THE FIGHT FOR WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE
American women never would have been given the right to vote if it were not for their active rebellion and relentless protesting. Many people believe that the suffragists were proper and ladylike, politely picketing. In fact, their fight to win the right to vote was often violent. Many people who opposed the suffragists attacked them during their peaceful marches, and the police made no move to stop them. Over one hundred women were sent to jail simply for protesting and faced horrible conditions there, being force-fed and mistreated. The women’s suffrage movement formally started at the Seneca Falls convention, but it was not for another seventy-two years until women finally won the Constitutional right to vote.
The first Women's Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. Run by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, it called for women to have equal rights in education, property, and voting. However, leaders of the movement believed if women had the right to vote, they could use it to gain other rights. Suffrage became the main goal of the women’s movement.
People who were against women’s suffrage opposed it for several reasons. 1) Women are unintelligent, illogical, and unable to make political decisions. Men can better make decisions for his wife than the wife herself. 2) Women are too pure for politics; it would dirty them. 3) Women belong in the home, if they become involved in politics, it would be the end of family life. 4) Women would no longer listen to or obey their husbands and would try to take over the government. 5) Men were supposed to be voting for their whole family, if women voted differently from their husbands, it might break up the family. Supporters of women’s suffrage believed “it is fair and right that those who must obey the laws should have a voice in making them, and that those who must pay taxes should have a vote as to the size of the tax and the way it shall be spent.” (Alice Stone Blackwell).
In 1869, two women’s suffrage organizations were created, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). NWSA was the more radical of the two. Led by Susan B. Anthony, its goal was to give women the Constitutional right to vote. In 1872 Anthony was arrested for trying to vote in the presidential election. At her trial, she made a moving speech that ended with the slogan: “Resistance to Tyranny is Obedience to God.” AMSA was more conservative. Lucy Stone and her husband Henry Blackwell were the leaders. Its goal was to induce individual states to give women the right to vote. In 1890 the two organizations united to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
The Wyoming Territory was the first to give women the right to vote in 1869. Utah followed in 1870. No one really knows why the West gave women the right to vote before the East. Some possibilities are Wyoming had few women, so they were not as much of a threat. The vote also may have been a way of attracting women and their “civilizing” influence to the territory. Women did not win the right to vote in an Eastern state until 1917 in New York.
In the early 1900’s, a new generation of leaders brought a fresh spirit to the movement. Women became more active in the fight for suffrage. Instead of inviting women to sit quietly in large meeting halls, they held outdoor rallies to attract new women to the cause. Carrie Chapman Catt and Maud Wood Parks received much of their support from middle-class women, while Lucy Burns, Alice Paul, and Harriot Stanton Blatch (Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s daughter) appealed to young, radical, working-class women.
Many African American women fought for their voting rights, but they tended to work through their own organizations rather than deal with the racism they encountered in the NAWSA and other white-dominated organizations. Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell were active African American suffragists. In 1913 Wells established the first black women’s suffrage club, called the Alpha Suffrage Club. Terrell organized African American women to join a Washington, D.C. march, although all black participants were asked to march at the rear of the processions.
On March 3, 1913, Alice Paul organized a suffrage parade of 8,000 women to march up Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. Inez Milholland rode at the front on a white horse. As it was the eve of the inauguration of the new president, Woodrow Wilson, Washington D.C. was full of visitors. Bystanders were so enraged they attacked the women, and even some children, marching. The police didn’t stop them.
Alice Paul headed the National Women’s Party (NWP) in 1916, which was modeled on the British suffragist’s movement she had participated in earlier. NWP focused entirely on getting the vote on a federal level. During World War I, the NWP protested outside the White House, using signs to point out the contradiction in fighting to protect democracy abroad but refusing to give women full democracy at home. Woodrow Wilson said he was not against women’s suffrage; he just had “more important” concerns, like the war. Some men thought the protest signs were unpatriotic and attacked the women. The women, not the men, were arrested. About one hundred of the suffragists were sent to jail where several, including Alice Paul, went on hunger strikes and had to be force-fed. All of this made front-page news, and the public was shocked at the women’s horrible treatment. The women were quickly released so the government would not look bad.
A women’s suffrage amendment was first introduced in Congress in 1878. It failed to pass, but was reintroduced in every session of Congress for 40 years. In 1918 the House of Representatives approved the amendment, but the Senate defeated it. In 1919 the Senate finally approved it and sent it to the states for approval. Tennessee was the last state needed to ratify the 19th Amendment. The Tennessee legislators were split half and half. Harry Burn, at twenty-four the youngest representative in the legislature, held the deciding vote. He received a letter from his mother saying, “Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the ‘rat’ in ratification.” He followed his mother’s advice and in 1920 American women finally had the right to vote. The 19th Amendment states: “The rights of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”
It took many years of fighting and protesting for women to gain the right to vote. However, the women’s rights movement was not over. Women still had a lot to fight for, including abortion rights, pay equity, and a guarantee against sex discrimination. Although our society and government have come a long way, women are still not equal. Full-time female workers currently earn, on average, 77 percent of what full-time male workers earn. Women are fortunate that they are now allowed to voice their opinion and have a vote in the decisions of the government. It is a right that every citizen is entitled to, but women only recently received. If it had not been for the courageous, determined suffragists, women would still be voiceless in our society.
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