Woman suffrage

woman suffrage

woman suffrage, the right of women to vote. Throughout the latter part of the 19th cent. the issue of women's voting rights was an important phase of feminism feminism, movement for the political, social, and educational equality of women with men; the movement has occurred mainly in Europe and the United States. It has its roots in the humanism of the 18th cent. and in the Industrial Revolution.

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In the United States

It was first seriously proposed in the United States at Seneca Falls, N. Y. July 19, 1848, in a general declaration of the rights of women prepared by Elizabeth Cady Stanton Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, 1815–1902, American reformer, a leader of the woman-suffrage movement, b. Johnstown, N. Y. She was educated at the Troy Female Seminary (now Emma Willard School) in Troy, N. Y.

. Click the link for more information. Lucretia Mott Mott, Lucretia Coffin, 1793–1880, American feminist and reformer, b. Nantucket, Mass. She moved (1804) with her family to Boston and later (1809) to Philadelphia. A Quaker, she studied and taught at a Friends school near Poughkeepsie, N. Y.

. Click the link for more information. and several others. The early leaders of the movement in the United States—Susan B. Anthony Anthony, Susan Brownell, 1820–1906, American reformer and leader of the woman-suffrage movement, b. Adams, Mass.; daughter of Daniel Anthony, Quaker abolitionist.

. Click the link for more information. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone Stone, Lucy, 1818–93, reformer and leader in the women's rights movement, b. near West Brookfield, Mass. grad. Oberlin, 1847. In 1847 she gave her first lecture on women's rights, and the following year she was engaged by the Anti-Slavery Society as one of

. Click the link for more information. Abby Kelley Foster Foster, Abigail Kelley, 1810–87, American abolitionist and advocate of women's rights, b. near Amherst, Mass. Abby Kelley, as she was known to her contemporaries, began her crusade against slavery in 1837 after teaching in several Quaker schools.

. Click the link for more information. Angelina Grimké Grimké, Angelina Emily. 1805–79, American abolitionist and advocate of women's rights, b. Charleston, S. C. Converted to the Quaker faith by her elder sister Sarah Moore Grimké, she became an abolitionist in 1835, wrote

. Click the link for more information. Sarah Grimké Grimké, Sarah Moore, 1792–1873, American abolitionist and advocate of women's rights, b. Charleston, S. C. She came from a distinguished Southern family. On a visit to Philadelphia, Sarah joined the Society of Friends.

. Click the link for more information. and others—were usually also advocates of temperance and of the abolition of slavery. When, however, after the close of the Civil War, the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) gave the franchise to newly emancipated African-American men but not to the women who had helped win it for them, the suffragists for the most part confined their efforts to the struggle for the vote.

The National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was formed in 1869 to agitate for an amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Another organization, the American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Lucy Stone, was organized the same year to work through the state legislatures. These differing approaches—i. e. whether to seek a federal amendment or to work for state amendments—kept the woman-suffrage movement divided until 1890, when the two societies were united as the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Later leaders included Anna Howard Shaw Shaw, Anna Howard, 1847–1919, American woman-suffrage leader, b. England. She emigrated (1851) to the United States in early childhood and grew up on a farm in Michigan. She received a degree in theology (1878) and one in medicine (1885) from Boston Univ.

. Click the link for more information. and Carrie Chapman Catt Catt, Carrie Chapman, 1859–1947, American suffragist and peace advocate, b. Carrie Lane, Ripon, Wis. grad. Iowa State College (now Iowa State Univ.), 1880. She was superintendent of schools (1883–84) in Mason City, Iowa.

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Several of the states and territories (with Wyoming first, 1869) granted suffrage to the women within their borders; when in 1913 there were 12 of these, the National Woman's party, under the leadership of Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and others, resolved to use the voting power of the enfranchised women to force a suffrage resolution through Congress and secure ratification from the state legislatures. In 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution granted nation-wide suffrage to women.

In Great Britain

The movement in Great Britain began with Chartism Chartism, workingmen's political reform movement in Great Britain, 1838–48. It derived its name from the People's Charter, a document published in May, 1838, that called for voting by ballot, universal male suffrage, annual Parliaments, equal electoral

. Click the link for more information. but it was not until 1851 that a resolution in favor of female suffrage was presented in the House of Lords by the earl of Carlyle. John Stuart Mill was the most influential of the British advocates; his Subjection of Women (1869) is one of the earliest, as well as most famous, arguments for the right of women to vote. Among the leaders in the early British suffrage movement were Lydia Becker, Barbara Bodichon, Emily Davies Davies, Emily (Sarah Emily Davies). 1830–1921, British feminist, co-founder of Girton College, Cambridge. Educated at home, she became (1862) secretary of a committee to obtain the admission of women to university examinations.

. Click the link for more information. and Dr. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson; Jacob Bright presented a bill for woman suffrage in the House of Commons in 1870. In 1881 the Isle of Man granted the vote to women who owned property. Local British societies united in 1897 into the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, of which Millicent Garrett Fawcett was president until 1919.

In 1903 a militant suffrage movement emerged under the leadership of Emmeline Pankhurst Pankhurst, Emmeline Goulden. 1858–1928, British woman suffragist. Disappointed in the disinterest in women's suffrage shown by the Liberal party, the Fabian Society, and the Independent Labour party, she founded (1903) her own movement, the Women's Social

. Click the link for more information. and her daughters; their organization was the Women's Social and Political Union. The militant suffragists were determined to keep their objective prominent in the minds of both legislators and the public, which they did by heckling political speakers, by street meetings, and in many other ways. The leaders were frequently imprisoned for inciting riot; many of them used the hunger strike hunger strike, refusal to eat as a protest against existing conditions. Although most often used by prisoners, others have also employed it. For example, Mohandas Gandhi in India and Cesar Chavez in California fasted as religious penance during otherwise political

. Click the link for more information. When World War I broke out, the suffragists ceased all militant activity and devoted their powerful organization to the service of the government. After the war a limited suffrage was granted; in 1928 voting rights for men and women were equalized.

In Other Countries

On the European mainland, Finland (1906) and Norway (1913) were the first to grant woman suffrage; in France, women voted in the first election (1945) after World War II. Belgium granted suffrage to women in 1946. In Switzerland, however, women were denied the vote in federal elections until 1971. Among the Commonwealth nations, New Zealand granted suffrage in 1893, Australia in 1902, Canada in 1917 (except in Quebec, where it was postponed until 1940). In Latin American countries, woman suffrage was granted in Brazil (1934), Salvador (1939), the Dominican Republic (1942), Guatemala (1945), and Argentina and Mexico (1946). In the Philippines women have voted since 1937, in Japan since 1945, in mainland China since 1947, and in the former Soviet Union since 1917. Women have been enfranchised in most of the countries of the Middle East where men can vote, with the exception of Saudi Arabia. In Africa, women were often enfranchised at the same time as men—e. g. in Liberia (1947), in Uganda (1958), and in Nigeria (1960). One of the first aims of the United Nations was to extend suffrage rights to the women of member nations, and in 1952 the General Assembly adopted a resolution urging such action; by the 1970s, most member nations were in compliance with it.

Bibliography

See The History of Woman's Suffrage (ed. by E. C. Stanton et al. 6 vol. 1881–1922); E. Pankhurst, My Own Story (1914, repr. 1970); M. Fawcett, What I Remember (1925); A. Kraditor, The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890–1920 (1965, repr. 1971); W. Severn, Free but Not Equal (1967); D. Morgan, Suffragists and Democrats (1972); B. Beeton, The Woman Suffrage Movement, 1869–1896 (1986); R. Darcy et al. Women, Elections and Representation (1987); L. Scharf and J. M. Jensen, ed. Decades of Discontent: The Women's Movement, 1920–40 (1987).

Teaching With Documents:

Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment

Background

Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change in the Constitution. Militant suffragists used tactics such as parades, silent vigils, and hunger strikes. The records of the National Archives and Records Administration reveal much of this struggle.

As the 150th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 approaches, historical documents and a script that the National Archives commissioned about the decades long struggle entitled Failure is Impossible serve as valuable teaching tools.

Women's suffrage in the United States

Women's suffrage in the United States . the legal right of women to vote in that country, was established over the course of several decades, 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 bitter rivalry, they merged in 1890 as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) with Anthony as its leading force.

Hoping 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, 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 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 20, 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."

Contents

National History [ edit ]

Early voting activity [ edit ]

Lydia Taft (1712–1778), a wealthy widow, was allowed to vote in town meetings in Uxbridge, Massachusetts in 1756. [ 2 ] No other women in the colonial era are known to have voted.

Petition to U. S. Senate Women Voters Anti-Suffrage Party of New York World War I, ca. 1917

By 1916 almost all of the major suffrage organizations were united behind the goal of a constitutional amendment. When New York adopted woman suffrage in 1917 and President Woodrow Wilson changed his position to support an amendment in 1918, the political balance began to shift in favor of the vote for women. There was still strong opposition to enfranchising women, however, as illustrated by this petition from the Women Voters Anti-Suffrage Party of New York at the beginning of U. S. involvement in World War I.

Photograph of Suffragist with "Kaiser Wilson" Poster

Childhood & Family

Republican Party

Grover Cleveland

Forgotten Founders

Norwich, CT

Annapolis Continental

Congress Society

U. S. Presidency

& Hospitality

*Republican Party - - is a defunct political party organized by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in 1791. The Party went out of existence over the schism between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson (both Republican candidates) over the Presidential election of 1824. Today, for the sake of expediency, political scientists incorrectly refer to it as the Democratic-Republican Party. Party members throughout its existence never utilized the name “Democratic-Republican.”

Women's suffrage

Women's suffrage (also known as woman suffrage ) [ 1 ] is the right of women to vote and to stand for electoral office. Limited voting rights were gained by women in Sweden. Finland and some 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 (1904), and also worked for equal civil rights for women. [ 3 ]

In 1893, New Zealand. then a self-governing British colony, granted adult women the right to vote and the self-governing British colony of South Australia did the same in 1895, the latter also permitting women to stand for office. Australia federated in 1901, and women acquired the right to vote and stand in federal elections from 1902, but discriminatory restrictions against Aboriginal women (and men) voting in national elections were not completely removed until 1962. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ]

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 female members of parliament in the 1907 parliamentary elections. Norway followed, granting full women's suffrage in 1913. Most European, Asian and African countries did not pass women's suffrage until after World War I. Late adopters were France in 1944, Italy in 1946, Greece in 1952, [ 7 ] Switzerland in 1971, [ 8 ] and Liechtenstein in 1984. [ 9 ] The nations of North America and most nations in Central and South America passed women's suffrage before World War II (see table in Summary below).

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 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 188 countries currently being parties to this Convention.