Woman Suffrage

Picture of how passionate woman were about voting at this
time in history.
http://stylelikeu.com/contributors/our-muses/lets-get-political/

Marina Egbaria
2/23/15
Woman Suffrage


The Progressive Era was a time of innovation, communication, persuasion, and collaboration. The Progressive Era was the era of business and/or innovation of current social, political, and economic issues at the time. Progressives during this 20th century reform strived to make the American society one in which people enjoyed to live in. In addition, many progressives worked to clean up corrupt cities, improve dangerous working conditions, improve the living conditions in the slums, etc. I chose to do my project on Women’s Suffrage, because this topic brought a spark to my eye and I’m very passionate about it. Throughout my research I kept getting more intrigued on how hard abolitionists and women’s rights activists strived for universal suffrage. They fought for political equality for over half the United States. Women’s suffrage was the biggest reform in all of the Progressive Era and the largest in American history. 

Women had only a few legal, economic, and political rights at this time in history. American women were not allowed to vote and there was no exception to this. Any item that a women brought into a marriage automatically fell under the husbands control and married woman who had a wage had no right to keep it. No women were allowed into universities and no women received a full education. The first ever attempt to recognize women’s rights was on February 21, 1838 by Angelina Grimke. She was the first woman ever to stand in front of a legislative body and deliver a speech. Her and her sister were the early leaders of the Abolitionist Movement. A part of her speech that caught the eyes of many politicians in the attendance was, “Are we aliens because we are women? Are we bereft of citizenship because we are mothers, wives and daughters of a mighty people? Have women no country—no interests staked in public weal—no liabilities in common peril—no partnership in a nation’s guilt and shame?”  This left many people in the crowd (who were all men) speechless. She focused her speech on the pain that all American women have endured for their whole lives and she wanted to make a difference.  Her whole speech was very inspirational and another purpose was to expose her anger over the past years of how women were never equal. She wanted to end that. Her speech was the first time ever in history where women’s power in the world was acknowledged. 

Another woman suffragist was Susan B. Anthony, who worked very hard to have support for women’s suffrage become a part of both the Republican and Democratic parties. Rather than collect signatures for a petition Anthony would ask women from all across the country to send postcards to show the evidence that they wanted to vote. Many women felt that these postcards were too small, so they sent long personal letters explicating their passion to vote and to be equal. Many American women at this time were not allowed to vote, serve as jurors, hold political offices, or even attend college. Women were known as the “weaker vessel”.  They were also seen as morally, mentally, and physically inferior to men. Women at this time were subject to men authority. Within the family and society men were the head of everything and women were expected to be obedient. Women were expected to be the wives and the mothers, women who violated the boundaries of acceptable behavior were punished. 

Two women apart of the National Suffrage Association.
http://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/his1005spring2011/tag/susan-b-anthony/

The National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1890 represented the start of a truly nationwide women’s rights movement. This group reunited  two groups of the women’s suffrage movements that had parted ways in 1869. The National Woman Suffrage Association was the more radical of the two founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony. National Woman Suffrage Association was the more conservative of the two founded by Lucy Stone in Cleveland, Ohio. Stanton was the associations first president. The tensions between the two groups did not dissolve easily. The NAWSA’s leadership battled based off of two things: whether to campaign for women’s suffrage on the state, or the national level. Anthony hoped to broaden the organizations appeal to southern women in particular. She also decided to restrict the organization of women's rights not including a stance on civil rights for African Americans. This decision outraged many African American coworkers. However, she was determined to gain support for the women’s suffrage movement by any means possible. 

Many states began to grant woman the right to vote and to be equal. In 1913, Illinois became the first state east of Mississippi to embrace woman suffrage. In 1917, New York and Michigan granted woman the right to vote. By 1919, 39 states granted women the right to vote in some elections, 15 other states had allowed full participation. Then, finally by 1920 the 19th amendment was ratified. The 19th amendment granted total political rights to all women throughout the country. However, American suffragist Alice Paul felt as if the 19th amendment was not enough to secure women’s rights. She believed that women deserved a constitutional amendment that would protect them all the time, providing clear, legal protection for their rights and all other political rights. This ended up getting vetoed by many women and the government.

Overall, the woman suffrage movement was one of the most beneficial and important reforms during the Progressive Era. It changed the world in a dramatic way by giving woman equal political rights as men. Women have all the rights they do now in today's world because of the Women's Suffrage movement. 

Letter written by Susan B. Anthony.
http://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/his1005spring2011/tag/womens-suffrage/

Poster advertising one of the American
Women Suffrage Association meetings to the public.
http://library.uoregon.edu/ec/exhibits/feminist-voices/awsa.html

Some suffragists holding up a banner
with one of Susan B. Anthony's
most influential quote.
http://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/his1000summer2011/2011/06/29/19th-amendment-and-womens-right-to-vote/

Citations:

-Frost-Knappman, Elizabeth, and Kathryn Cullen-DuPont. "10. United Once More: 1880-1892." Women's Suffrage in America: An Eyewitness History. New York: Facts on File, 1992. 239+. Print.

This book helped me a lot while writing my essay, I obtained a majority of my information from the facts in this book. It has many primary sources of Susan B. Anthony which also helped me a lot. 

-Emma Goldman's Anarchism and Other Essays. Second Revised Edition. 

New York & London: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1911. pp. 201-217
This source gave me a better idea of what actually happened during the woman suffrage movement and helped me by giving me specific facts about the era. 

-Brinkley, Alan. McGraw Hill. 20th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Print.Our textbook helped me throughout my project by giving me very broad facts about the woman suffrage movement which was very helpful to me while writing my essay.

-Haugen, David M., ed. Women's Suffrage. Ed. Brenda Stalcup. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2000. N. pag. Print. Ser. 2.
This source helped me as much as the other book I have cited here. This gave me many quotations from Anthony that strengthened my paper on this topic. This source was very useful because it was very specific about certain events in history. 
-"Letter to the Editor 1 -- No Title." - View Article. New York Times, 05 May 1912. Web. 23 Feb. 2015. <http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=940DE6DC153CE633A25756C0A9639C946396D6CF>.
This newspaper article from the new york times gave me a good primary source of the woman suffragist at the time writing a letter to the editor. 
-"American Woman Suffrage Association." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2015. Web. 23 Feb. 2015.

Although this was a short article, it gave me a general sense of what happened with the American Women Suffrage Association.