Women's Suffrage
- Women's SuffrageWomen in the United States have endured a long struggle to attain equality in the public sphere. Since the earliest days of the nation's history, women have been denied rights and freedoms that have been enjoyed by many men. Among the most important rights that women were once denied is the right to vote. This has been the case despite the fact that Dolley Madison, the wife of James Madison, the so-called father of the Constitution, cautioned her husband to “remember the ladies” as he and his colleagues drafted the U.S. Constitution in the summer of 1787. However, rather than confront the controversial concept of granting suffrage rights to women in the Constitution, the founders chose instead to allow states to determine for themselves who would be allowed to vote within their borders. The end result was that women were denied the right to vote in the majority of states for most of the first 100 years of the nation's history.
Despite the fact that women lacked the right to vote, by early in the 1800s many American women were becoming actively involved in public affairs, particularly by working to improve the status of disadvantaged groups within society. They organized to address the conditions of child workers, the mentally ill, those who were imprisoned, and slaves, among others. It was as a result of women's participation in the abolition movement, which culminated in the mid-1800s, that women were compelled to address their own political inequality. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton both served as American delegates to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840. However, because they were women, both were denied the opportunity to participate in the proceedings...
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Perspectives
The Women's Suffrage Movement
An intersectional anthology of works by the known and unknown women that shaped and established the suffrage movement, in time for the 2020 centennial of women's right to vote, with a foreword by Gloria Steinem Comprised of historical texts spanning two centuries, The Women's Suffrage Movement is a comprehensive and singular volume with a distinctive focus on incorporating race, class, and gender, and illuminating minority voices. This one-of-a-kind intersectional anthology features the writings of the most well-known suffragists, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, alongside accounts of those often overlooked because of their race, from Native American women to African American suffragists like Ida B. Wells and the three Forten sisters. At a time of enormous political and social upheaval, there could be no more important book than one that recognizes a group of exemplary women--in their own words--as they paved the way for future generations. The editor and introducer, Sally Roesch Wagner, is a pre-eminent scholar of the diverse backbone of the women's suffrage movement, the founding director of the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, and serves on the New York State Women's Suffrage Commission.
The Woman Suffrage Movement in America
This book departs from familiar accounts of high-profile woman suffrage activists whose main concern was a federal constitutional amendment. It tells the story of woman suffrage as one involving the diverse politics of women across the country as well as the incentives of the men with the primary political authority to grant new voting rights - those in state legislatures. Through a mix of qualitative and quantitative evidence, the book explains the success and failures of efforts for woman suffrage provisions in five states and in the U.S. Congress as the result of successful and failed coalitional politics between the suffrage movement and important constituencies of existing male voters, including farmers' organizations, labor unions, and the Populist and Progressive parties.
Women's Suffrage: the Complete Guide to the Nineteenth Amendment
This is the "everything" women's suffrage and 19th Amendment book, coming just as the country celebrates the centenary of the constitutional amendment that finally brought the vote to all American women. Women's Suffrage: The Complete Guide to the Nineteenth Amendment tells the dramatic story of American women's long fight for the vote and passage of the nineteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A veritable library on all things to do with suffrage and the nineteenth amendment, this reference tells the heroic stories of suffragists and brings to life the ideas and deeds of the organizations that made suffrage possible. Along the way, the book delves into less well-known stories, like the experiences of African American women during the fight for suffrage, the role of labor in the suffrage movement, and the special role of Western states in the fight for voting equality. The material analyzes key moments in the suffrage fight. A comprehensive document section brings to life the arguments for and against suffrage. Included among many primary sources are Jane Addams's provocative "If Men Were Seeking the Franchise," Carrie Chapman Catt's "Address to Congress on Women's Suffrage" (1917), pamphlet of 1915, and many more speeches, legislation, and documents of all types. Primary sources that highlight the rhetoric of the women's suffrage movement and more Bountiful biographies of all the women most pertinent to the suffrage movement Reference entries encompass the diverse organizations involved in women's suffrage
The Concise History of Woman Suffrage
Speeches, essays, letters, resolutions and other documents written from 1838 to the 1920 passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, dealing with such issues as slavery, temperance, woman's rights and war reconstruction.
Votes for Women! The Woman suffrage Movement in Tennessee, the South, and the Nation
A unique collection of scholarly essays and primary documents, Votes for Women! brings into sharp focus the suffrage battles of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Not only does the book examine the struggle at the national level but it looks in depth at how the drama played out in the South and in Tennessee, which in 1920 became the pivotal thirty-sixth state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment - thereby making woman suffrage the law of the land.
Online Resources
- Woman SuffrageThe years 2009 and 2010 mark the 140th anniversary of woman suffrage in the United States. Wyoming passed the first woman suffrage law on December 10, 1869, and women voted for the first time in 1870. The word suffrage comes from the Latin word suffragium, meaning the right to vote. Women in the United States had fought for suffrage since the time of Andrew Jackson’s presidency in the 1820s. Before the Civil War, women were allowed limited voting in a few states. New Jersey allowed women to vote before their state’s constitution outlawed it in 1844.
- Woman Suffrage and the 19th AmendmentBeginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change in the Constitution – guaranteeing women the right to vote. Some suffragists used more confrontational tactics such as picketing, silent vigils, and hunger strikes...
- The Women’s Rights Movement, 1848–1917The fight for women’s suffrage in the United States began with the women’s rights movement in the mid-nineteenth century. This reform effort encompassed a broad spectrum of goals before its leaders decided to focus first on securing the vote for women. Women’s suffrage leaders, however, disagreed over strategy and tactics: whether to seek the vote at the federal or state level, whether to offer petitions or pursue litigation, and whether to persuade lawmakers individually or to take to the streets. Both the women’s rights and suffrage movements provided political experience for many of the early women pioneers in Congress, but their internal divisions foreshadowed the persistent disagreements among women in Congress that emerged after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
- Women’s Suffrage and the White HouseThis year marks the centennial of the 19th Amendment, the culmination of the suffragists' fight to secure the right to vote for women. In this episode, White House Historical Association President Stewart McLaurin talks to authors and historians Rebecca Roberts, Elaine Weiss, and Colleen Shogan about the longest social movement in American history, and the story of how suffragists lobbied presidents and became the first protesters to picket at the gates of the White House.
Streaming Media
- The Oratory of Women's SuffrageThis video documentary re-creates the speeches of leading suffragettes whose impassioned words shaped the women’s movement during its inception in the late 19th century.
- The Trial of Susan B. AnthonySusan B. Anthony believed she was a citizen of the United States according to the Fourteenth Amendment and, as such, had the right to vote. But in 1872, the law was not on her side. So when she dropped her ballot into the box at the West End New Depot in Rochester, NY, on Election Day, she was arrested. Learn about the trial that brought nationwide attention to the issue of women’s suffrage.
- Women Making HistoryExplore the struggle for an inclusive role for women in American society. Chart the history of the women's suffrage movement, witness Helen Keller's miraculous story, follow Amelia Earhart's heartbreaking career in the air. and get a glimpse into Julia Child's life as a television pioneer and cultural icon.