1918 Autograph Signed Letter Suffragette Feminist - Inez Haynes Gillmore Irwin

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Seller: dalebooks ✉️ (8,797) 100%, Location: Rochester, New York, US, Ships to: WORLDWIDE & many other countries, Item: 265522837386 1918 Autograph Signed Letter Suffragette Feminist - Inez Haynes Gillmore Irwin .
RARE Autograph Letter Signed
 
 
 
Inez Haynes Irwin (Gillmore) Suffragette, Feminist, Author Recently Discovered  1918
 
  FOR OFFER - a rare original handwritten letter - fresh from a local estate in Upstate NY. Never offered on the market until now. Original, vintage, old, antique - NOT a reproduction - guaranteed!   Interesting 3 page letter just before women achieved the right to vote. Autograph letter signed ( ALS ) by this important American political figure. Her mother was a well known suffragette as well. Written from Washington, D.C., she talks about returning from St. Paul where she attended the Convention of the A F of L, talks about her husband, about wanting WWI to end and mentioned a Mrs Nelson in Minneapolis, "such a handsome creature" and "would have liked to see more of her." Interesting to note that she was bisexual ( straight, lesbian / gay). In good to very good condition. Fold marks, a crease, light browning in one area. Please see photos. If you collect American history, Americana, literature, 19th / 20th century women's rights, etc., this is a nice piece for your collection. A great addition to any paper or ephemera collection. Combine shipping on multiple bid wins. 1892
nez Haynes Irwin (March 2, 1873 – September 25, 1970) was an American feminist author, journalist, member of the National Women's Party, and president of the Authors Guild.[2] Many of her works were published under her former name Inez Haynes Gillmore. She wrote over 40 books and was active in the suffragist movement in the early 1900s. Irwin was a "rebellious and daring woman",[2] but referred to herself as "the most timid of created beings".[3] She died at the age of 97.[4] Irwin was a close friend of the American feminist writer Mary MacLane, who included a colorful personality portrait of Irwin in her newspaper articles in Butte, Montana, in 1910. Early years and education Inez Haynes was born on March 2, 1873, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Gideon Haynes and Emma Jane Hopkins Haynes.[5] Her parents were from Boston in the United States, but were staying in Brazil because of her father's business problems. Her mother, her father's second wife, was 24 years younger than him, and had to raise a family of 17 children (10 of whom were her own).[2] The family returned to Boston where Inez Haynes grew up. She attended four public schools, and then Radcliffe College between 1897 and 1900. At the time Radcliffe was a "center of suffragist sentiment",[6] and Inez Haynes and Maud Wood Park founded the College Equal Suffrage League, which later became the National College Equal Suffrage League.[6] Career In August 1897, Inez Haynes married Rufus H. Gillmore, a newspaper editor, and assumed the name Inez Haynes Gillmore. The Gillmores visited pre-War Europe where she met Russian revolutionaries and French impressionist painters.[2] While her husband supported her feminism, they later divorced. She published her first novel, June Jeopardy in 1908 and soon after became fiction editor of The Masses, a left-wing monthly magazine. In January 1916, she married writer William Henry Irwin, and her name changed to Inez Haynes Irwin, although she continued publishing under her former name, Inez Haynes Gillmore. The Irwins summered in Scituate, Massachusetts, during the early 1900s.[7] During World War I the Irwins lived in Europe where she worked as a war correspondent in England, France and Italy.[2] Inez Haynes estimated that between 500,000 and 750,000 women were killed in the war.[8] William Henry died in 1948 and she moved to Scituate, Massachusetts, where she remained until her death at the age of 97 on September 25, 1970.[4][5] Inez Haynes was a feminist leader and a political activist. She was a member of the National Advisory Council of the National Women's Party,[9] and wrote the Party's biography, The Story of the Woman's Party, in 1921. She also wrote a history of American women, Angels and Amazons: A Hundred Years of American Women (1933).[6] Writing career Apart from the non-fiction works noted above, she published over 30 novels, including Angel Island (1914), a "radical feminist Swiftian fantasy" about a group of men stranded on an island occupied by winged women.[10][11] Angel Island was republished in 1988 as a "classic of early feminist literature" with an introduction by science fiction and fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin.[11] Her fiction often addressed feminist issues and the plight of women, including divorce, single parenthood and problems in the workplace.[9] Her 15-book "Maida" series of children's books was written over a period of 45 years, and tells the story of a school girl whose mother has died and whose father is very wealthy.[9] She also wrote short stories for magazines, one of which, "The Spring Flight," won her the O. Henry Memorial Prize in 1924. Associations Author's Guild of America, vice-President, 1930–1931; president, 1931–1933 National Collegiate Equal Suffrage League, co-founder Chairman of board of directors of the World Center for Women's Archives, 1936–1938/1940. Member of American committee of Prix Femina, 1931–1933 Source: Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy and Utopia[5] Awards O. Henry Award, 1924 – for her short story, "The Spring Flight" Source: Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy and Utopia[5] Selected works Novels Angel Island was reprinted in the February 1949 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries June Jeopardy, Huebsch, 1908 Phoebe and Ernest, Holt, 1910 – illustrated by R. F. Schabelitz Janey: being the record of a short interval in the journey through life and the struggle with society of a little girl of nine, Holt, 1911 Phoebe, Ernest, and Cupid, Holt, 1912 – illustrated by R. F. Schabelitz Angel Island, Holt, 1914 – reprinted, Arno, 1978; new edition, NAL Plume, 1988 with an introduction by Ursula K. Le Guin The Ollivant Orphans, Holt 1915 The Lady of Kingdoms, George H. Doran, 1917 The Happy Years, Holt, 1919 Out of the Air, Harcourt, 1921 The Lost Diana (novella), Everybody's Magazine, June 1923 Discarded, serialized in The American Magazine, May–November 1925 Gertrude Haviland's Divorce, Harper, 1925 Gideon, Harper, 1927 P.D.F.R.: A New Novel, Harper, 1928 Family Circle, Bobbs-Merrill, 1931 Youth Must Laugh, Bobbs-Merrill, 1932 Strange Harvest, Bobbs-Merrill, 1934 Murder Masquerade, H. Smith & R. Haas, 1935 Little Miss Redhead, Lothrop, 1936 – self-illustrated The Poison Cross Mystery, H. Smith & R. Haas, 1936 A Body Rolled Downstairs, Random House, 1938 Many Murders, Random House, 1941 The Women Swore Revenge, Random House, 1946 The Maida books Maida's Little Shop, Grosset & Dunlap, 1909 Maida's Little House, Grosset & Dunlap, 1921 Maida's Little School, Grosset & Dunlap, 1926 Maida's Little Island, Grosset & Dunlap, 1939 Maida's Little Camp, Grosset & Dunlap, 1940 Maida's Little Village, Grosset & Dunlap, 1942 Maida's Little Houseboat, Grosset & Dunlap, 1943 Maida's Little Theater, Grosset & Dunlap, 1946 Maida's Little Cabins, Grosset & Dunlap, 1947 Maida's Little Zoo, Grosset & Dunlap, 1949 Maida's Little Lighthouse, Grosset & Dunlap, 1951 Maida's Little Hospital, Grosset & Dunlap, 1952 Maida's Little Farm, Grosset & Dunlap, 1953 Maida's Little House Party, Grosset & Dunlap, 1954 Maida's Little Treasure Hunt, Grosset & Dunlap, 1955 Short stories "The Father of His Son", Everybody's Magazine, July 1904 "A Doorstep Introduction", Pearson's Magazine, November 1904 "Love Me, Love My Dog", Pearson's Magazine, November 1904 "The Start", Everybody's Magazine, December 1904 "The Matchbreakers", Hampton's Broadway Magazine, November 1908 "The Eternal Challenge", Everybody's Magazine, January 1912 "With Pitfall and With Gin", Pictorial Review, February 1912 "The Woman Across the Street", Ladies' Home Journal, September 1916 "The Sixth Canvassar", The Century, January 1916 "The Last Cartridge", McCall's, October 1922 "The Spring Flight", McCall's, June 1924 – winner of the 1924 O. Henry Memorial Prize "The Irish Language", Everybody's Magazine, July 1925 Non-fiction The Californiacs, A. M. Robertson, 1916 – a travel book about California The Native Son, A. M. Robertson, 1919 – a book on California The Story of the Women's Party, Harcourt, 1921; published as Up Hill With Banners Flying, Traversity Press, 1964 – a biography of the National Women's Party's and a history of the suffragists Angels and Amazons: A Hundred Years of American Women, Doubleday, 1933 – a collection of biographical sketches Good Manners for Girls, Appleton-Century, 1937 "You Bet I Am!" (article), Woman's Day, October 1938 Adventures of Yesterday, General Microfilm, 1973 – an autobiography Source: Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy and Utopia[5] Lorenza Haynes (April 15, 1820 – June 6, 1899) was an American librarian, minister, school founder, suffragist, and writer. Hayne began early career as a teacher, working at schools in Lonsdale, Rhode Island, as well as Leicester and Lowell, Massachusetts. In 1854, she opened a private school in Rochester, New York, and in 1856-60, was principal of a young women's seminary there. Impaired health forced a retirement of four years, after which she served six years as the first librarian of the Waltham, Massachusetts Public Library.[1] During this period, she became intimate with the Rev. Olympia Brown and Mary A. Livermore. In 1872, after retiring from the library, she entered St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York, and before completing the course there, was called to the pastorate of the Universalist Church in Hallowell, Maine. She delivered her first sermon as pastor on July 26, 1874. While occupying this place, she officiated as chaplain in the House of Representatives and also in the Senate, in Augusta, Maine; this was the first instance of a woman acting in that capacity in that State. She also served as chaplain of the Soldier's Home at Togus.[2] In 1876, she went to the Marlboro, Massachusetts Church, and afterward, she held pastorates in Fairfield, Maine, Skowhegan, Maine, Rockport, Massachusetts, and Pigeon Cove, Massachusetts.[3] Haynes, Phebe Ann Coffin Hanaford, Mary H. Graves were the first Massachusetts women to become ordained Christian ministers. Early years and education Lorenza Haynes was born in Waltham, Massachusetts, April 15, 1820.[4] She was the youngest of her eight siblings, their parents being Annie (Carr) and Sudbury, Massachusetts-born Gideon Haynes.[5] She was a direct descendant on the paternal side of Walter Haynes, who came from England with his family in 1658. The next year, he bought of Cato, a Native American, for the sum of five pounds, a tract of land, now the town of Sudbury, Massachusetts. Haynes is of the seventh generation, all of whom, including her father's family, except herself, were born in Sudbury. The maternal side is descended from the Scotch.[6] From childhood, Haynes showed an unusual interest in books, and, born in a town which had a library and an annual course of lectures, she became a constant reader and student. Haynes passed through the grades of the public schools, and then attended the Waltham Academy of Louis Smith. She taught one of the public schools in her native town for nearly two years, but love of study was so strong that she went for a time to the academy in Leicester, Massachusetts.[6] Career Educator After her time at the Leicester academy, she taught a public school for six years in the city of Lowell, Massachusetts and there made the acquaintance of Margaret Foley, a cameo cutter. Then began a friendship which continued for nearly thirty years and ended only when Foley died, she having become an eminent sculptor in Rome. Haynes afterwards held the position of lady principal in the Academy in Chester, New Hampshire. She subsequently established a young ladies' seminary in Rochester, New York. After four years, she was compelled to return to her home for some rest.[6] Librarian Passing through many years of invalidism, she then accepted the position of librarian of the Waltham Public Library which Waltham was to establish in the second story of the Waltham Bank Building,[7] Having entire charge of the cataloguing and work of organizing the library, she was said to have performed an incredible amount of work, for which the salary was hardly fitting.[8] After six-and-a-half years of service, she resigned her office in order to enter the Universalist Theological school of St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York. Frequently, while librarian, she worked as a lecturer. [6] Lorenza Haynes Universalist minister For a year before leaving the library, she read and studied under the direction of Rev. Olympia Brown, who wished her at once to take charge of a parish which was open to her. Haynes was not willing to enter the work less equipped theologically than young men graduates. In her day, she was the oldest woman who ever studied in Canton Theological School.[9] Two months before her course of study was finished in Canton, she received a call from the Universalist Church in Hallowell, Maine, to become its pastor when she left Canton. Though she had never preached before the society, she accepted the call, and was there ordained on February 10, 1875. She officiated as chaplain in the House of Representatives and also in the Senate, in Augusta, Maine. This was the first instance of a woman acting in that capacity in that State. She was chaplain for two terms in the National Soldiers' Home near Augusta, the first woman who had filled that place, and had an invitation for a third term, when she resigned her pastorate in Hallowell for one in Marlborough, Massachusetts.[10][4] While preaching in the latter place, she was invited by Post 43, Grand Army of the Republic, to make some remarks in the exercises of Memorial Day, 1876. The following year, she was unanimously invited to deliver the oration of the day. It was the first time a woman in Massachusetts had filled that position. Haynes provided services over parishes in Fairfield, Maine, Rockport, Massachusetts, and Skowhegan, Maine. She often found her labors exceedingly arduous, especially during Maine winters, preaching sometimes in two or three places the same day. She rode 10–12 miles (16–19 km) in an open sleigh, with the mercury below 0°F, to officiate at a funeral. She left her parish in Fairfield, in 1883, for a European tour. She was from its organization a member and first vice-president of the Woman's Ministerial Conference. [10] Haynes worked in various reformatory societies. She was always a woman suffragist. She often spoke upon platforms and before legislative committees in the State Houses of Massachusetts and Maine.[10] For many years, she wrote for various periodicals.[9] Personal life In 1889, she was obliged to leave her last pastorate, which was in Skowhegan, on account of over-worked eyes. Having previously bought herself a home in Waltham, close to the family homestead, where her only sister resided, she went to live there permanently in July, 1889.[10] Gradually failing in health, she died June 6, 1899, in Waltham.[4] Her niece, Inez Haynes Irwin, was an American feminist author, journalist, and president of the Authors Guild.[11] Women's suffrage (colloquial: female suffrage, woman suffrage, or women's right to vote) is the right of women to vote in elections; a person who advocates the extension of suffrage, particularly to women, is called a suffragist.[1] Limited voting rights were gained by women in Finland, Iceland, Sweden and some Australian colonies and western U.S. states in the late 19th century.[2] National and international organizations formed to coordinate efforts to gain voting rights, especially the International Woman Suffrage Alliance (founded in 1904, Berlin, Germany), and also worked for equal civil rights for women.[3] In 1881, the Isle of Man gave women who owned property the right to vote. In 1893, the British colony of New Zealand granted women the right to vote.[4] The colony of South Australia did the same in 1894 and all women were able to vote in the next election, which was held in 1896.[5] South Australia also permitted women of any race to stand for election alongside men, and was the first in the world to allow women to stand for election.[6] In 1899 Western Australia enacted full women's suffrage, enabling women to vote in the constitutional referendum of 31 July 1900 and the 1901 state and federal elections.[7] In 1902 women in the remaining four colonies also acquired the right to vote and stand in federal elections after the six Australian colonies federated to become the Commonwealth of Australia. Discriminatory restrictions against Aboriginal people, including women, voting in national elections, were not completely removed until 1962.[8][9][10] The first European country to introduce women's suffrage was the Grand Duchy of Finland, then part of the Russian Empire, which elected the world's first women Members of Parliament in the 1907 parliamentary elections. Norway followed, granting full women's suffrage in 1913. Denmark followed in 1915, and Russian Provisional Government in 1917.[11] Most independent countries enacted women's suffrage in the interwar era, including Canada in 1917, Britain (over 30 in 1918, over 21 in 1928), Germany, Poland in 1918, Austria and the Netherlands in 1919, and the United States in 1920 (Voting Rights Act of 1965 secured voting rights for racial minorities). Leslie Hume argues that the First World War changed the popular mood: The women's contribution to the war effort challenged the notion of women's physical and mental inferiority and made it more difficult to maintain that women were, both by constitution and temperament, unfit to vote. If women could work in munitions factories, it seemed both ungrateful and illogical to deny them a place in the polling booth. But the vote was much more than simply a reward for war work; the point was that women's participation in the war helped to dispel the fears that surrounded women's entry into the public arena.[12] Late adopters in Europe were Spain in 1933, France in 1944, Italy in 1946, Greece in 1952,[13] San Marino in 1959, Monaco in 1962,[14] Andorra in 1970,[15] Switzerland in 1971 at federal level,[16] and at local canton level between 1959 in the cantons of Vaud and Neuchâtel and 1991 in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden,[17] and Liechtenstein in 1984.[18] In addition, although women in Portugal obtained suffrage in 1931, this was with stronger restrictions than those of men; full gender equality in voting was only granted in 1976.[14][19] The United States gave women equal voting rights in all states with the Nineteenth Amendment ratified in 1920. Brazil implemented full voting rights for women in 1932. Canada and some Latin American nations passed women's suffrage before World War II while the vast majority of Latin American nations established women's suffrage in the 1940s, with the exception of Uruguay in 1917 (see table in Summary below). The last Latin American country to give women the right to vote was Paraguay in 1961.[20][21] In December 2015, women were first allowed to vote in Saudi Arabia (municipal elections).[22] Extended political campaigns by women and their supporters have generally been necessary to gain legislation or constitutional amendments for women's suffrage. In many countries, limited suffrage for women was granted before universal suffrage for men; for instance, literate women or property owners were granted suffrage before all men received it. The United Nations encouraged women's suffrage in the years following World War II, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) identifies it as a basic right with 189 countries currently being parties to this Convention. History Anna II, Abbess of Quedlinburg. In the pre-modern era in some parts of Europe, abbesses were permitted to participate and vote in various European national assemblies by virtue of their rank within the Catholic and Protestant churches. In ancient Athens, often cited as the birthplace of democracy, only adult, male citizens who owned land were permitted to vote. Through subsequent centuries, Europe was generally ruled by monarchs, though various forms of parliament arose at different times. The high rank ascribed to abbesses within the Catholic Church permitted some women the right to sit and vote at national assemblies – as with various high-ranking abbesses in Medieval Germany, who were ranked among the independent princes of the empire. Their Protestant successors enjoyed the same privilege almost into modern times.[23] Marie Guyart, a French nun who worked with the First Nations peoples of Canada during the seventeenth century, wrote in 1654 regarding the suffrage practices of Iroquois women, "These female chieftains are women of standing amongst the savages, and they have a deciding vote in the councils. They make decisions there like the men, and it is they who even delegated the first ambassadors to discuss peace."[24] The Iroquois, like many First Nations peoples in North America, had a matrilineal kinship system. Property and descent were passed through the female line. Women elders voted on hereditary male chiefs and could depose them. The emergence of modern democracy generally began with male citizens obtaining the right to vote in advance of female citizens, except in the Kingdom of Hawai'i, where universal manhood and women's suffrage was introduced in 1840; however, a constitutional amendment in 1852 rescinded female voting and put property qualifications on male voting. South Australian suffragist Catherine Helen Spence stood for office in 1897. In a first for the modern world, South Australia granted women the right to stand for Parliament in 1895.[6] Marie Stritt (1855–1928), German suffragist, co-founder of the International Alliance of Women Woman Suffrage Headquarters, Cleveland, 1913 In Sweden, conditional women's suffrage was in effect during the Age of Liberty (1718–1772).[25] Other possible contenders for first "country" to grant women suffrage include the Corsican Republic (1755), the Pitcairn Islands (1838), the Isle of Man (1881), and Franceville (1889–1890), but some of these operated only briefly as independent states and others were not clearly independent. In 1756, Lydia Taft became the first legal woman voter in colonial America. This occurred under British rule in the Massachusetts Colony.[26] In a New England town meeting in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, she voted on at least three occasions.[27] Unmarried white women who owned property could vote in New Jersey from 1776 to 1807. Eighteen female MPs joined the Turkish Parliament in 1935 In the 1792 elections in Sierra Leone, then a new British colony, all heads of household could vote and one-third were ethnic African women.[28] The female descendants of the Bounty mutineers who lived on Pitcairn Islands could vote from 1838. This right was transferred after they resettled in 1856 to Norfolk Island (now an Australian external territory).[10] The seed for the first Woman's Rights Convention in the United States in Seneca Falls, New York was planted in 1840, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton met Lucretia Mott at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. The conference refused to seat Mott and other women delegates from the U.S. because of their sex. In 1851, Stanton met temperance worker Susan B. Anthony, and shortly the two would be joined in the long struggle to secure the vote for women in the U.S. In 1868 Anthony encouraged working women from the printing and sewing trades in New York, who were excluded from men's trade unions, to form Working Women's Associations. As a delegate to the National Labor Congress in 1868, Anthony persuaded the committee on female labor to call for votes for women and equal pay for equal work. The men at the conference deleted the reference to the vote.[29] In the U.S. women in the Wyoming Territory could vote as of 1869.[30] Subsequent American suffrage groups often disagreed on tactics, with the National American Woman Suffrage Association arguing for a state-by-state campaign and the National Woman's Party focusing on an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.[31] In 1881 the Isle of Man, an internally self-governing dependent territory of the British Crown, enfranchised women property owners. With this it provided the first action for women's suffrage within the British Isles.[10] The Pacific commune of Franceville (now Port Vila, Vanuatu), maintained independence from 1889 to 1890, becoming the first self-governing nation to adopt universal suffrage without distinction of sex or color, although only white males were permitted to hold office.[32] Of currently existing independent countries, New Zealand was the first to acknowledge women's right to vote in 1893 when it was a self-governing British colony.[33] Unrestricted women's suffrage in terms of voting rights (women were not initially permitted to stand for election) was adopted in New Zealand in 1893. Following a successful movement led by Kate Sheppard, the women's suffrage bill was adopted weeks before the general election of that year. The women of the British protectorate of Cook Islands obtained the same right soon after and beat New Zealand's women to the polls in 1893.[34] The self-governing British colony of South Australia enacted universal suffrage in 1895, also allowing women to stand for the colonial parliament that year.[6] The Commonwealth of Australia federated in 1901, with women voting and standing for office in some states. The Australian Federal Parliament extended voting rights to all adult women for Federal elections from 1902 (with the exception of Aboriginal women in some states).[35] The first European country to introduce women's suffrage was the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1906. It was among reforms passed following the 1905 uprising. As a result of the 1907 parliamentary elections, Finland's voters elected 19 women as the first female members of a representative parliament; they took their seats later that year. In the years before World War I, women in Norway (1913) also won the right to vote, as did women in the remaining Australian states. Denmark granted women's suffrage in 1915. Near the end of the war, Canada, Russia, Germany, and Poland also recognized women's right to vote. The Representation of the People Act 1918 saw British women over 30 gain the vote, Dutch women in 1919, and American women won the vote on 26 August 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment (the Voting Rights Act of 1965 secured voting rights for racial minorities). Irish women won the same voting rights as men in the Irish Free State constitution, 1922. In 1928, British women won suffrage on the same terms as men, that is, for persons 21 years old and older. Suffrage of Turkish women introduced in 1930 for local elections and in 1934 for national elections. French pro-suffrage poster, 1934 By the time French women were granted the suffrage in July 1944 by Charles de Gaulle's government in exile, by a vote of 51 for, 16 against[36], France had been for about a decade the only Western country that did not at least allow women's suffrage at municipal elections.[37] Voting rights for women were introduced into international law by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission, whose elected chair was Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1948 the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Article 21 stated: "(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. (3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures." The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Political Rights of Women, which went into force in 1954, enshrining the equal rights of women to vote, hold office, and access public services as set out by national laws. One of the most recent jurisdictions to acknowledge women's full right to vote was Bhutan in 2008 (its first national elections).[38] Suffrage movements After selling her home, British activist Emmeline Pankhurst travelled constantly, giving speeches throughout Britain and the United States. One of her most famous speeches, Freedom or death, was delivered in Connecticut in 1913. The suffrage movement was a broad one, encompassing women and men with a wide range of views. In terms of diversity, the greatest achievement of the twentieth-century woman suffrage movement was its extremely broad class base.[39] One major division, especially in Britain, was between suffragists, who sought to create change constitutionally, and suffragettes, led by English political activist Emmeline Pankhurst, who in 1903 formed the more militant Women's Social and Political Union.[40] Pankhurst would not be satisfied with anything but action on the question of women's enfranchisement, with "deeds, not words" the organisation's motto.[41][42] Throughout the world, the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which was established in the United States in 1873, campaigned for women's suffrage, in addition to ameliorating the condition of prostitutes.[43][44] Under the leadership of Frances Willard, "the WCTU became the largest women's organization of its day and is now the oldest continuing women's organization in the United States."[45] There was also a diversity of views on a "woman's place". Suffragist themes often included the notions that women were naturally kinder and more concerned about children and the elderly. As Kraditor shows, it was often assumed that women voters would have a civilizing effect on politics, opposing domestic violence, liquor, and emphasizing cleanliness and community. An opposing theme, Kraditor argues, held that women had the same moral standards. They should be equal in every way and that there was no such thing as a woman's "natural role".[46][47] For black women, achieving suffrage was a way to counter the disfranchisement of the men of their race.[48] Despite this discouragement, black suffragists continued to insist on their equal political rights. Starting in the 1890s, African American women began to assert their political rights aggressively from within their own clubs and suffrage societies.[49] "If white American women, with all their natural and acquired advantages, need the ballot," argued Adella Hunt Logan of Tuskegee, Alabama, "how much more do black Americans, male and female, need the strong defense of a vote to help secure their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?"[48] Women's suffrage in the United States of America, the legal right of women to vote, was established over the course of more than half a century, first in various states and localities, sometimes on a limited basis, and then nationally in 1920. The demand for women's suffrage began to gather strength in the 1840s, emerging from the broader movement for women's rights. In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, passed a resolution in favor of women's suffrage despite opposition from some of its organizers, who believed the idea was too extreme. By the time of the first National Women's Rights Convention in 1850, however, suffrage was becoming an increasingly important aspect of the movement's activities. The first national suffrage organizations were established in 1869 when two competing organizations were formed, one led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the other by Lucy Stone. After years of rivalry, they merged in 1890 as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) with Anthony as its leading force. The Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which was the largest women's organization at that time, was established in 1873 and also pursued women's suffrage, giving a huge boost to the movement.[2][3] Hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule that women had a constitutional right to vote, suffragists made several attempts to vote in the early 1870s and then filed lawsuits when they were turned away. Anthony actually succeeded in voting in 1872 but was arrested for that act and found guilty in a widely publicized trial that gave the movement fresh momentum. After the Supreme Court ruled against them in 1875 (Minor v. Happersett), suffragists began the decades-long campaign for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would enfranchise women. Much of the movement's energy, however, went toward working for suffrage on a state-by-state basis. In 1916 Alice Paul formed the National Woman's Party (NWP), a militant group focused on the passage of a national suffrage amendment. Over 200 NWP supporters, the Silent Sentinels, were arrested in 1917 while picketing the White House, some of whom went on hunger strike and endured forced feeding after being sent to prison. Under the leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt, the two-million-member NAWSA also made a national suffrage amendment its top priority. After a hard-fought series of votes in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures, the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920. It states, "The right of 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." National history See also: Women's suffrage in states of the United States Early voting activity Lydia Taft (1712–1778), a wealthy widow, was allowed to vote in town meetings in Uxbridge, Massachusetts in 1756.[4] No other women in the colonial era are known to have voted. The New Jersey constitution of 1776 enfranchised all adult inhabitants who owned a specified amount of property. Laws enacted in 1790 and 1797 referred to voters as "he or she", and women regularly voted. A law passed in 1807, however, excluded women from voting in that state.[5] Kentucky passed the first statewide woman suffrage law in the New Republic Era (since New Jersey revoked their woman suffrage rights in 1807) – allowing any widow or feme sole (legally, the head of household) over 21 who paid property taxes for the new county "common school" system. This partial suffrage rights for women was not expressed as for whites only.[6] Emergence of the women's rights movement Margaret Fuller The demand for women's suffrage[7] emerged as part of the broader movement for women's rights. In England in 1792 Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a pioneering book called A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.[8] In Boston in 1838 Sarah Grimké published The Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women, which was widely circulated.[9] In 1845 Margaret Fuller published Woman in the Nineteenth Century, a key document in American feminism that first appeared in serial form in 1839 in The Dial, a transcendentalist journal that Fuller edited.[10] "The very truths you are now contending for, will, in fifty years, be so completely imbedded in public opinion that no one need say one word in their defense; whilst at the same time new forms of truth will arise to test the faithfulness of the pioneer minds of that age, and so on eternally." Angela Grimké, 1851, in a letter to Elizabeth Cady Stanton[11] Significant barriers had to be overcome, however, before a campaign for women's suffrage could develop significant strength. One barrier was strong opposition to women's involvement in public affairs, a practice that was not fully accepted even among reform activists. Only after fierce debate were women accepted as members of the American Anti-Slavery Society at its convention of 1839, and the organization split at its next convention when women were appointed to committees.[12] Opposition was especially strong against the idea of women speaking to audiences of both men and women. Frances Wright, a Scottish woman, was subjected to sharp criticism for delivering public lectures in the U.S. in 1826 and 1827. When the Grimké sisters, who had been born into a slave-holding family in South Carolina, spoke against slavery throughout the northeast in the mid-1830s, the ministers of the Congregational Church, a major force in that region, published a statement condemning their actions. Despite the disapproval, in 1838 Angelina Grimké spoke against slavery before the Massachusetts legislature, the first woman in the U.S. to speak before a legislative body.[13] Other women began to give public speeches, especially in opposition to slavery and in support of women's rights. Early female speakers included Ernestine Rose, a Jewish immigrant from Poland; Lucretia Mott, a Quaker minister and abolitionist; and Abby Kelley Foster, a Quaker abolitionist.[14] Toward the end of the 1840s Lucy Stone launched her career as a public speaker, soon becoming the most famous female lecturer.[15] Supporting both the abolitionist and women's rights movements, Stone played a major role in reducing the prejudice against women speaking in public.[16] Opposition remained strong, however. A regional women's rights convention in Ohio in 1851 was disrupted by male opponents.[17] The National Women's Rights Convention in 1852 was similarly disrupted, and mob action at the 1853 convention came close to violence.[18] The World's Temperance Convention in New York City in 1853 bogged down for three days in a dispute about whether women would be allowed to speak there.[19] Susan B. Anthony, a leader of the suffrage movement, later said, "No advanced step taken by women has been so bitterly contested as that of speaking in public. For nothing which they have attempted, not even to secure the suffrage, have they been so abused, condemned and antagonized."[20] Laws that sharply restricted the independent activity of married women also created barriers to the campaign for women's suffrage. According to William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, an authoritative commentary on the English common law on which the American legal system is modeled, "by marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage",[21] referring to the legal doctrine of coverture that was introduced to England by the Normans in the Middle Ages. In 1862 the Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court denied a divorce to a woman whose husband had horsewhipped her, saying, "The law gives the husband power to use such a degree of force necessary to make the wife behave and know her place."[22] Married women in many states could not legally sign contracts, which made it difficult for them to arrange for convention halls, printed materials and other things needed by the suffrage movement.[23] Restrictions like these were overcome in part by the passage of married women's property laws in several states, supported in some cases by wealthy fathers who didn't want their daughters' inheritance to fall under the complete control of their husbands. Sentiment in favor of women's rights was strong within the radical wing of the abolitionist movement. William Lloyd Garrison, the leader of the American Anti-Slavery Society, said "I doubt whether a more important movement has been launched touching the destiny of the race, than this in regard to the equality of the sexes".[24] The abolitionist movement, however, attracted only about one per cent of the population at that time, and radical abolitionists were only one part of that movement.[25] Early backing for women's suffrage The New York State Constitutional Convention of 1846 received petitions in support of women's suffrage from residents of at least three counties.[26] Several members of the radical wing of the abolitionist movement supported suffrage. In 1846, Samuel J. May, a Unitarian minister and radical abolitionist, vigorously supported women's suffrage in a sermon that was later circulated as the first in a series of women's rights tracts.[27] In 1846, the Liberty League, an offshoot of the abolitionist Liberty Party, petitioned Congress to enfranchise women.[28] A convention of the Liberty Party in Rochester, New York in May 1848 approved a resolution calling for "universal suffrage in its broadest sense, including women as well as men."[29] Gerrit Smith, its candidate for president, delivered a speech shortly afterwards at the National Liberty Convention in Buffalo, New York that elaborated on his party's call for women's suffrage. Lucretia Mott was suggested as the party's vice-presidential candidate—the first time that a woman had been proposed for federal executive office in the U.S.—and she received five votes from delegates at that convention.[30] Early women's rights conventions Women's suffrage was not a major topic within the women's rights movement at that point. Many of its activists were aligned with the Garrisonian wing of the abolitionist movement, which believed that activists should avoid political activity and focus instead on convincing others of their views with "moral suasion".[31] Many were Quakers whose traditions barred both men and women from participation in secular political activity.[32] A series of women's rights conventions did much to alter these attitudes. Seneca Falls convention Elizabeth Cady Stanton The first women's rights convention was the Seneca Falls Convention, a regional event held on July 19 and 20, 1848, in Seneca Falls in the Finger Lakes region of New York. Five women called the convention, four of whom were Quaker social activists, including the well-known Lucretia Mott. The fifth was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who had discussed the need to organize for women's rights with Mott several years earlier.[33] Stanton, who came from a family that was deeply involved in politics, became a major force in convincing the women's movement that political pressure was crucial to its goals, and that the right to vote was a key weapon.[34] An estimated 300 women and men attended this two-day event, which was widely noted in the press.[35] The only resolution that was not adopted unanimously by the convention was the one demanding women's right to vote, which was introduced by Stanton. When her husband, a well-known social reformer, learned that she intended to introduce this resolution, he refused to attend the convention and accused her of acting in a way that would turn the proceedings into a farce. Lucretia Mott, the main speaker, was also disturbed by the proposal. The resolution was adopted only after Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist leader and a former slave, gave it his strong support.[36] The convention's Declaration of Sentiments, which was written primarily by Stanton, expressed an intent to build a women's rights movement, and it included a list of grievances, the first two of which protested the lack of women's suffrage.[37] The grievances were aimed at the United States government "demanded government reform and changes in male roles and behaviors that promoted inequality for women."[38] This convention was followed two weeks later by the Rochester Women's Rights Convention of 1848, which featured many of the same speakers and likewise voted to support women's suffrage. It was the first women's rights convention to be chaired by a woman, a step that was considered to be radical at the time.[39] That meeting was followed by the Ohio Women's Convention at Salem in 1850, the first women's rights convention to be organized on a statewide basis, which also endorsed women's suffrage.[40] National conventions The first in a series of National Women's Rights Conventions was held in Worcester, Massachusetts on October 23–24, 1850, at the initiative of Lucy Stone and Paulina Wright Davis.[41] National conventions were held afterwards almost every year through 1860, when the Civil War (1861–1865) interrupted the practice.[42] Suffrage was a preeminent goal of these conventions, no longer the controversial issue it had been at Seneca Falls only two years earlier.[43] At the first national convention Stone gave a speech that included a call to petition state legislatures for the right of suffrage.[44] Reports of this convention reached Britain, prompting Harriet Taylor, soon to be married to philosopher John Stuart Mill, to write an essay called "The Enfranchisement of Women," which was published in the Westminster Review. Heralding the women's movement in the U.S., Taylor's essay helped to initiate a similar movement in Britain. Her essay was reprinted as a women's rights tract in the U.S. and was sold for decades.[45][46] Lucy Stone Wendell Phillips, a prominent abolitionist and women's rights advocate, delivered a speech at the second national convention in 1851 called "Shall Women Have the Right to Vote?" Describing women's suffrage as the cornerstone of the women's movement, it was later circulated as a women's rights tract.[47] Several of the women who played leading roles in the national conventions, especially Stone, Anthony and Stanton, were also leaders in establishing women's suffrage organizations after the Civil War.[48] They also included the demand for suffrage as part of their activities during the 1850s. In 1852 Stanton advocated women's suffrage in a speech at the New York State Temperance Convention.[49] In 1853 Stone became the first woman to appeal for women's suffrage before a body of lawmakers when she addressed the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention.[50] In 1854 Anthony organized a petition campaign in New York State that included the demand for suffrage. It culminated in a women's rights convention in the state capitol and a speech by Stanton before the state legislature.[51] In 1857 Stone refused to pay taxes on the grounds that women were taxed without being able to vote on tax laws. The constable sold her household goods at auction until enough money had been raised to pay her tax bill.[52] The women's rights movement was loosely structured during this period, with few state organizations and no national organization other than a coordinating committee that arranged the annual national conventions.[53] Much of the organizational work for these conventions was performed by Stone, the most visible leader of the movement during this period.[54] At the national convention in 1852, a proposal was made to form a national women's rights organization, but the idea was dropped after fears were voiced that such a move would create cumbersome machinery and lead to internal divisions.[55] Anthony-Stanton collaboration Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met in 1851 and soon became close friends and co-workers. Their decades-long collaboration was pivotal for the suffrage movement and contributed significantly to the broader struggle for women's rights, which Stanton called "the greatest revolution the world has ever known or ever will know."[56] They had complementary skills: Anthony excelled at organizing while Stanton had an aptitude for intellectual matters and writing. Stanton, who was homebound with several children during this period, wrote speeches that Anthony delivered to meetings that she herself organized.[57] Together they developed a sophisticated movement in New York State,[58] but their work at this time dealt with women's issues in general, not specifically suffrage. Anthony, who eventually became the person most closely associated in the public mind with women's suffrage,[59] later said "I wasn't ready to vote, didn't want to vote, but I did want equal pay for equal work."[60] In the period just before the Civil War, Anthony gave priority to anti-slavery work over her work for the women's movement.[61] Women's Loyal National League Over Anthony's objections, leaders of the movement agreed to suspend women's rights activities during the Civil War in order to focus on the abolition of slavery.[62] In 1863 Anthony and Stanton organized the Women's Loyal National League, the first national women's political organization in the U.S.[63] It collected nearly 400,000 signatures on petitions to abolish slavery in the largest petition drive in the nation's history up to that time.[64] Susan B. Anthony Although it was not a suffrage organization, the League made it clear that it stood for political equality for women,[65] and it indirectly advanced that cause in several ways. Stanton reminded the public that petitioning was the only political tool available to women at a time when only men were allowed to vote.[66] The League's impressive petition drive demonstrated the value of formal organization to the women's movement, which had traditionally resisted organizational structures,[67] and it marked a continuation of the shift of women's activism from moral suasion to political action.[64] Its 5000 members constituted a widespread network of women activists who gained experience that helped create a pool of talent for future forms of social activism, including suffrage.[68] American Equal Rights Association The Eleventh National Women's Rights Convention, the first since the Civil War, was held in 1866, helping the women's rights movement regain the momentum it had lost during the war.[69] The convention voted to transform itself into the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), whose purpose was to campaign for the equal rights of all citizens, especially the right of suffrage.[70] In addition to Anthony and Stanton, who organized the convention, the leadership of the new organization included such prominent abolitionist and women's rights activists as Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone and Frederick Douglass. Its drive for universal suffrage, however, was resisted by some abolitionist leaders and their allies in the Republican Party, who wanted women to postpone their campaign for suffrage until it had first been achieved for male African Americans. Horace Greeley, a prominent newspaper editor, told Anthony and Stanton, "This is a critical period for the Republican Party and the life of our Nation... I conjure you to remember that this is 'the negro's hour,' and your first duty now is to go through the State and plead his claims."[71] They and others, including Lucy Stone, refused to postpone their demands, however, and continued to push for universal suffrage. In April 1867 Stone and her husband Henry Blackwell opened the AERA campaign in Kansas in support of referenda in that state that would enfranchise both African Americans and women.[72] Wendell Phillips, an abolitionist leader who opposed mixing those two causes, surprised and angered AERA workers by blocking the funding that the AERA had expected for their campaign.[73] After an internal struggle, Kansas Republicans decided to support suffrage for black men only and formed an "Anti-Female Suffrage Committee" to oppose the AERA's efforts.[74] By the end of summer the AERA campaign had almost collapsed, and its finances were exhausted. Anthony and Stanton were harshly criticized by Stone and other AERA members for accepting help during the last days of the campaign from George Francis Train, a wealthy businessman who supported women's rights. Train antagonized many activists by attacking the Republican Party, which had won the loyalty of many reform activists, and openly disparaging the integrity and intelligence of African Americans.[75] After the Kansas campaign, the AERA increasingly divided into two wings, both advocating universal suffrage but with different approaches. One wing, whose leading figure was Lucy Stone, was willing for black men to achieve suffrage first, if necessary, and wanted to maintain close ties with the Republican Party and the abolitionist movement. The other, whose leading figures were Anthony and Stanton, insisted that women and black men be enfranchised at the same time and worked toward a politically independent women's movement that would no longer be dependent on abolitionists for financial and other resources. The acrimonious annual meeting of the AERA in May 1869 signaled the effective demise of the organization, in the aftermath of which two competing woman suffrage organizations were created.[76] New England Woman Suffrage Association Petition from the citizens of Massachusetts in support of woman suffrage Partly as a result of the developing split in the women's movement, in 1868 the New England Woman Suffrage Association (NEWSA), the first major political organization in the U.S. with women's suffrage as its goal, was formed.[77] The planners for the NEWSA's founding convention worked to attract Republican support and seated leading Republican politicians, including a U.S. senator, on the speaker's platform.[78] Amid increasing confidence that the Fifteenth Amendment, which would in effect enfranchise black men, was assured of passage, Lucy Stone, a future president of the NEWSA, showed her preference for enfranchising both women and African Americans by unexpectedly introducing a resolution calling for the Republican Party to "drop its watchword of 'Manhood Suffrage'"[79] and to support universal suffrage instead. Despite opposition by Frederick Douglass and others, Stone convinced the meeting to approve the resolution.[80] Two months later, however, when the Fifteenth Amendment was in danger of becoming stalled in Congress, Stone backed away from that position and declared that "Woman must wait for the Negro."[81] The Fifteenth Amendment In May 1869, two days after the final AERA annual meeting, Anthony, Stanton and others formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). In November 1869, Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, Henry Blackwell and others, many of whom had helped to create the New England Woman Suffrage Association a year earlier, formed the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The hostile rivalry between these two organizations created a partisan atmosphere that endured for decades, affecting even professional historians of the women's movement.[82] Frederick Douglass The immediate cause for the split was the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a reconstruction amendment that would prohibit the denial of suffrage because of race. Stanton and Anthony opposed its passage unless it was accompanied by another amendment that would prohibit the denial of suffrage because of sex.[83] They said that by effectively enfranchising all men while excluding all women, the amendment would create an "aristocracy of sex" by giving constitutional authority to the idea that men were superior to women.[84] Male power and privilege was at the root of society's ills, Stanton argued, and nothing should be done to strengthen it.[85] Anthony and Stanton also warned that black men, who would gain voting power under the amendment, were overwhelmingly opposed to women's suffrage.[86] They were not alone in being unsure of black male support for women's suffrage. Frederick Douglass, a strong supporter of women's suffrage, said, "The race to which I belong have not generally taken the right ground on this question."[87] Douglass, however, strongly supported the amendment, saying it was a matter of life and death for former slaves. Lucy Stone, who became the AWSA's most prominent leader, supported the amendment but said she believed that suffrage for women would be more beneficial to the country than suffrage for black men.[88] The AWSA and most AERA members also supported the amendment.[89] Both wings of the movement were strongly associated with opposition to slavery, but their leaders sometimes expressed views that reflected the racial attitudes of that era. Stanton, for example, believed that a long process of education would be needed before what she called the "lower orders" of former slaves and immigrant workers would be able to participate meaningfully as voters.[85] In an article in The Revolution, Stanton wrote, "American women of wealth, education, virtue and refinement, if you do not wish the lower orders of Chinese, Africans, Germans and Irish, with their low ideas of womanhood to make laws for you and your daughters ... demand that women too shall be represented in government."[90] In another article she made a similar statement while personifying those four ethnic groups as "Patrick and Sambo and Hans and Yung Tung".[91] Lucy Stone called a suffrage meeting in New Jersey to consider the question, "Shall women alone be omitted in the reconstruction? Shall [they] ... be ranked politically below the most ignorant and degraded men?"[92] Henry Blackwell, Stone's husband and an AWSA officer, published an open letter to Southern legislatures assuring them that if they allowed both blacks and women to vote, "the political supremacy of your white race will remain unchanged" and "the black race would gravitate by the law of nature toward the tropics."[93] The AWSA aimed for close ties with the Republican Party, hoping that the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment would lead to a Republican push for women's suffrage.[94] The NWSA, while determined to be politically independent, was critical of the Republicans. Anthony and Stanton wrote a letter to the 1868 Democratic National Convention that criticized Republican sponsorship of the Fourteenth Amendment (which granted citizenship to black men but for the first time introduced the word "male" into the Constitution), saying, "While the dominant party has with one hand lifted up two million black men and crowned them with the honor and dignity of citizenship, with the other it has dethroned fifteen million white women—their own mothers and sisters, their own wives and daughters—and cast them under the heel of the lowest orders of manhood."[95][96] They urged liberal Democrats to convince their party, which did not have a clear direction at that point, to embrace universal suffrage.[97] The two organizations had other differences as well. Although each campaigned for suffrage at both the state and national levels, the NWSA tended to work more at the national level and the AWSA more at the state level.[98] The NWSA initially worked on a wider range of issues than the AWSA, including divorce reform and equal pay for women. The NWSA was led by women only while the AWSA included both men and women among its leadership.[99] Events soon removed much of the basis for the split in the movement. In 1870 debate about the Fifteenth Amendment was made irrelevant when that amendment was officially ratified. In 1872 disgust with corruption in government led to a mass defection of abolitionists and other social reformers from the Republicans to the short-lived Liberal Republican Party.[100] The rivalry between the two women's groups was so bitter, however, that a merger proved to be impossible until 1890. New Departure In 1869 Francis and Virginia Minor, husband and wife suffragists from Missouri, outlined a strategy that came to be known as the New Departure, which engaged the suffrage movement for several years.[101] Arguing that the U.S. Constitution implicitly enfranchised women, this strategy relied heavily on Section 1 of the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment,[102] which reads, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Votes for Women pennant In 1871 the NWSA officially adopted the New Departure strategy, encouraging women to attempt to vote and to file lawsuits if denied that right. Soon hundreds of women tried to vote in dozens of localities. In some cases, actions like these preceded the New Departure strategy: in 1868 in Vineland, New Jersey, a center for radical spiritualists, nearly 200 women placed their ballots into a separate box and attempted to have them counted, but without success. The AWSA did not officially adopt the New Departure strategy, but Lucy Stone, its leader, attempted to vote in her home town in New Jersey.[103] In one court case resulting from a lawsuit brought by women who had been prevented from voting, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., ruled that women did not have an implicit right to vote, declaring that, "The fact that the practical working of the assumed right would be destructive of civilization is decisive that the right does not exist."[104] In 1871 Victoria Woodhull, a stockbroker, was invited to speak before a committee of Congress, the first woman to do so. Although she had little previous connection to the women's movement, she presented a modified version of the New Departure strategy. Instead of asking the courts to declare that women had the right to vote, she asked Congress itself to declare that the Constitution implicitly enfranchised women. The committee rejected her suggestion.[105] The NWSA at first reacted enthusiastically to Woodhull's sudden appearance on the scene. Stanton in particular welcomed Woodhull's proposal to assemble a broad-based reform party that would support women's suffrage. Anthony opposed that idea, wanting the NWSA to remain politically independent. The NWSA soon had reason to regret its association with Woodhull. In 1872 she published details of a purported adulterous affair between Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, president of the AWSA, and Elizabeth Tilton, wife of a leading NWSA member.[106] Beecher's subsequent trial was reported in newspapers across the country, resulting in what one scholar has called "political theater" that badly damaged the reputation of the suffrage movement.[107] The Supreme Court in 1875 put an end to the New Departure strategy by ruling in Minor v. Happersett that "the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone".[108] The NWSA decided to pursue the far more difficult strategy of campaigning for a constitutional amendment that would guarantee voting rights for women.[109] United States v. Susan B. Anthony In a case that generated national controversy, Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting in the presidential election of 1872. The judge directed the jury to deliver a guilty verdict. When he asked Anthony, who had not been permitted to speak during the trial, if she had anything to say, she responded with what one historian has called "the most famous speech in the history of the agitation for woman suffrage".[102] She called "this high-handed outrage upon my citizen's rights", saying, "... you have trampled under foot every vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights, my judicial rights, are all alike ignored."[110] The judge sentenced Anthony to pay a fine of $100, she responded, "I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty", and she never did.[102] However the judge did not order her to be imprisoned until she paid the fine, for Anthony could have appealed her case.[108] History of Woman Suffrage In 1876 Anthony, Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage began working on the History of Woman Suffrage. Originally envisioned as a modest publication that would be produced quickly, the history evolved into a six-volume work of more than 5700 pages written over a period of 41 years. Its last two volumes were published in 1920, long after the deaths of the project's originators, by Ida Husted Harper, who also assisted with the fourth volume. Written by leaders of one wing of the divided women's movement (Lucy Stone, their main rival, refused to have anything to do with the project), the History of Woman Suffrage preserves an enormous amount of material that might have been lost forever, but it does not give a balanced view of events where their rivals are concerned. Because it was for years the main source of documentation about the suffrage movement, historians have had to uncover other sources to provide a more balanced view.[111] Introduction of the women's suffrage amendment In 1878 Senator Aaron A. Sargent, a friend of Susan B. Anthony, introduced into Congress a women's suffrage amendment. More than forty years later it would become the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution with no changes to its wording. Its text is identical to that of the Fifteenth Amendment except that it prohibits the denial of suffrage because of sex rather than "race, color, or previous condition of servitude".[112] It Doesn't Unsex Her–a women's suffrage postcard from 1915 Early female candidates for national office Calling attention to the irony of being legally entitled to run for office while denied the right to vote, Elizabeth Cady Stanton declared herself a candidate for the U.S. Congress in 1866, the first woman to do so.[113] In 1872 Victoria Woodhull formed her own political party and declared herself to be its candidate for President of the U.S. even though she was ineligible because she was not yet 35 years old.[114] In 1884 Belva Ann Lockwood, the first female lawyer to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, became the first woman to conduct a viable campaign for president.[115] She was nominated, without her advance knowledge, by a California group called the Equal Rights Party. Lockwood advocated women's suffrage and other reforms during a coast-to-coast campaign that received respectful coverage from at least some major periodicals. She financed her campaign partly by charging admission to her speeches. Neither the AWSA nor the NWSA, both of whom had already endorsed the Republican candidate for president, supported Lockwood's candidacy.[116] Initial successes An act of the Territory of Wyoming enfranchised women on December 10, 1869, which is commemorated as Wyoming Day in the state. Women were enfranchised in frontier Wyoming Territory in 1869 and in polygamous Utah in 1870.[117][118] The short-lived Populist Party endorsed women's suffrage, contributing to the enfranchisement of women in Colorado in 1893 and Idaho in 1896.[119] In some localities, women gained various forms of partial suffrage, such as voting for school boards.[120] According to a 2018 study in The Journal of Politics, states with large suffrage movements and competitive political environments were more likely to extend voting rights to women; this is one reason why Western states were quicker to adopt women's suffrage than states in the East.[121] In the late 1870s, the suffrage movement received a major boost when the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the largest women's organization in the country, decided to campaign for suffrage and created a Franchise Department to support that effort. Frances Willard, its pro-suffrage leader, urged WCTU members to pursue the right to vote as a means of protecting their families from alcohol and other vices.[122] In 1886 the WCTU submitted to Congress petitions with 200,000 signatures in support of a national suffrage amendment.[123] In 1885 the Grange, a large farmers' organization, officially endorsed women's suffrage.[124] In 1890 the American Federation of Labor, a large labor alliance, endorsed women's suffrage and subsequently collected 270,000 names on petitions supporting that goal.[125] 1890–1919 Merger of rival suffrage organizations The AWSA, which was especially strong in New England, was initially the larger of the two rival suffrage organizations, but it declined in strength during the 1880s.[126] Stanton and Anthony, the leading figures in the competing NWSA, were more widely known as leaders of the women's suffrage movement during this period and were more influential in setting its direction.[127] They sometimes used daring tactics. Anthony, for example, interrupted the official ceremonies of the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence to present the NWSA's Declaration of Rights for Women. The AWSA declined any involvement in the action.[128] Susan B. Anthony in 1900 Over time, the NWSA moved into closer alignment with the AWSA, placing less emphasis on confrontational actions and more on respectability, and no longer promoting a wide range of reforms.[129] The NWSA's hopes for a federal suffrage amendment were frustrated when the Senate voted against it in 1887, after which the NWSA put more energy into campaigning at the state level, as the AWSA was already doing.[130] Work at the state level, however, also had its frustrations. Between 1870 and 1910, the suffrage movement conducted 480 campaigns in 33 states just to have the issue of women's suffrage brought before the voters, and those campaigns resulted in only 17 instances of the issue actually being placed on the ballot.[131] These efforts led to women's suffrage in two states, Colorado and Idaho. Alice Stone Blackwell, daughter of AWSA leaders Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell, was a major influence in bringing the rival suffrage leaders together, proposing a joint meeting in 1887 to discuss a merger. Anthony and Stone favored the idea, but opposition from several NWSA veterans delayed the move. In 1890 the two organizations merged as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).[132] Stanton was president of the new organization, and Stone was chair of its executive committee, but Anthony, who had the title of vice president, was its leader in practice, becoming president herself in 1892 when Stanton retired.[133] National American Woman Suffrage Association Although Anthony was the leading force in the newly merged organization, it did not always follow her lead. In 1893 the NAWSA voted over Anthony's objection to alternate the site of its annual conventions between Washington and various other parts of the country. Anthony's pre-merger NWSA had always held its conventions in Washington to help maintain focus on a national suffrage amendment. Arguing against this decision, she said she feared, accurately as it turned out, that the NAWSA would engage in suffrage work at the state level at the expense of national work.[134] Stanton, elderly but still very much a radical, did not fit comfortably into the new organization, which was becoming more conservative. In 1895 she published The Woman's Bible, a controversial best-seller that attacked the use of the Bible to relegate women to an inferior status. The NAWSA voted to disavow any connection with the book despite Anthony's objection that such a move was unnecessary and hurtful. Stanton afterwards grew increasingly alienated from the suffrage movement.[135] Carrie Chapman Catt The suffrage movement declined in vigor during the years immediately after the 1890 merger.[136] When Carrie Chapman Catt was appointed head of the NAWSA's Organization Committee in 1895, it wasn't clear how many local chapters the organization had or who their officers were. Catt began revitalizing the organization, establishing a plan of work with clear goals for every state every year. Anthony was impressed and arranged for Catt to succeed her when she retired from the presidency of the NAWSA in 1900. In her new post Catt continued her effort to transform the unwieldy organization into one that would be better prepared to lead a major suffrage campaign.[137] Catt noted the rapidly growing women's club movement, which was taking up some of the slack left by the decline of the temperance movement. Local women's clubs at first were mostly reading groups focused on literature, but they increasingly evolved into civic improvement organizations of middle-class women meeting in each other's homes weekly. Their national organization was the General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC), founded in 1890. The clubs avoided controversial issues that would divide the membership, especially religion and prohibition. In the South and East, suffrage was also highly divisive, while there was little resistance to it among clubwomen in the West. In the Midwest, clubwomen had first avoided the suffrage issue out of caution, but after 1900 increasingly came to support it.[138] Catt implemented what was known as the "society plan," a successful effort to recruit wealthy members of the women's club movement whose time, money and experience could help build the suffrage movement.[139] By 1914 women's suffrage was endorsed by the national General Federation of Women's Clubs.[140] Catt resigned her position after four years, partly because of her husband's declining health and partly to help organize the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, which was created in Germany, Berlin in 1904 with Catt as president.[141] In 1904 Anna Howard Shaw, another Anthony protégée, was elected president of the NAWSA. Shaw was an energetic worker and a talented orator but not an effective administrator. Between 1910 and 1916 the NAWSA's national board experienced a constant turmoil that endangered the existence of the organization.[142] Although its membership and finances were at all-time highs, the NAWSA decided to replace Shaw by bringing Catt back once again as president in 1915. Authorized by the NAWSA to name her own executive board, which previously had been elected by the organization's annual convention, Catt quickly converted the loosely structured organization into one that was highly centralized.[143] MacKenzie v. Hare Section 3 of the Expatriation Act of 1907 provided for loss of citizenship by American women who married aliens.[144] The Supreme Court of the United States first considered the Expatriation Act of 1907 in the 1915 case MacKenzie v. Hare. The plaintiff, a suffragist named Ethel MacKenzie, was living in California, which since 1911 had extended the franchise to women. However, she had been denied voter registration by the respondent in his capacity as a Commissioner of the San Francisco Board of Election on the grounds of her marriage to a Scottish man.[145] MacKenzie contended that the Expatriation Act of 1907 "if intended to apply to her, is beyond the authority of Congress", as neither the Fourteenth Amendment nor any other part of the Constitution gave Congress the power to "denationalize a citizen without his concurrence". However, Justice Joseph McKenna, writing the majority opinion, stated that while "[i]t may be conceded that a change of citizenship cannot be arbitrarily imposed, that is, imposed without the concurrence of the citizen", but "[t]he law in controversy does not have that feature. It deals with a condition voluntarily entered into, with notice of the consequences." Justice James Clark McReynolds, in a concurring opinion, stated that the case should be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.[146] Opposition to women's suffrage Brewers and distillers, typically rooted in the German American community, opposed women's suffrage, fearing that women voters would favor the prohibition of alcoholic beverages.[147] German Lutherans and German Catholics typically opposed prohibition and woman suffrage; they favored paternalistic families with the husband deciding the family position on public affairs.[148][149] Their opposition to women's suffrage was subsequently used as an argument in favor of suffrage when German Americans became pariahs during World War I.[150] Defeat could lead to allegations of fraud. After the defeat of the referendum for women's suffrage in Michigan in 1912, the governor accused the brewers of complicity in widespread electoral fraud that resulted in its defeat. Evidence of vote stealing was also strong during referenda in Nebraska and Iowa.[151] Headquarters of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. Some other businesses, such as southern cotton mills, opposed suffrage because they feared that women voters would support the drive to eliminate child labor.[152] Political machines, such as Tammany Hall in New York City, opposed it because they feared that the addition of female voters would dilute the control they had established over groups of male voters. By the time of the New York State referendum on women's suffrage in 1917, however, some wives and daughters of Tammany Hall leaders were working for suffrage, leading it to take a neutral position that was crucial to the referendum's passage.[153][154] Although the Catholic Church did not take an official position on suffrage, very few of its leaders supported it, and some of its leaders, such as Cardinal Gibbons, made their opposition clear.[155][156] The New York Times after first supporting suffrage reversed itself and issued stern warnings. A 1912 editorial predicted that with suffrage women would make impossible demands, such as, "serving as soldiers and sailors, police patrolmen or firemen...and would serve on juries and elect themselves to executive offices and judgeships." It blamed a lack of masculinity for the failure of men to fight back, warning women would get the vote "if the men are not firm and wise enough and, it may as well be said, masculine enough to prevent them.".[157] Women against suffrage Anti-suffrage forces, initially called the "remonstrants", organized as early as 1870 when the Woman's Anti-Suffrage Association of Washington was formed.[158] Widely known as the "antis", they eventually created organizations in some twenty states. In 1911 the National Association Opposed to Women's Suffrage was created. It claimed 350,000 members and opposed women's suffrage, feminism, and socialism. It argued that woman suffrage "would reduce the special protections and routes of influence available to women, destroy the family, and increase the number of socialist-leaning voters."[159] Middle and upper class anti-suffrage women were conservatives with several motivations. Society women in particular had personal access to powerful politicians, and were reluctant to surrender that advantage. Most often the antis believed that politics was dirty and that women's involvement would surrender the moral high ground that women had claimed, and that partisanship would disrupt local club work for civic betterment, as represented by the General Federation of Women's Clubs.[160] The best organized movement was the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NYSAOWS). Its credo, as set down by its president Josephine Jewell Dodge, was: We believe in every possible advancement to women. We believe that this advancement should be along those legitimate lines of work and endeavor for which she is best fitted and for which she has now unlimited opportunities. We believe this advancement will be better achieved through strictly non-partisan effort and without the limitations of the ballot. We believe in Progress, not in Politics for women.[161] The NYSAOWS New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage used grass roots mobilization techniques they had learned from watching the suffragists to defeat the 1915 referendum. They were very similar to the suffragists themselves, but used a counter-crusading style warning of the evils that suffrage would bring to women. They rejected leadership by men and stressed the importance of independent women in philanthropy and social betterment. NYSAOWS was narrowly defeated in New York in 1916 and the state voted to give women the vote. The organization moved to Washington to oppose the federal constitutional amendment for suffrage, becoming the "National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage" (NAOWS), where it was taken over by men, and assumed a much harsher rhetorical tone, especially in attacking "red radicalism". After 1919 the antis adjusted smoothly to enfranchisement and became active in party affairs, especially in the Republican Party.[162] Southern strategy Vote for the Woman Suffrage Amendment, 1915 A promotional map of the woman's suffrage movement in the U.S. and Canada by 1917. The U.S. states and Canadian provinces that had adopted suffrage are colored white (or dotted and crosses, in case of partial suffrage) and the others black. The Constitution required 34 states (three-fourths of the 45 states in 1900) to ratify an amendment, and unless the rest of the country was unanimous there had to be support from the 11 ex-Confederate states. Three more western territories became states by 1912, helping the suffragist cause; they now needed 36 states out of 48. In the end Tennessee provided the critical 36th state.[163] The South was the most conservative region and always gave the least support for suffrage. There was little or no suffrage activity in the region until the late nineteenth century.[164] Aileen S. Kraditor identifies four distinctly Southern characteristics that were in play: 1) Southern white men held to traditional values regarding women's public roles; 2) the Solid South was tightly controlled by the Democratic Party, so playing the two parties against each other was not a feasible strategy; 3) strong support for states' rights meant there was automatic opposition to a federal constitutional amendment; 4) Jim Crow attitudes meant that expansion of the black vote (to black women) was strongly opposed.[165] Mildred Rutherford, president of the Georgia United Daughters of the Confederacy and a leaders of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage made clear the opposition of elite white women to suffrage in a 1914 speech to the state legislature: The women who are working for this measure are striking at the principle for which their fathers fought during the Civil War. Woman's suffrage comes from the North and the West and from women who do not believe in state's rights and who wish to see negro women using the ballot. I do not believe the state of Georgia has sunk so low that her good men can not legislate for women. If this time ever comes then it will be time for women to claim the ballot.[166] Elna Green points out that, "Suffrage rhetoric claimed that enfranchised women would outlaw child labor, pass minimum-wage and maximum-hours laws for women workers, and establish health and safety standards for factory workers." The threat of these reforms united planters, textile mill owners, railroad magnates, city machine bosses, and the liquor interest in a formidable combine against suffrage.[167] Henry Blackwell, an officer of the AWSA before the merger and a prominent figure in the movement afterwards, urged the suffrage movement to follow a strategy of convincing southern political leaders that they could ensure white supremacy in their region without violating the Fifteenth Amendment by enfranchising educated women, who would predominantly be white. Shortly after Blackwell presented his proposal to the Mississippi delegation to the U.S. Congress, his plan was given serious consideration by the Mississippi Constitutional Convention of 1890, whose main purpose was to find legal ways of further curtailing the political power of African Americans. Although the convention adopted other measures instead, the fact that Blackwell's ideas were taken seriously drew the interest of many suffragists.[168] Blackwell's ally in this effort was Laura Clay, who convinced the NAWSA to launch a state-by-state campaign in the South based on Blackwell's strategy. Clay was one of several southern NAWSA members who opposed the idea of a national women's suffrage amendment on the grounds that it would impinge on states' rights. (A generation later Clay campaigned against the pending national amendment during the final battle for its ratification.) Amid predictions by some proponents of this strategy that the South would lead the way in the enfranchisement of women, suffrage organizations were established throughout the region. Anthony, Catt and Blackwell campaigned for suffrage in the South in 1895, with the latter two calling for suffrage only for educated women. With Anthony's reluctant cooperation, the NAWSA maneuvered to accommodate the politics of white supremacy in that region. Anthony asked her old friend Frederick Douglass, a former slave, not to attend the NAWSA convention in Atlanta in 1895, the first to be held in a southern city. Black NAWSA members were excluded from 1903 convention in the southern city of New Orleans, which marked the peak of this strategy's influence.[169] The leaders of the Southern movement were privileged upper-class belles with a strong position in high society and in church affairs. They tried to use their upscale connections to convince powerful men that suffrage was a good idea to purify society. They also argued that giving white women the vote would more than counterbalance giving the vote to the smaller number of black women.[170] No southern state enfranchised women as a result of this strategy, however, and most southern suffrage societies that were established during this period lapsed into inactivity. The NAWSA leadership afterwards said it would not adopt policies that "advocated the exclusion of any race or class from the right of suffrage."[171] Nonetheless NAWSA reflected its white membership's viewpoint by minimizing the role of black suffragists. At the 1913 suffrage march on Washington, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a leader in the African American community, was asked to march in an all-black contingent to avoid upsetting white southern marchers. When the march got underway, however, she slipped into the ranks of the contingent from Illinois, her home state, and completed the march in the company of white supporters.[172] New Woman Official program of the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913. In the actual march, the woman on horseback was Inez Milholland.[173] The concept of the New Woman emerged in the late nineteenth century to characterize the increasingly independent activity of women, especially the younger generation. The move from households to public spaces was expressed in many ways. In the late 1890s, riding bicycles was a newly popular activity that increased women's mobility even as it signaled rejection of traditional teachings about women's weakness and fragility. Susan B. Anthony said bicycles had "done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world".[174] Elizabeth Cady Stanton said that "Woman is riding to suffrage on the bicycle.[175] File:OnToWashington1913.ogv Film of suffragettes marching from Newark, New Jersey to Washington, DC in 1913. Activists campaigned for suffrage in ways that were still considered by many to be "unladylike," such as marching in parades and giving street corner speeches on soap boxes. In New York in 1912, suffragists organized a twelve-day, 170-mile "Hike to Albany" to deliver suffrage petitions to the new governor. In 1913 the suffragist "Army of the Hudson" marched 250 miles from New York to Washington in sixteen days, gaining national publicity.[176] New suffrage organizations College Equal Suffrage League When Maud Wood Park attended the NAWSA convention in 1900, she found herself to be virtually the only young person there. After returning to Boston, she formed the College Equal Suffrage League, which affiliated with the NAWSA. Largely through Park's efforts, similar groups were organized on campuses in 30 states, leading to the formation of the National College Equal Suffrage League in 1908.[177][178] Women suffragists demonstrating for the right to vote in 1913 Equality League of Self-Supporting Women The dramatic tactics of the militant wing of the British suffrage movement began to influence the movement in the U.S. Harriet Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, returned to the U.S. after several years in England, where she had associated with suffrage groups still in the early phases of militancy. In 1907 she founded the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women, later called the Women's Political Union, whose membership was based on working women, both professional and industrial. The Equality League initiated the practice of holding suffrage parades and organized the first open air suffrage rallies in thirty years.[179] As many as 25,000 people marched in these parades[180] National Woman's Party Work toward a national suffrage amendment had been sharply curtailed in favor of state suffrage campaigns after the two rival suffrage organizations merged in 1890 to form the NAWSA. Interest in a national suffrage amendment was revived primarily by Alice Paul.[130] In 1910, she returned to the U.S. from England, where she had been part of the militant wing of the suffrage movement. Paul had been jailed there and had endured forced feedings after going on a hunger strike. In January 1913 she arrived in Washington as chair of the Congressional Committee of the NAWSA, charged with reviving the drive for a constitutional amendment that would enfranchise women. She and her coworker Lucy Burns organized a suffrage parade in Washington on the day before Woodrow Wilson's inauguration as president. Opponents of the march turned the event into a near riot, which ended only when a cavalry unit of the army was brought in to restore order. Public outrage over the incident, which cost the chief of police his job, brought publicity to the movement and gave it fresh momentum.[181] In 1914 Paul and her followers began referring to the proposed suffrage amendment as the "Susan B. Anthony Amendment,"[182] a name that was widely adopted.[183] Paul argued that because the Democrats would not act to enfranchise women even though they controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress, the suffrage movement should work for the defeat of all Democratic candidates regardless of an individual candidate's position on suffrage. She and Burns formed a separate lobbying group called the Congressional Union to act on this approach. Strongly disagreeing, the NAWSA in 1913 withdrew support from Paul's group and continued its practice of supporting any candidate who supported suffrage, regardless of political party.[184] In 1916 Blatch merged her Women's Political Union into Paul's Congressional Union.[185] Alice Paul In 1916 Paul formed the National Woman's Party (NWP).[186] Once again the women's movement had split, but the result this time was something like a division of labor. The NAWSA burnished its image of respectability and engaged in highly organized lobbying at both the national and state levels. The smaller NWP also engaged in lobbying but became increasingly known for activities that were dramatic and confrontational, most often in the national capital.[187] One form of protest was the watchfires, which involved burning copies of President Wilson's speeches, often outside the White House or in the nearby Lafayette Park. The NWP continued to hold watchfires even as the war began, drawing criticism from the public and even other suffrage groups for being unpatriotic.[188] Suffrage periodicals Stanton and Anthony launched a sixteen-page weekly newspaper called The Revolution in 1868. It focused primarily on women's rights, especially suffrage, but it also covered politics, the labor movement and other topics. Its energetic and broad-ranging style gave it a lasting influence, but its debts mounted when it did not receive the funding they had expected, and they had to transfer the paper to other hands after only twenty-nine months.[189] Their organization, the NWSA, afterwards depended on other periodicals, such as The National Citizen and Ballot Box, edited by Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Women's Tribune, edited by Clara Bewick Colby, to represent its viewpoint.[190] In 1870, shortly after the formation of the AWSA, Lucy Stone launched an eight-page weekly newspaper called the Woman's Journal to advocate for women's rights, especially suffrage. Better financed and less radical than The Revolution, it had a much longer life. By the 1880s it had become an unofficial voice of the suffrage movement as a whole.[191] In 1916 the NAWSA purchased the Woman's Journal and spent a significant amount of money to enhance it. It was renamed Woman Citizen and declared to be the official organ of the NAWSA.[192] Alice Paul began publishing a newspaper called The Suffragist in 1913 when she was still part of the NAWSA. Editor of the eight-page weekly was Rheta Childe Dorr, an experienced journalist.[193] Turn of the tide New Zealand enfranchised women in 1893, the first country to do so on a nationwide basis. In the U.S. women gained the franchise in the states of Washington in 1910; in California in 1911; in Oregon, Kansas and Arizona in 1912; and in Illinois in 1913.[194] Some states allowed women to vote in school elections, municipal elections, or for members of the Electoral College. Some territories, like Washington, Utah, and Wyoming, allowed women to vote before they became states.[195] As women voted in an increasing number of states, Congressmen from those states swung to support a national suffrage amendment, and paid more attention to issues such as child labor. The status of women's suffrage before passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920   Full suffrage   Presidential suffrage (vote only for President)   Primary suffrage (vote only in primary elections)   Municipal suffrage (vote only in city elections)   School, bond, or tax suffrage (vote only in special elections)   Municipal suffrage in some cities   Primary suffrage in some cities   No suffrage The reform campaigns of the Progressive Era strengthened the suffrage movement. Beginning around 1900, this broad movement began at the grassroots level with such goals as combating corruption in government, eliminating child labor, and protecting workers and consumers. Many of its participants saw women's suffrage as yet another progressive goal, and they believed that the addition of women to the electorate would help their movement achieve its other goals. In 1912 the Progressive Party, formed by Theodore Roosevelt, endorsed women's suffrage.[196] The socialist movement supported women's suffrage in some areas.[197] By 1916 suffrage for women had become a major national issue, and the NAWSA had become the nation's largest voluntary organization, with two million members.[198] In 1916 the conventions of both the Democratic and Republican parties endorsed women's suffrage, but only on a state-by-state basis, with the implication that the various states might implement suffrage in different ways or (in some cases) not at all. Having expected more, Catt called an emergency NAWSA convention and proposed what became known as the "Winning Plan".[199] For several years the NAWSA had focused on achieving suffrage on a state-by-state basis, partly to accommodate members from southern states who opposed the idea of a national suffrage amendment, considering it an infringement on states' rights.[200] In a strategic shift, the 1916 convention approved Catt's proposal to make a national amendment the priority for the entire organization. It authorized the executive board to specify a plan of work toward this goal for each state and to take over that work if the state organization refused to comply.[201] In 1917 Catt received a bequest of $900,000 from Mrs. Frank (Miriam) Leslie to be used for the women's suffrage movement. Catt formed the Leslie Woman Suffrage Commission to dispense the funds, most of which supported the activities of the NAWSA at a crucial time for the suffrage movement.[202] "Kaiser Wilson" banner held by an NWP member picketing the White House The entry of the U.S. into World War I in April 1917 had a significant impact on the suffrage movement. To replace men who had gone into the military, women moved into workplaces that did not traditionally hire women, such as steel mills and oil refineries. The NAWSA cooperated with the war effort, with Catt and Shaw serving on the Women's Committee for the Council of National Defense. The NWP, by contrast, took no steps to cooperate with the war effort.[203] Jeannette Rankin, elected in 1916 by Montana as the first woman in Congress, was one of fifty members of Congress to vote against the declaration of war.[204] In January 1917 the NWP stationed pickets at the White House, which had never before been picketed, with banners demanding women's suffrage.[205] Tension escalated in June as a Russian delegation drove up to the White House and NPW members unfurled a banner that read, "We, the women of America, tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million American women are denied the right to vote. President Wilson is the chief opponent of their national enfranchisement".[206] In August another banner referred to "Kaiser Wilson" and compared the plight of the German people with that of American women.[207] Some of the onlookers reacted violently, tearing the banners from the picketers' hands. The police, whose actions had previously been restrained, began arresting the picketers for blocking the sidewalk. Eventually over 200 were arrested, about half of whom were sent to prison.[208] In October Alice Paul was sentenced to seven months in prison. When she and other suffragist prisoners began a hunger strike, prison authorities force-fed them. The negative publicity created by this harsh practice increased the pressure on the administration, which capitulated and released all the prisoners.[209] In November 1917 a referendum to enfranchise women in New York - at that time the most populous state in the country - passed by a substantial margin.[210] In September 1918, President Wilson spoke before the Senate, calling for approval of the suffrage amendment as a war measure, saying "We have made partners of the women in this war; shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right?"[211] By the end of 1919, women effectively could vote for president in states with 326 electoral votes out of a total of 531.[212] Political leaders who became convinced of the inevitability of women's suffrage began to pressure local and national legislators to support it so that their respective party could claim credit for it in future elections.[213] The war served as a catalyst for suffrage extension in several countries, with women gaining the vote after years of campaigning partly in recognition of their support for the war effort, which further increased the pressure for suffrage in the U.S.[214] About half of the women in Britain had become enfranchised by January 1918, as had women in most Canadian provinces, with Quebec the major exception.[215] Nineteenth Amendment Main article: Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution A chorus of disreputable men supports an anti-suffrage woman in this 1915 cartoon from Puck magazine. The caption "I did not raise my girl to be a voter" parodies the antiwar song "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier". US Stamp from 1970 celebrating 50 years of woman suffrage World War I had a profound impact on woman suffrage across the belligerents. Women played a major role on the home fronts and many countries recognized their sacrifices with the vote during or shortly after the war, including the U.S., Britain, Canada (except Quebec), Denmark, Austria, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Sweden; and Ireland introduced universal suffrage with independence. France almost did so but stopped short.[216] Despite their eventual success, groups like the National Woman's Party that continued militant protests during wartime were criticized by other suffrage groups and the public, who viewed it as unpatriotic.[217] On January 12, 1915, a suffrage bill was brought before the House of Representatives but was defeated by a vote of 204 to 174, (Democrats 170-85 against, Republicans 81-34 for, Progressives 6-0 for).[218] President Woodrow Wilson held off until he was sure the Democratic Party was supportive; the 1917 referendum in New York State in favor of suffrage proved decisive for him. When another bill was brought before the House in January, 1918, Wilson made a strong and widely published appeal to the House to pass the bill.[219] Behn argues that: The National American Woman Suffrage Association, not the National Woman's Party, was decisive in Wilson's conversion to the cause of the federal amendment because its approach mirrored his own conservative vision of the appropriate method of reform: win a broad consensus, develop a legitimate rationale, and make the issue politically valuable. Additionally, I contend that Wilson did have a significant role to play in the successful congressional passage and national ratification of the 19th Amendment.[220] The Amendment passed by two-thirds of the House, with only one vote to spare. The vote was then carried into the Senate. Again President Wilson made an appeal, but on September 30, 1918, the amendment fell two votes short of the two-thirds necessary for passage, 53-31 (Republicans 27-10 for, Democrats 26-21 for).[221] On February 10, 1919, it was again voted upon, and then it was lost by only one vote, 54-30 (Republicans 30-12 for, Democrats 24-18 for).[222] There was considerable anxiety among politicians of both parties to have the amendment passed and made effective before the general elections of 1920, so the President called a special session of Congress, and a bill, introducing the amendment, was brought before the House again. On May 21, 1919, it was passed, 304 to 89, (Republicans 200-19 for, Democrats 102-69 for, Union Labor 1-0 for, Prohibitionist 1-0 for),[223] 42 votes more than necessary being obtained. On June 4, 1919, it was brought the Senate, and after a long discussion it was passed, with 56 ayes and 25 nays (Republicans 36-8 for, Democrats 20-17 for).[224] Within a few days, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan ratified the amendment, their legislatures being then in session. Other states followed suit at a regular pace, until the amendment had been ratified by 35 of the necessary 36 state legislatures. After Washington on March 22, 1920, ratification languished for months. Finally, on August 18, 1920, Tennessee narrowly ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, making it the law throughout the United States.[225] Thus the 1920 election became the first United States presidential election in which women were permitted to vote in every state. "To get the word male in effect out of the Constitution cost the women of the country fifty-two years of pauseless campaign...During that time they were forced to conduct fifty-six campaigns of referenda to male voters; 480 campaigns to get Legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters; 47 campaigns to get State constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into State constitutions; 277 campaigns to get State party conventions to include woman suffrage planks; 30 campaigns to get presidential party conventions to adopt woman suffrage planks in party platforms, and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses. Millions of dollars were raised, mainly in small sums, and expended with economic care. Hundreds of women gave the accumulated possibilities of an entire lifetime, thousands gave years of their lives, hundreds of thousands gave constant interest and such aid as they could." Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.[226][227] Three other states, Connecticut, Vermont and Delaware, passed the amendment by 1923. They were eventually followed by others in the south. Nearly twenty years later Maryland ratified the amendment in 1941. After another ten years, in 1952, Virginia ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, followed by Alabama in 1953.[228] After another 16 years Florida and South Carolina passed the necessary votes to ratify in 1969, followed two years later by Georgia,[229] Louisiana and North Carolina.[228] Mississippi did not ratify the Nineteenth Amendment until 1984, sixty four years after the law was enacted nationally.[230] Effects of the Nineteenth Amendment Immediate effects Women surrounded by posters in English and Yiddish supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt, Herbert H. Lehman, and the American Labor Party teach other women how to vote, 1936. Politicians responded to the newly enlarged electorate by emphasizing issues of special interest to women, especially prohibition, child health, public schools, and world peace.[231] Women did respond to these issues, but in terms of general voting they shared the same outlook and the same voting behavior as men.[232] The suffrage organization NAWSA became the League of Women Voters and Alice Paul's National Woman's Party began lobbying for full equality and the Equal Rights Amendment which would pass Congress during the second wave of the women's movement in 1972 (but it was not ratified and never took effect). The main surge of women voting came in 1928, when the big-city machines realized they needed the support of women to elect Al Smith, while rural drys mobilized women to support Prohibition and vote for Republican Herbert Hoover. Catholic women were reluctant to vote in the early 1920s, but they registered in very large numbers for the 1928 election—the first in which Catholicism was a major issue.[233] A few women were elected to office, but none became especially prominent during this time period. Overall, the women's rights movement declined noticeably during the 1920s. Changes in the voting population Although restricting access to the polls because of sex was made unconstitutional in 1920, women did not turn out to the polls in the same numbers as men until 1980. From 1980 until the present, women have voted in elections in at least the same percentage as have men, and often more. This difference in voting turnout and preferences between men and women is known as the voting gender gap. The voting gender gap has impacted political elections and, consequently, the way candidates campaign for office. Changes in representation and government programs The presence of women in Congress has gradually increased since 1920, with an especially steady increase from 1981 (23 female members) to the present (97 female members). The 113th Congress, serving from 2013 to 2015, includes a record 20 female senators and 77 female representatives.[234] Notable legislation Immediately following the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, many legislators feared a powerful women's bloc would emerge as a result of female enfranchisement. The Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921, which expanded maternity care during the 1920s, was one of the first laws passed appealing to the female vote.[235] Socio-economic effects A paper by John Lott and Lawrence W. Kenny, published by the Journal of Political Economy, found that women generally voted along more liberal political philosophies than men. The paper concluded that women's voting appeared to be more risk-averse than men and favored candidates or policies that supported wealth transfer, social insurance, progressive taxation, and larger government.[236] A paper found that "exposure to women’s political empowerment during childhood leads to large increases in educational attainment for children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, in particular blacks and Southern whites. We also find improvements in employment outcomes among this group."[237]   The National Woman's Party (NWP) is an American women's political organization formed in 1916 to fight for women's suffrage. After achieving this goal with the 1920 adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the NWP advocated for other issues including the Equal Rights Amendment, which is still seeking ratification today. The most prominent leader of the National Woman's Party was Alice Paul. Overview The National Woman's Party was an outgrowth of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, which had been formed in 1913 by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns to fight for women's suffrage. The National Woman's Party broke from the much larger National American Woman Suffrage Association, which was focused on attempting to gain women's suffrage at the state level. The NWP prioritized the passage of a constitutional amendment ensuring women's suffrage throughout the United States. Early history Alice Paul was closely linked to England's Women's Suffrage Political Union (WSPU), organized by Emmeline Pankhurst. While a college student in England, Paul became involved with the Pankhursts and their English suffrage campaign. During this time Alice Paul met Lucy Burns, who would go on and be a co-founder of the NWP. Although Paul was closely tied to the militant suffrage campaign in England, when she left to pursue suffrage in the United States, instead Paul pioneered civil disobedience in the United States. For example, members of the WSPU heckled members of parliament, spit on police officers, and committed arson.[1] While the British suffragettes stopped their protests in 1914 and supported the British war effort, Paul continued her struggle for women's equality and organized picketing of a wartime time president to maintain attention to the lack of enfranchisement for women.  Members of the NWP argued it was hypocritical for the United States to fight a war for democracy in Europe while denying its benefits to half of the US population. Similar arguments were being made in Europe, where most of the allied nations of Europe had enfranchised some women or soon would. After their experience with militant suffrage work in Great Britain, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns reunited in the United States in 1910. The two women originally were appointed to the Congressional Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). In March 1913, the two women organized the first national suffrageparade of 5,000–8,000 women (by differing estimates)[2] in Washington, D.C. on the day before Woodrow Wilson's inauguration. This was designed as a political tactic to show the strength of women and to show that they would pursue their goals under Wilson's administration. Leading the parade was Inez Milholland who wore all white and rode on a white horse, which later served as a symbol for the suffrage movement. This placement of Millholland at the start of the parade was strategic because of Mulholland's beauty, Paul knew she would attract media attention and followers. One of the criticisms of this first national suffrage parade was the barrier of colored women from participating side by side with white women. Even though Paul never opposed black women getting the right to vote, she barred them from marching with the white women and forced them to be in the back of the parade with the men to appease southern women. The parade quickly devolved into chaos due to violent reactions from the crowd and a lack of support by the local police. The D.C. police did little to help the suffragists; but the women were assisted by the Massachusetts National Guard, the Pennsylvania National Guard, and boys from the Maryland Agricultural College, who created a human barrier protecting the women from the angry crowd.[3] After this incident, which Paul effectively used to rally public opinion to the suffrage cause, Paul and Burns founded the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage in April 1913, which split off from NAWSA later that year. There were many reasons for the split, but primarily Paul and Burns were frustrated with the National's slower approach of focusing on individual state referendums and wanted to pursue a congressional amendment. Alice Paul had also chafed under the leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt, as she had very different ideas of how to go about suffrage work, and a different attitude towards militancy.[4] Catt disapproved of the radical strategies, inspired by the British "Suffragettes", Paul and Burns were trying to implement into the American Suffrage Movement. The split was confirmed by a major difference of opinion on the Shafroth-Palmer Amendment. This amendment was spearheaded by Alice Paul's replacement as chair of the National's Congressional Committee, and was a compromise of sorts meant to appease racist sentiment in the South. Shafroth–Palmer was to be a constitutional amendment that would require any state with more than 8 percent signing an initiative petition to hold a state referendum on suffrage. This would have kept the law-making out of federal hands, a proposition more attractive to the South. Southern states feared a congressional women's suffrage amendment as a possible federal encroachment into their restrictive system of voting laws, meant to disenfranchise the black voter. Paul and Burns felt that this amendment was a lethal distraction from the true and ultimately necessary goal of an all-encompassing federal amendment protecting the rights of all women—especially as the bruising rounds of state referendums were perceived at the time as almost damaging the cause. In Paul's words: "It is a little difficult to treat with seriousness an equivocating, evasive, childish substitute for the simple and dignified suffrage amendment now before Congress."[5] Portrait of Alice Paul, 1915   Lucy Burns, Vice Chairman Congressional Union, 1913   Inez Milholland   Mabel Vernon   Nina Allender, political cartoonist for The Suffragist   Doris Stevens, author of Jailed for Freedom Opposition to Wilson March 8, 1913 front page of Woman's Journal Women associated with the party staged a very innovative suffrage parade on March 3, 1913, the day before Wilson's inauguration.[6] During the group's first meeting, Paul clarified that the party would not be a traditional political party and therefore would not endorse a candidate for president during elections. While non-partisan, the NWP directed most of its attention to President Woodrow Wilson and the Democrats, criticizing them as responsible for the failure to pass a constitutional amendment. As a result, in 1918, Paul ran a campaign that boycotted Democrats because of their refusal to support women's suffrage. They decided to boycott the entire party, including pro-suffrage Democrats.[7] Eventually, the boycott of Democrats spearheaded by the NWP lead to a Republican majority in the house.[8] The National Woman's Party continued to focus on suffrage as their main cause. It refused to either support or attack American involvement in the World War, while the rival NAWSA, under Carrie Chapman Catt gave full support to the war effort. As a result, a diverse group of activists such as pacifists and Socialists were attracted to the NWP due to its opposition to an anti-suffrage president.[9] Picketing the White House NWP members picket the White House during the Silent Sentinels protests in 1917; the banner reads, "Mr. President, How Long Must Women Wait For Liberty." The escalating conflict in Europe didn't stop Alice Paul and the NWP from protesting Wilson's hypocritical stance on the war. Wilson promoted the idea of maintaining democracy abroad, even though the United States still denied half of its citizens the right to vote. The NWP pickets were seen as controversial because they continued during war time and other suffrage groups like NAWSA chose to support the war effort. Known as "Silent Sentinels", their action lasted from January 10, 1917 until June 1919. The picketers were tolerated at first, but when they continued to picket after the United States declared war in 1917, they were arrested by police for obstructing traffic. Regardless of the weather, the women stood outside of the White House holding banners, constantly reminding Wilson of his hypocrisy. When they were first arrested, Lucy Burns claimed that they were political prisoners but were treated as regular prisoners.  As a tribute to their commitment to suffrage, they refused to pay the fines  and accepted prison time. The first night that the Silent Sentinels spent in jail was known as the Night of Terror: the prisoners were beaten until a few of them were unconscious, starved, and Burns had her hands chained above her head. Due to this unlawful detention, many of the NWP's members went on hunger strikes; some, including Lucy Burns and Paul, were force-fed by jail personnel as a consequence.Hunger strikes left the women weak and in terrible conditions, but they persisted. After a while, the guards were told to force-feed the women. They had long narrow tubes shoved down their throats, which caused many injuries that failed to heal. The suffragists were also forced to provide labor in the workhouses and were often beaten and abused. Taking advantage of the mistreatment and physical abuse, some of the suffragists shared their stories to the press and to The Suffragist, their suffrage newspaper. Doris Stevens, a notable member of the NWP, wrote about their horrible experiences in the Occoquan Workhouse in her memoir Jailed for Freedom. The resulting publicity was at a time when Wilson was trying to build a reputation for himself and the nation as an international leader in human rights. Many of banners featured quotes from Wilson about preserving democracy abroad, which called attention to Wilson's hypocrisy and his lack of support for a national suffrage amendment. There are many different theories about why Wilson changed his stance of suffrage. Wilson favored  woman suffrage at the state level, but held off support for a nationwide constitutional amendment because his party was sharply divided, with the South opposing an amendment on the grounds of state's rights.[10] The only Southern state to grant women the vote was Arkansas. The NWP in 1917–1919 repeatedly targeted Wilson and his party for not enacting an amendment. Wilson, however, kept in close touch with more moderate suffragists of the NAWSA. Wilson continued to hold off until he was sure the Democratic Party in the North was in support; the 1917 referendum in New York State in favor of suffrage proved decisive for him. In January 1918, Wilson went in person to the House and made a strong and widely published appeal to the House to pass the bill. The NWP had many innovative non-violent tactics including; staging sit-ins, organizing deputations of high class and working-class women, boycotting the Democrats in midterm elections, using the voting power of women in the west, appealing to Wilson everyday through picketing, and calling out Wilson for supporting world democracy but not supporting it at home, of the NWP were a contributing factor in getting Wilson to change his position on the suffrage bill. It passed but the Senate stalled until 1919 then finally sent the amendment to the states for ratification.[13] Scholar Belinda A. Stillion Southard has written that "...the campaign of the NWP was crucial toward securing the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment."[14] Fighting for equal rights The NWP played a critical role in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, which granted U.S. women the right to vote. Alice Paul then turned her attention to securing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) which she felt was vital for women to secure gender equality. The NWP regrouped in1923 and published the magazine Equal Rights. The publication was directed towards women but also intended to educate men about the benefits of women's suffrage, women's rights and other issues concerning American women. Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.[11] The NWP did not support protective legislation and argued that these laws would continue to depress women's wages and prevent women from gaining access to all types of work and parts of society. But, the NWP did support working women and their support was vital throughout their campaign for the national Amendment. Alice Paul organized many working class deputations and even sent over 400 blue collar workers to meet with Wilson. Although seen as highly controversial due to the status difference, this move showed Paul's support for all types of women, not just those of prestigious class. After 1920, the National Woman's Party authored over 600 pieces of legislation fighting for women's equality; over 300 were passed. In addition, the NWP continued to lobby for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment[12] and under president Sarah Tarleton Colvin, who served in 1933, pressed for equal pay.[13][14] Scholar Mary K. Trigg has noted, "...the NWP played a central role in the women's rights movement after 1945. It stuck to its laser-like focus on the ERA, doggedly lobbying year in and year out for the amendment's introduction in Congress."[15] In 1997, the NWP ceased to be a lobbying organization.[16] Instead, it turned its focus to education and to preserving its collection of first hand source documents from the women's suffrage movement.[17] The NWP continues to function as an educational organization, maintaining and interpreting the collection left by the work of the historic National Woman's Party.[18] File:First Lady Betty Ford's "Bloomer Flag".jpg First Lady Betty Ford's "Bloomer Flag" Congress passed the ERA Amendment and many states ratified it, but at the last minute in 1982 it was stopped by a coalition of conservatives led by Phyllis Schlafly and never passed. However, in 1964 the NWP did succeed, with the support of conservatives and over the opposition of liberals, blacks and labor unions, to have "sex" added to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, thus achieving some of the goals sought by the NWP. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 In 1963 Congress passed the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which prohibited wage differentials based on sex. The prohibition on sex discrimination was added by Howard W. Smith, a powerful Virginian Democrat who chaired the House Rules Committee. He was a conservative who strongly opposed civil rights laws for blacks, but he supported such laws for white women. Smith's amendment was passed by a teller vote of 168 to 133. House Rules Committee clerk's record of markup session adding "sex" to bill. Historians debate Smith's motivation—was it a cynical attempt to defeat the bill by someone opposed to both civil rights for blacks and women, or did he support women's rights and was attempting to improve the bill by broadening it to include women?[19][20][21] Smith expected that Republicans, who had included equal rights for women in their party's platform since 1944, would probably vote for the amendment. Historians speculate that Smith was trying to embarrass northern Democrats who opposed civil rights for women because the clause was opposed by labor unions.[22] Smith asserted that he sincerely supported the amendment and, indeed, along with Rep. Martha Griffiths,[23] he was the chief spokesperson for the amendment.[22] For twenty years Smith had sponsored the Equal Rights Amendment—with no linkage to racial issues—in the House because he believed in it. For decades he had been close to the National Woman's Party and especially Paul. She and other activists had worked with Smith since 1945 trying to find a way to include sex as a protected civil rights category. Now was the moment.[24] Griffiths argued that the new law would protect black women but not white women, and that was unfair to white women. Furthermore, she argued that the laws "protecting" women from unpleasant jobs were actually designed to enable men to monopolize those jobs, and that was unfair to women who were not allowed to try out for those jobs.[25] The amendment passed with the votes of Republicans and Southern Democrats. The final law passed with the votes of Republicans and Northern Democrats. However, in 1964 the NWP and Pauli Murray did succeed, with the support of conservatives and over the opposition of liberals, blacks and labor unions, to have "sex" added to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, thus achieving some of the goals sought by the NWP. Pauli Murray was also instrumental in the inclusion of sex in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits the discrimination based on sex, which has been attributed to the betterment of women as a group. Publications Nina E. Allender, The Spirit of '76.' On to the Senate!, 1915 The Suffragist newspaper was founded by the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage in 1913. It was referred to as "the only women's political newspaper in the United States" and was published to promote women's suffrage activities.[26] The Suffragist would follow weekly events and promote different views held by the leaders of the NWP. Its articles had political cartoons, by Nina E. Allender to garner support for the movement and communicate the status of the suffrage amendment.[26] The woman who reads our paper will be informed as to happenings in Congress, not only suffrage happenings, although they come first, but all proceedings of special interest to women. Men do not realize how serious are the changes that are taking place in the conduct of Congress. Women will have to inform them. Only in the pages of The Suffragist will you find the information you need. — The Suffragist, 1914[26] After the amendment for the women's right to vote was passed, the publication was discontinued by the National Woman's Party and succeeded in 1923 by Equal Rights.[26] Published until 1954, Equal Rights began as a weekly newsletter and evolved into a bi-monthly release aimed at keeping NWP members informed about developments related to the ERA and legislative issues. It included field reports, legislation updates and features about the activities of the NWP and featured writing from contributors including Crystal Eastman, Zona Gale, Ruth Hale and Inez Haynes Irwin.[27] Josephine Casey appeared on the cover of the publication in April 1931 as a result of her recurring column about the labour conditions of female textile workers in Georgia.[28] Legacy The Nineteenth amendment, which prohibits the denial of the right to vote on the basis of sex, became the law of the land when it was ratified by a sufficient number of states in 1920. Many African American women and men in the Jim Crow South, however, remained disenfranchised after the ratification of this amendment until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Today, the National Woman's Party exists as a 501c3 educational organization. Its task is now the maintenance and interpretation of the collection and archives of the historic National Woman's Party. The NWP operates out of the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument in Washington, DC, where objects from the collection are exhibited. The legacy that this group left behind is mixed. On one hand Alice Paul and the NWP were one of the reasons that the Nineteenth Amendment was passed, but on the other hand the party was flawed for their lack of inclusion of black women and their refusal to help black women gain the right to vote. To keep the support of southern members of the NWP, Paul refused to bring up the issue of race in the south. Her single-minded focus on the ERA caused her to refuse to fight the Jim Crow Laws barring black women the right to vote. Historian Nancy Cott has noted that as the party moved into the 1920s it remained ideologically consistent in the pursuit of a solitary goal for women and that: it remained an autocratically run, single-minded and single-issue pressure group, still reliant on getting into the newspapers as a means of publicizing its cause, very insistent on the method of "getting in touch with the key men."...NWP lobbyists went straight to legislators, governors, and presidents, not to their constituents. In 1972 Congress passed the ERA Amendment and many states ratified it, but at the last minute in 1982 it was stopped by a coalition of conservatives led by Phyllis Schlafly and never passed. Even though the expiration date has passed for this Amendment, recently a few states have ratified it symbolically. Although Alice Paul didn't live to see her hard work pay off, her legacy lives on in the continued struggle to ratify the ERA. Notable members The Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument, Washington DC, Headquarters of the Historic National Woman's Party Alice Paul Lucy Burns Doris Stevens Mabel Vernon Inez Milholland Rose Winslow Nina E. Allender Caroline Lexow Babcock Abby Scott Baker Mary Ritter Beard Harriot Stanton Blatch Alva Belmont Dorthy Day Marion Cothren Crystal Eastman Sara Bard Field Phoebe Hearst Alison Turnbull Hopkins Inez Haynes Irwin Edna Buckman Kearns Anne Martin Vida Milholland Caroline Spencer Amelia Earhart Maud Younger Edith Ainge See also Silent Sentinels Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913 Suffrage Hikes History of Feminism List of suffragists and suffragettes List of women's rights activists Prison Special Timeline of women's rights (other than voting) Timeline of women's suffrage Women's suffrage organizations Iron Jawed Angels The Authors Guild is America's oldest and largest professional organization for writers and provides advocacy on issues of free expression and copyright protection. Since its founding in 1912 as the Authors League of America, it has counted among its board members notable authors of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including numerous winners of the Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes and National Book Awards. It now has about 9,000 members, who receive free legal advice and guidance on contracts with publishers as well as insurance services and assistance with subsidiary licensing and royalties.[1] The group lobbies at the national and state levels on censorship and tax concerns, and it has initiated or supported several major lawsuits in defense of authors' copyrights. In one of those, a class-action suit claiming that Google acted illegally when it scanned millions of copyrighted books without permission, the Authors Guild lost on appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Recently the Authors Guild has fought the consolidation of the publishing industry through the mergers of large publishers, and it has pressed the publishers to increase royalty rates for ebooks.[2][3] History The original Authors League of America was organized with headquarters in New York City in order "to protect the rights of all authors, whether engaged in literary, dramatic, artistic, or musical competition, and to advise and assist all such authors".[4] In 1921, the Dramatists Guild of America split off as a separate group to represent writers of stage and radio drama. Past presidents of the Authors Guild have included the novelists Pearl S. Buck, Rex Stout and Madeleine L'Engle, the biographers Anne Edwards and Robert Caro, the journalists Herbert Mitgang and J. Anthony Lukas, and the historians William Shirer and Robert Massie. In 2017, the guild's members elected James Gleick as president and Richard Russo as vice president. Freelancers suit In June 2014, the guild announced final approval of an $18 million settlement of a class-action suit it brought in 2000, along with the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the National Writers Union and 21 freelance writers. The suit claimed that major electronics databases such as Lexis-Nexis had violated the rights of thousands of freelancers. Their work had originally appeared in newspapers and magazines including The New York Times and Time magazine and had then been resold to the databases without the writers' permission.[5] The publishers had argued that the databases constituted a fair "revision" of the original print articles, but the United States Supreme Court ruled in June 2001 that the writers must be compensated for their digital rights.[6] Further litigation and negotiation led to a settlement that will provide payments to the freelancers of up to $1,500 per article.[7] Conflict with Google Main article: Authors Guild v. Google On September 20, 2005, the Authors Guild, together with Herbert Mitgang, Betty Miles and Daniel Hoffman, filed a class action lawsuit against Google for its Book Search project.[8] According to the Authors Guild, Google was committing copyright infringement by making digital copies of books that were still in copyright. (Google countered that their use was fair according to US copyright law.) On October 28, 2008 the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, and Google announced that they had settled Authors Guild v. Google. Google agreed to a $125 million payout, $45 million of that to be paid to rightsholders whose books were scanned without permission. The Google Book Search Settlement Agreement allowed for legal protection for Google's scanning project, even though neither side changed its position about whether scanning books was fair use or copyright infringement. The Settlement also would have established a new regulatory organization, the Book Rights Registry, which would be responsible for allocating fees from Google to rightsholders. The settlement between the Authors guild and Google was rejected in 2011 by a judge at the district court level, who thought the settlement was not in the authors best interest.[9] In October 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sided with Google citing fair use and that the scanned and posted excerpts works does not harm the authors by having parts of the books online.[10] In late December 2015, the Authors Guild filed a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court against Google in their long-standing battle over whether copyright laws allows for the search engine to scan and post excerpts from books for the Google Books service,[11] which in April 2016 declined to review the case, leaving the lower court's decision standing.[12] The College Equal Suffrage League (CESL) was an American woman suffrage organization founded in 1900 by Maud Wood Park and Inez Haynes Irwin (nee Gillmore), as a way to attract younger Americans to the women's rights movement. The League spurred the creation of college branches around the country and influenced the actions of other prominent groups such as National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). History The beginning of the CESL dates from the 1900 NAWSA convention in Washington, D.C. Maud Wood Park, a 29-year-old attendee and recent Radcliffe College alum, realized that she was the youngest delegate.[1] Concerned by the absence of younger members in NAWSA and the general lack of interest in suffrage among college women, Park decided to work toward recruiting a new generation to the campaign. She later commented in regard to this decision: After hearing Miss Anthony speak I came to realize what her life had been, the heroism of her service not for herself but for the sex, and so for the whole human race. When I felt that, clearly I felt the obligation of service for the cause for which Miss Anthony and her noble associates had sacrificed so much and I promised myself then that I would try to make more women see these things as I have seen them. College women should realize their debt to the pioneers who have made our education and competence possible. They should be made to feel the obligation of their opportunities and to understand that one of the ways to pay that debt is to fight the battle for suffrage now in the quarter of the field in which it is still unwon.[2] Together with Inez Haynes Irwin, another Radcliffe graduate and suffrage supporter, Park formed the Massachusetts CESL in Boston. Park toured colleges around the United States, talking to recent alumnae in hopes that they would then encourage younger university and high school students to join the movement. Park's tours eventually sparked the formation of new chapters in 30 states.[3] In 1906, inspired by the CESL's efforts and as a way to increase their public presence, NAWSA began actively recruiting college students by sponsoring "College Evenings" at their larger suffrage events.[4] In 1908, the various state chapters of the CESL joined to form the National College Equal Suffrage League and became an official branch of NAWSA. Bryn Mawr College President M. Carey Thomas served as the first president and Maud Wood Park as vice president. The NCESL continued to recruit people to the suffrage cause until 1917 when the organization disband. Many of the League's members would play major roles in helping to push the Nineteenth Amendment through Congress, campaigning on the federal level and later serving in organizations like the League of Women Voters, which formed in 1920. See also Women's suffrages organizations List of suffragists and suffragettes Timeline of women's suffrage The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was an organization formed on February 18, 1890 to advocate in favor of women's suffrage in the United States. It was created by the merger of two existing organizations, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Its membership, which was about seven thousand at the time it was formed, eventually increased to two million, making it the largest voluntary organization in the nation. It played a pivotal role in the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which in 1920 guaranteed women's right to vote. Susan B. Anthony, a long-time leader in the suffrage movement, was the dominant figure in the newly formed NAWSA. Carrie Chapman Catt, who became president after Anthony retired in 1900, implemented a strategy of recruiting wealthy members of the rapidly growing women's club movement, whose time, money and experience could help build the suffrage movement. Anna Howard Shaw's term in office, which began in 1904, saw strong growth in the organization's membership and public approval. After the Senate decisively rejected the proposed women's suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1887, the suffrage movement had concentrated most of its efforts on state suffrage campaigns. In 1910 Alice Paul joined the NAWSA and played a major role in reviving interest in the national amendment. After continuing conflicts with the NAWSA leadership over tactics, Paul created a rival organization, the National Woman's Party. When Catt again became president in 1915, the NAWSA adopted her plan to centralize the organization and work toward the suffrage amendment as its primary goal. This was done despite opposition from southern members who believed that a federal amendment would erode states' rights. With its large membership and the increasing number of women voters in states where suffrage had already been achieved, the NAWSA began to operate more as a political pressure group than an educational group. It won additional sympathy for the suffrage cause by actively cooperating with the war effort during World War I. On February 14, 1920, several months prior to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the NAWSA transformed itself into the League of Women Voters, which is still active. The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States founded in Columbus, Ohio, in December 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor union. Samuel Gompers of the Cigar Makers' International Union was elected president at its founding convention and reelected every year, except one, until his death in 1924. The A.F. of L was the largest union grouping in the United States for the first half of the 20th century, even after the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) by unions which were expelled by the AFL in 1935 over its opposition to industrial unionism. The Federation was founded and dominated by craft unions throughout its first fifty years, after which many craft union affiliates turned to organizing on an industrial union basis to meet the challenge from the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1940s. In 1955, the AFL merged with the CIO to create the AFL-CIO, which has comprised the longest lasting and most influential labor federation in the United States to this day.
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