1848 “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles . . . “ - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels “The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward women . . . “ - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Key feminist goals, 19th century Right to vote Abolition of “coverture” Legal independence Right to equal education Right to protection against violence within and beyond marriage Voluntary motherhood
Pre-civil war feminists: Susan Anthony, Amelia Bloomer, Elizabeth Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone,
“This hour belongs to the Negro.” Frederick Douglas “Do you believe the African race is composed entirely of males?” Elizabeth Cady Stanton
“Women first and Negro last; that is my program.” George Francis Train
1869 National Woman Suffrage Association; Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony; strategy: work outside the Republican party American Women Suffrage Association; Lucy Stone; strategy: work within the Republican party
“Why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one “Why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one?” – Gloria Steinem, 2008
1900: 5,319,000 women worked for wages 932,000 in clothing or textile mills 2 million women worked as domestic servants
New labor leaders: Leonora O’Reilly (drawn by a friend) and Mary Kenny O’Sullivan
Female voting would disrupt “a natural equilibrium so nicely adjusted to the attributes of both women and men.” – Grover Cleveland Urban reform has failed “because women, the traditional housekeepers, have not been consulted as to its multiform activities.” - Jane Addams
The “non-partisan” women’s voter movement predated women’s federal suffrage and extended in the 1920s NAWSA founded in 1890
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, 1911; above top right: Frances Perkins
White and African American women fought for suffrage, but often separately
Women’s suffrage map
Above: Alice Paul; Women’s suffrage march, Washington, D. C Above: Alice Paul; Women’s suffrage march, Washington, D.C., 1913; picketing the White House, 1917
“It is a risk, a danger to a country like ours to send 1,000,000 men out of the country who are loyal and not replace those men by the loyal values of the women they have left at home.” Carrie Chapman Catt
19th amendment ratified on August 26, 1920