1. Equality and Hierarchy: Women’s Experience
L3&L4: The Suffrage Movement
Equality and Hierarchy: Women’s Experience
Agenda
Objective:
To understand…
Why they chose to focus on suffrage as the area to push for inequality.
How women secured the right to vote and how different approaches to this issue reflected larger divisions in the women’s right movement
The implications of the suffrage movement on other social movements.
Schedule:
Lecture and Discussion
Homework:
Unit Work: Prepare for formative discussion on the new woman on L6 (G: Thurs 12/12; Y: Fri 12/13)
Thesis:
Assign #1 Zones Due: L4 (G: Fri 12/6; Y: Mon 12/9)
Assign #2 Topic Due L6 (G: Thurs 12/12; Y: Fri 12/13)

2. The Women’s Suffrage Movement: 1848-1920
In the last two classes we:
Described the system of oppression facing women in the mid-1800s
Identified the two strands of activism working to challenge this system:
Political / Change the System
Moral / Work within the System
Over the next two days we will explore how women’s activism becomes centered on the issue of suffrage (the right to vote) and the process women use to secure that right.

3. Why Suffrage? Prior to the Civil War…
The “political” wing of the women’s activist movement was concerned with agitating for a wide range of social changes for women, of which the vote was just one.
The “moral” wing was largely concerned with issues that did not concern women’s rights directly: education reform, temperance, and prison reform

4. Women’s Rights and Reconstruction
Reconstruction dramatically alters the course of the women’s rights movement:
Some women perceive an opportunity to advocate for suffrage (if you are going to give blacks the right to vote, why not women too)
Others thought this was too radical (if you tried to give both blacks and women the right to vote, neither would get it—just focus
on getting blacks the right to
vote now, and extending suffrage
to women later)

5. Reconstruction Divides Women’s Activism on the Suffrage Question
Women’s Movement United in Goal: Suffrage
Divided (still) in Strategy
National Women’s Suffrage Association
Led by: Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony
Called for immediate, wide-scale, swift change to voting rights in the United States
Sought a Constitutional amendment giving women & blacks the the right to vote
American Woman Suffrage Association
Led by Lucy Stone
Believed the 15th amendment would fail if women’s suffrage was attached to African American suffrage
Sought state amendments to give women the right tot vote

6. Reconstruction Fails To Grant Female Suffrage
In 1870, the 15th Amendment is passed.
Gives black men the right to vote, but not women
Why do you think women’s suffrage was not granted to women?
While did black men get the right to vote but not women? What was so threatening about women voting?

7. What does this cartoon suggest is the “threat” of women’s suffrage?

8. NWSA / Constitutional Strategy / Change the System
Civil Disobedience
Try Voting
Protests
Marches
Run For Office
Get elected to significant political positions and make change from the inside out.
Court Challenges
Appeal to women’s right to vote (and participate in public life in other ways) on the grounds that they were entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment.

9. NWSA / Constitutional Strategy: Bradwell vs. Illinois 1873
Facts:
Myra Bradwell Passed the Illinois law exam, but was denied bar membership by the Supreme Court of Illinois because she was a woman.
Sued the state of Illinois for violating her 14th Amendment rights.
Argument:
The 14th Amendment’s equal protection language defended her right to freely choose an occupation.
Ruling:
The Supreme Court held 7 to 1 that the 14th Amendment did not include the right to practice a profession.
Justice Bradley wrote, “The natural and proper timidity and delicacy which belongs to the female sex evidently unfits it for many of the occupations of civil life…The paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.”

10. NWSA/ Constitutional Strategy: Minor vs. Happersett 1875
Facts:
Virginia Minor turned away from polls in Missouri when she tries to vote.
Her husband, Frances Minor, sued the registrar who denied her application on her behalf (under Missouri law she could not sue on her own).
Argument:
Uses the 14th Amendment to argue that as an American citizen she is entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizenship
Ruling:
The unanimous decision of the US Supreme Court found that women born or naturalized in the United States were indeed American citizens
But, the Supreme Court also found that voting was not one of the "privileges and immunities of citizenship" and therefore states need not grant voting rights or suffrage to women.

11. AWSA/ State Level Strategy / Work Within the System
Publish magazines
Work within states to change voting laws as well as other laws around gender inequality
Idea was to start small!

12. AWSA Achieves Some Success
Marriage laws that legally disabled women were slowly uplifted
Women could practice law and medicine in several states
In 1869 Wyoming is organized as a territory with a provision to grant women the right to vote upon statehood.

13. The NWSA and AWSA Merge in the 1890s
In 1890 the NWSA and AWSA merge to create the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
Lucy Stone became chairman and Elizabeth Cady Stanton served as the first president.
Adopt a 2 part vision
Adopt a 3 part strategy

14. Frame the right to vote as…
NAWSA: Vision
Stick only to the issue of voting – don’t agitate for more radical forms of gender equality like the right to divorce
Frame the right to vote as…

15. Framing Suffrage
Take a look at the following political cartoons, how is the NAWSA framing the right to vote?

18. The NAWSA Argument for Woman Suffrage
Voting is an extension of women’s place in the domestic sphere, not a challenge to it!
The nation needed women voters because of their special moral leadership!
Blanche Ames, Two Good Votes Are Better Than One, Woman’s Journal (October, 1915)

19. NAWSA: Strategy Convince states to support suffrage amendments
Convince the national government to support suffrage amendments
Continue to use court cases to challenge women’s lack of voting rights

20. The Anti-Suffrage Movement
As the Women’s Suffrage Movement grew in prominence, it sparked a wave of Anti-Suffrage Movements and advocates.
The following political cartoons were published opposing women’s suffrage.
For each cartoon, write down the justification given for why women should not be able to vote.

24. Women were also Anti-Suffragists
Not all women supported the suffrage movement, in fact many opposed it.
Why do you think some women would oppose movements for gender equality?

25. State by State Success for Suffrage
The NAWSA pushed forward with both a state-level and national-level strategy for securing suffrage.
National Level: Presented a woman-suffrage amendment to the Congress, but failed (repeatedly)
State Level: Ultimately the NAWSA starts to put into effect a successful state by state strategy for securing the right to vote. This process was very slow and frustrating, however.

26. State by State Success for Suffrage
Consider the following map:
Which part of the United States (geographically) first allowed women the rights to vote?
Which states were last to give women the right to vote?
Is this surprising? Why or why not?
Read the section above the map:
How did states impact each other in granting women suffrage?

28. World War One Slows Down, But Advances, the Push for Suffrage
WWI slows down the suffrage campaign as some suffragists decide to shelve their activism in favor of “war work.”
In the long run, however, this decision proves to be a wise one as it adds another reason to why women deserve the right to vote.

29. The 19th Amendment 1920
Gradually, as more and more states granted women the right to vote it seemed culturally impossible for there not to be a woman’s suffrage amendment.
What does this mean?
In 1920 women are granted the right to vote.

30. 19th Amendment, August 20, 1920

31. The Success of the Women’s Suffrage Movement?
Was the suffrage movement successful?
Why do you think the process of granting the right to vote for women was achieved through gradual state-by-state change, culminating with an amendment.
What is the lesson for social movements more broadly?
In particular, how is the women’s suffrage movement similar to the gay marriage movement and the marijuana legalization movement?