Women and the Vote

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Women and the Vote

• First Western nation to adopt suffrage
• New Zealand, 1893
• First US state to allow women to vote
• NJ briefly (1776-1807)
• but really Wyoming 1869
• Latest Western nation to adopt suffrage
• Liechtenstein, 1984

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Women and The Vote

• The Story of Womens Suffrage in the Progressive
  Era

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Early Suffrage Movement

• Seneca Falls, 1848
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Susan B. Anthony
• Early work combined suffrage with abolition,
  temperance and other reforms

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Early Suffrage Movement

• 1869 National Woman Suffrage Association
• Suffragists outraged that 14th and 15th
  Amendments ignored women
• 1890 National American Woman Suffrage
  Association (NAWSA)
• Focus on changing state constitutions
• Amendment to US Constitution deemed impossible

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Critical Thinking

• Why would people be opposed to women having the
  right to vote?

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The Anti-Suffragists

• Feared what women would do with vote
• Hysterical nature
• Changing relations at home
• Feared suffrage would lead to full voting rights
  for blacks
• Democrats needed South
• Since many women active in Temperance movement,
  feared alcohol would be banned

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The Vote in the States

• Suffrage movement successful in western states
• Wyoming in 1869
• All but three western states by 1920
• Reasons varied
• Women had more influence in frontier
• Anti-suffragists less organized
• Well-run grassroots campaigns

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Alice Paul

• Born and raised in NJ
• Spent time in UK and witnessed radical
  suffragists
• Began to agitate for change to US Constitution
• National Womens Party (NWP)

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March in Washington, 1913

• Organized by Paul to coincide with Wilsons
  Inauguration
• Women marched up Pennsylvania Avenue
• Onlookers got violent, shouting names and then
  attacking suffragists
• Wonderful publicity for movement

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Critical Thinking

• Alice Paul split with NAWSA over goals and
  tactics. Which approach do you think would be
  more effective?

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National Campaign

• Wilson at first opposed to suffrage
• Women (mostly western voters) influential in his
  re-election campaign in 1916
• Women expect Wilson to embrace suffrage movement

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National Campaign

• Wilson still refuses to endorse suffrage
• US enters Great War in 1917
• Alice Paul turns to more radical tactics
• Pickets
• Silent Sentinels
• Civil disobedience

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National Campaign

• Paul and other suffragettes arrested
• Mistreated in prison
• Paul goes on hunger strike
• Scandal
• Wilson endorses suffrage as necessity of wartime
• 19th Amendment passed in 1920

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Critical Thinking

• Why do you think the suffrage movement was
  ultimately successful?

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Lessons

• Suffrage campaigns well organized and executed
• Experience in western states made suffrage less
  of impossibility
• Effective use of civil disobedience and media
  attention

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