 to 136 but it was opposed in
the Senate and was defeated in September 1918. Another attempt in
February 1919 also ended in failure.
In May 1919 the House of Representatives again passed the amendment
(304 to 89) and on 4th June 1919 the Senate finally gave in and passed
it by 66 to 30. On 26th August 1920 the Nineteenth
Amendment was certified by the Secretary of State,
when Tennessee, the thirty-sixth and final state needed, signed for
ratification.
Edwina Dumm,
A Lost Argument,
Columbus Daily Monitor (16th May, 1917)
(1)
Margaret
Fuller, Women in the Nineteenth
Century (1845)
We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every
path laid open to Woman as freely as to Man.
Were this done, and a slight temporary fermentation allowed to subside,
we should see crystallizations more pure and of more various beauty.
We believe the divine energy would pervade nature to a degree unknown
in the history of former ages, and that no discordant collision, but
a ravishing harmony of the spheres, would ensue.
Yet, then and only then
will mankind be ripe for this, when inward and outward freedom for
Woman as much as for Man
shall be acknowledged as a right, not yielded as a concession. As
the friend of the Negro assumes that one man cannot by right hold
another in bondage, so should the friend of Woman assume that Man
cannot by right lay even well meant restrictions on Woman. If the
Negro be a soul, if the woman be a soul, apparelled in flesh, to one
Master only are they accountable. There is but one law for souls,
and, if there is to be an interpreter of it, he must come not as man,
or son of man, but as son of God.
Were thought and feeling
once so far elevated that Man should esteem himself the brother and
friend, but nowise the lord and tutor, of Woman, - were he really
bound with her in equal worship, - arrangements as to function and
employment would be of no consequence. What woman needs is not as
a woman to act or rule, but as a nature to grow, as an intellect to
discern, as a soul to live freely and unimpeded, to unfold such powers
as were given her when we left
our common home. If fewer talents were given her, yet if allowed the
free and full employment of these, so that she may render back to
the giver his own with usury, she will not complain; nay, I dare to
say she will bless and rejoice in her earthly birthplace, her earthly
lot.
(2)
Samuel
J. May, The Rights and Condition
of Women (1846)
To prove, however, that woman was not
intended to be the equal of man, the argument most frequently alleged
is that she is the weaker vessel, inferior in stature, and has much
less physical strength. This physiological fact, of course, cannot
be denied; although the disparity in these respects is very much increased
by neglect or mismanagement. But allowing women generally to have
less bodily power, why should this consign them to mental, moral,
or social dependence? Physical force is of special value only in a
savage or barbarous community. It is the avowed intention and tendency
of Christianity to give the ascendancy to man's moral nature; and
the promises of God, with whom is all strength and wisdom, are to
the upright, the pure, the good, not to the strong, the valiant, or
the crafty.
The more men receive of
the lessons of Christianity, the more they learn to trust in God,
in the might of the right and true, the less reliance will they put
upon brute force. And as brute force declines in public estimation,
the more will the feminine qualities of the human race rise in general
regard and confidence, until the meek shall be seen to be better than
the mighty, and the humble only be considered worthy of exaltation.
Civilization implies the subordination of the physical in man to the
mental and moral; and the progress of the melioration of the condition
of our race has been everywhere marked by the elevation of the female
sex.
But some would eagerly
ask, should women be allowed to take part in the constructing and
administering of our civil institutions? Allowed, do you say? The
very form of the question is an assumption of the right to do them
the wrong that has
been done them. Allowed! Why, pray tell me, is it from us their rights
have been received? Have we the authority to accord to them just such
prerogatives as we see fit and withhold the rest? No! woman is not
the creature, the dependent of man but of God. We may with no more
propriety assume to govern women than they might assume to govern
us. And never will the nations of the earth be well-governed until
both sexes, as well as all parties, are fairly represented and have
an influence, a voice, and, if they wish, a hand in the enactment
and administration of the laws.
One would think the sad
mismanagement of the affairs of our own country should, in all modesty,
lead us men to doubt our own capacity for the task of governing a
nation, or even a state, alone; and to apprehend that we need other
qualities in our public councils, qualities that may be found in the
female portion of our race. If woman be the complement of man, we
may surely venture the intimation that all our social transactions
will be incomplete, or otherwise imperfect, unless they have been
guided alike by the wisdom of each sex. The wise, virtuous, gentle
mothers of a state or nation (should their joint influence be allowed)
might contribute as much to the good order, the peace, the thrift
of the body politic as they severally do to the well-being of their
families, which for the most part, all know is more than the fathers
do.
(3)
John Humphrey Noyes, wrote about Fanny Wright
in his book, History of American Socialism (1870)
Frances Wright, little known to the present generation, was really
the spiritual helpmate and better half of the Owens, in the socialistic
revival of 1826. Our impression is, not only that she was the leading
woman in the communistic movement of that period, but that she had
a very important agency in starting two other movements that had far
greater success and are at this moment in popular favour: anti-slavery
and woman's rights.
(4)
Ernestine L. Rose, speech on Fanny Wright
at the National Woman's Rights Convention (1858)
Frances Wright was the first woman in this country who spoke on the
equality of the sexes. She had indeed a hard task before her. The
elements were entirely unprepared. She had to break up the time-hardened
soil of conservatism, and her reward was sure - the same reward that
is always bestowed upon those who are in the vanguard of any great
movement. She was subjected to public odium, slander, and persecution.
But these were not the only things she received. Oh, she had her reward
- that reward of which no enemies could deprive her, which no slanders
could make less precious - the eternal reward of knowing that she
had done her duty.
(5)
Mary Church Terrell, Washing Post (10th
February, 1900)
The elective franchise is withheld from one half of its citizens,
many of whom are intelligent, cultured, and virtuous, while it is
unstintingly bestowed upon the other, some of whom are illiterate,
debauched and vicious, because the word "people", by an
unparalleled exhibition of lexicographical acrobatics, has been turned
and twisted to mean all who were shrewd and wise enough to have themselves
born boys instead of girls, or who took the trouble to be born white
instead of black.
(6)
Jane
Addams, Ladies
Home Journal (January, 1910)
Women who live in the country sweep their own
dooryards and may either feed the refuse of the table to a flock of
chickens or allow it innocently to decay in the open air and sunshine.
In a crowded city quarter, however, if the street is not cleaned by
the city authorities no amount of private sweeping will keep the tenement
free from grime; if the garbage is not properly collected and destroyed
a tenement house may see her children sicken and die of diseases from
which she alone is powerless to shield them, although her tenderness
and devotion are unbounded. In short, if women would keep on with
her old business of caring for her house and rearing her children
she will have to have some conscience in regard to public affairs
lying quite outside of her immediate household. The individual conscience
and devotion are no longer effective. The statement is sometimes made
that the franchise for women would be valuable only so far as the
educated women exercised it. This statement totally disregards the
fact those those matters in which women's judgement is most needed
are far too primitive and basic to be largely influenced by what we
call education.
(7)
Rheta
Childe Dorr, What Eight Million
Women Want (1910)
Not only in the United States, but in every constitutional country
in the world the movement towards admitting women to full political
equality with men is gathering strength. In half a dozen countries
women are already completely enfranchised. In England the opposition
is seeking terms of surrender. In the United States the stoutest enemy
of the movement acknowledges that woman suffrage is ultimately inevitable.
The voting strength of the world is about to be doubled, and the new
element is absolutely an unknown quantity. Does anyone question that
this is the most important political fact the modern world has ever
faced?
I have asked you to consider
three facts, but in reality they are but three manifestations of one
fact, to my mind the most important human fact society has yet encountered.
Women have ceased to exist as a subsidiary class in the community.
They are no longer wholly dependent, economically, intellectually,
and spiritually, on a ruling class of men. They look on life with
the eyes of reasoning adults, where once they regarded it as trusting
children. Women now form a new social group, separate, and to a degree
homogeneous. Already they have evolved a group opinion and a group
ideal.
And this brings me to
my reason for believing that society will soon be compelled to make
a serious survey of the opinions and ideals of women. As far as these
have found collective expressions, it is evident that they differ
very radically from accepted opinions and ideals of men. As a matter
of fact, it is inevitable that this should be so. Back of the
differences between the masculine and the feminine ideal lie centuries
of different habits, different
duties, different ambitions, different opportunities, different rewards.
Women, since society became
an organized body, have been engaged in the rearing, as well as the
bearing of children. They have made the home, they have cared for
the sick, ministered to the aged, and given to the poor. The universal
destiny of the mass of women trained them to feed and clothe, to invent,
manufacture, build, repair, contrive, conserve, economize. They lived
lives of constant service, within the narrow confines of a home. Their
labor was given to those they loved, and the reward they looked for
was purely a spiritual reward.
A thousand generations
of service, unpaid, loving, intimate, must have left the strongest
kind of a mental habit in its wake. Women, when they emerged from
the seclusion of their homes and began to mingle in the world procession,
when they were thrown on their own financial responsibility, found
themselves willy-nilly in the ranks of the producers, the wage earners;
when the enlightenment of education was no longer denied them, when
their responsibilities ceased to be entirely domestic and became somewhat
social, when, in a word, women began to think, they naturally thought
in human terms. They couldn't have thought otherwise if they had tried.
(8)
William Du Bois, The
Crisis (October, 1911)
Every argument for Negro suffrage is an argument
for women's suffrage; every argument for women's suffrage is an argument
for Negro suffrage; both are great moments in democracy. There should
be on the part of Negroes absolutely no hesitation whenever and wherever
responsible human beings are without voice in their government. The
man of Negro blood who hesitates to do them justice is false to his
race, his ideals and his country.
(9)
Leaflet written and distributed by Alice Paul
outside of the White House in 1917.
President Wilson and Envoy Root are deceiving
Russia. They say "We are a democracy. Help us to win the war
so that democracies may survive." We women of America tell you
that America is not a democracy. Twenty million women are denied the
right to vote. President Wilson is the chief opponent of their national
enfranchisement. Help us make this nation really free. Tell our government
that it must liberate its people before it can claim free Russia as
an ally.
(10)
Alice Paul,
letter to Doris Stevens (November, 1917)
At
night, in the early morning, all through the day there were cries
and shrieks and moans from the patients. It was terrifying. One particularly
meloncholy moan used to keep up hour after hour with the regularity
of a heart beat. I said to myself, "Now I have to endure this.
I have got to live through this somehow. I pretend these moans are
the noise of an elevated train, beginning faintly in the distance
and getting louder as it comes nearer." Such childish devices
were helpful to me.
(11)
Woodrow
Wilson, speech in Congress reported in the New
York Times (1st October, 1918)
I regard the extension of suffrage
to women as vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the
great war of humanity in which we are engaged. It is my duty to win
the war and to ask you to remove every obstacle that stands in the
way of winning it. They (other nations) are looking to the great,
powerful, famous democracy of the West to lead them to a new day for
which they have long waited; and they think in their logical simplicity
that democracy means that women shall play their part in affairs alongside
men and upon an equal footing with them. I tell you plainly as the
Commander-in-Chief of our armies that this measure is vital to the
winning of the war.
(12)
Crystal Eastman, Now We Can Begin
(December, 1920)
The problem of women's freedom is how to
arrange the world so that women can be human beings, with a chance
to exercise their infinitely varied gifts in infinitely ways, instead
of being destined by the accident of their sex to one field of activity
- housework and child-raising. And second, if and when they choose
housework and child-raising to have that occupation recognized by
the world as work, requiring a definite economic reward and not merely
entitling the performer to be dependent on some man. I can agree that
women will never be great until they achieve a certain emotional freedom,
a strong healthy egotism, and some unpersonal source of joy - that
is this inner sense we cannot make women free by changing her economic
status.
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