I. Suffrage
Elizabeth Cady Stanton launched the American suffrage movement in 1848 at Seneca Falls, NY, when she organized a convention to “discuss the Civil and Political Rights of Women.” Speakers adopted a call for suffrage and local initiatives soon followed although the Civil War slowed such activism. Denied the vote when the 15th Amendment to the Constitution was adopted in 1870 to enfranchise African American men, the suffrage crusade nonetheless took on new life and energy. For the next 50 years women campaigned for the vote. They organized locally and by state, d through the National American Woman Suffrage Association and other groups, and had their first successes in western states. Women mobilized through public meetings, parades, demonstrations, and the mass media of the time: newspapers and posters. Former President Theodore Roosevelt supported suffrage by 1912, and President Woodrow Wilson did too in the 1916 Democratic platform. His daughter was a suffragist and he fully endorsed the cause after demonstrations at the White House led to arrests, jail, and hunger strikes in 1917. The next year he asked Congress to take up a constitutional amendment: “We have made partners of the women in this war… Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right?” But it would not be until June 4, 1919 that Congress voted to send the 19th Amendment to the states for ratification. It became law the next year, allowing all American women to vote for the first time in the presidential election of 1920.
EXHIBITS
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and several other women from Quaker circles, published a “Declaration of Sentiments” on July 14th in the Seneca County Courier. It was accompanied by an invitation to attend a convention to discuss women’s rights. Held in the Finger Lakes village of Seneca Falls at the Wesleyan Chapel, it drew about 300 men and women. A number of them were, like Mott, Stanton, and former slave Frederick Douglass, abolitionists whose desire for freedom and equal rights for enslaved African Americans also inspired them to seek rights for women. At the close of the convention, 68 women and 32 men signed the “Declaration of Sentiments.” Stanton, the primary author, modeled this call on the Declaration of Independence, opening with: We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. After a lengthy list of rights and activities that excluded women, Stanton called for enfranchisement and laid out the strategies that would be pursued over the next 72 years until all American women gained the right to vote in 1920. The Convention adopted this resolution on July 20th: That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions and commerce. Until her death in 1902, Stanton would remain one of the leaders of the suffrage movement in America. Joined by other stalwarts like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Chapman Catt, Sojourner Truth, Alice Paul, Lucy Stone, and Ida B. Wells, she also lent her name to numerous progressive causes to improve the lives of women. Frederick Douglass printed the report of the Convention in Rochester where he published his antislavery newspaper, The North Star (fd. 1847). The expansive motto of the paper embraced all men and women: Right is of no sex—Truth is of no color—God is the Father of us all, and we are brethren.
![Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, et al. The First Convention Ever Called to Discuss the Civil and Political Rights of Women. Woman’s Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, N.Y., July 19th & 20th, 1848. [Originally published Seneca County Courier, July 14, 1848] (DC)](https://i0.wp.com/rhppi.org/womentakethelead/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/seneca.jpg?resize=433%2C683 "seneca")
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Susan B. Anthony met Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1851 and their ensuing friendship and devotion to advancing women’s suffrage would propel the movement for 50 years. Schuyler Colfax was not only a supporter of women’s suffrage, as was his wife, but also Speaker of the House of Representatives in 1867 (and elected Vice President in 1868). Anthony asked him to send a letter in support of voting rights to the New York State Constitutional Convention in Albany scheduled for November 1897. Not long after she asked him to arrange for an address to Congress: Will you ask the Honorable Body over which you preside, to grant the use of the House of Representatives for some day early in January, for Mr. Train, Mrs. Stanton and Anthony to present the questions of woman’s enfranchisement and educated suffrage. Train was George Francis Train, a successful businessman, suffragist, and first financial backer of The Revolution, the newspaper that Stanton and Anthony published from January 1868 to February 1872. The paper promoted suffrage as reporting on a wide range of topics pertaining to women’s rights, employment, and politics, and its editorial stance was: Principle, not Policy. Justice, not Favors. Men, their Rights, and Nothing More. Women, Their Rights and Nothing Less. It would prove to be the forerunner of a number of publications dedicated to advancing the cause of women. The “Steinway Hall” brochure that accompanied her December letter reported on various meetings and announced the start of publication of The Revolution at the modest cost of $2.00 a year (about $33.00 in 2016).
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The American suffrage movement was a big tent in the 19th century and included many colorful characters. Victoria Woodhull and her younger sister Tennessee Claflin arrived in New York City in 1868 to plant the Flag of women’s rebellion in the center of the continent. Through their skills as mediums they befriended Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. His financial backing enabled them become the first female stockbrokers in 1870 near the New York Stock Exchange where they attracted many female clients. Their success emboldened them to start a newspaper. It included news of business, European affairs, and topics of the day such as the tensions between labor and capital, and the first English version of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. Although these were radical for the time, they were tame compared with the articles inside the newspaper endorsing free love (freedom to marry or divorce or live without marriage), suffrage, sexual education, and equality for women.
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In 1871 Victoria spoke before the House Judiciary Committee and argued that the Constitution did not deny women the right to vote, that it was guaranteed by the 14th and 15th amendments. In 1872 she ran for President as the candidate for the Equal Rights Party (which she had founded with her sister) asking Frederick Douglass to be her Vice Presidential candidate (which he declined) opposing General Ulysses S. Grant, and lost. The same year she caused a huge controversy in publishing the news of Henry Ward Beecher’s adultery and portrayed him as a hypocrite for preaching against free love. She was arrested for obscenity in publishing this material. Victoria always looked at the big picture. In 1871 she had published The origin, tendencies and principles of government: or, A review of the rise and fall of nations from early historic times to the present; with special considerations regarding the future of the United States as the representative government of the world and the form of administration which will secure this consummation. In it she argued, as she had in an earlier letter to Mr. Cole, that the United States must necessarily be the central power when it is attained. She and her sister retreated to England in 1877 where they married well.
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Belva A. Lockwood was a teacher and school principal before she became a lawyer. Overcoming many barriers before admitted to practice strengthened her resolve to improve the legal and social status of women. She sought legislation to change women’s second class status in pay, professional work, and domestic life. Due to her efforts Congress passed a law in 1879 allowing female attorneys to practice in the federal court system. Lockwood then became the first woman to be admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court bar and in 1880 the first woman to argue before the court. In 1884 she agreed to be the candidate for President of the National Equal Rights Party; she would run again in 1888. In responding to a letter from William J. Bok, she reflects on why she agreed to be the candidate. Bok was a partner in a thriving literary agency with his younger brother, Edward W. Bok, later the innovative editor of the Ladies Home Journal who modernized the magazine, expanded its circulation, and advocated for many progressive causes but did not support women’s suffrage. Lockwood writes here about why the NERP decided to nominate her: … it was not from any fanatical zeal, or lack of knowledge of the real political situation of the country on the part of the nominees; but to test the Constitutional right of a woman to be nominated and elected to that supreme office. … to find a woman brave enough to meet the ordeal….The test was made, and the legal and political aspect of the woman question discussed not only by pulpit, press and forum, but in every palace and hovel from ….to the ‘Golden Gate’ and from the ‘Lakes’ to the ‘Gulf.’ It may have been the amusing side of the campaign, but it was an educator and civilizer, and a dense forest of ignorance has been blazed for a coming woman president. I am not anxious to know at this stage that that woman will be, but believe it not only possibly but probable in the future of this country.
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To have their cause taken seriously, most American suffragettes portrayed themselves as respectable, serious, and earnest women who sought equality to better the lives of all men and women and all families. Yet there was humor too among the campaigns. In the Suffragette Primer the author sets forth the concisely and with scrupulous regard for the truth, those details deemed of first importance on the great subject of politics. She takes the reader from A for Anti-Suffragette, With Politics she does not fret , to B for Ballot, C for Caucus and then finally to Z for Zounds … used effectively at times, preferably when no ‘Lady Suffragettes’ are present.
In Mother Goose all the familiar children’s nursery rhymes are turned to support the vote for women and show the inequities of inequality. One sample: Jack and Jill, Have equal will, And equal strength and mind, But when it comes to equal rights, Poor Jill trails far behind.
Download a PDF of Mother Goose.
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In 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst co-founded the Women’s Social and Political Union with her two daughters, Sylvia and Christabel. Members became known as suffragettes and mixed peaceful and militant activities to advance the cause in Britain. Emmeline was arrested, tried, and sentenced a number of times between 1907 and 1914 for riot, assault, and conspiracy. While in prison she went on a hunger strike and like others for the cause was force fed. Sylvia’s complaint lists “Inciting public to commit crime” and “summonses for damages.” Annie Pollard, an American journalist and suffragette, penned a very different portrait of Emmeline: Those who go to hear this famous Englishwoman, will see a dainty, well-dressed and very feminine looking lady of some fifty years young, with a quiet, forceful, well-bred manner, a delightfully clear and pure enunciation, a keen wit, and a wonderful power of holding her audience. They will find it difficult to connect this well-educated and cultured gentlewoman with riotous street scenes and assaults on the guardians of law and order. In 1913, Emmeline traveled to the US to raise funds. Among her stops was Hartford, Connecticut, where at a meeting arranged by Katharine Hepburn’s mother, a suffrage activist, she delivered her famous speech “Freedom or death.” She told her audience I am here as a soldier who has temporarily left the field of battle in order to explain …what civil war is like when civil war is waged by women. I am not only here as a soldier temporarily absent from the field at battle; I am here …. as a person who, according to the law courts of my country, it has been decided, is of no value to the community at all: and I am adjudged because of my life to be a dangerous person, under sentence of penal servitude in a convict prison.” And Pankhurst concluded by reminding her listeners “If we win it, this hardest of all fights, then, to be sure, in the future it is going to be made easier for women all over the world to win their fight when their time comes.” England granted married women over age 30 the right to vote in 1918 and all British women gained the franchise in 1928.
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