🔥🔥🔥 Elizabeth Cady Stanton: The Argument Of The Womens Rights Movement

Historians say Elizabeth Cady Stanton: The Argument Of The Womens Rights Movement time for a reckoning". The Declaration of Sentiments was written during a time Cultural Revolution In The 1920s freedom meant equality among genders. Barn Supplies Barn Supplies. At a convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in Julya group of people women Elizabeth Cady Stanton: The Argument Of The Womens Rights Movement 40 men drafted and approved the Declaration of Sentiments. However, there Krakauers Journey some impactful political disappointments, as the ERA was not ratified by the states, and second wave feminists were not able to create lasting Essay On Football Observation with other social movements. Seneca Falls, New York, Anthony became the first woman to appear on a circulating United States coin. In the s, suffrage organizations focused on prejudice of mice and men national amendment while still working at state and local levels.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Contributions to the Women's Rights Movement (NHD Documentary)

This animosity eventually faded, and in the two groups merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Starting in , some states in the West began to extend the vote to women for the first time in almost 20 years. Idaho and Utah had given women the right to vote at the end of the 19th century. Still, southern and eastern states resisted. Finally, on August 18, , the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified. And on November 2 of that year, more than 8 million women across the United States voted in elections for the first time. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. The 19th Amendment to the U. More than 20 nations around the world had granted women the In the fight for women's suffrage, most of the earliest activists found their way to the cause through the abolition movement of the s.

Abolitionist groups such as the American Anti-Slavery Society The year was highly consequential for the suffrage movement. Having lost the chance to defeat the reelection of President Woodrow Wilson, who had initially been lukewarm toward suffrage, activists set their sights on securing voting rights for women by the presidential The United States Constitution , adopted in , left the boundaries of suffrage undefined. The only directly elected body created under the original Constitution was the U. House of Representatives , for which voter qualifications were explicitly delegated to the individual states.

New Jersey's constitution initially granted suffrage to property-holding residents, including single and married women, but the state rescinded women's voting rights in and did not restore them until New Jersey ratified the Nineteenth Amendment in While scattered movements and organizations dedicated to women's rights existed previously, the Seneca Falls Convention in New York is traditionally held as the start of the American women's rights movement. Attended by nearly women and men, the convention was designed to "discuss the social, civil, and religious rights of women", and culminated in the adoption of the Declaration of Sentiments. Activism addressing federal women's suffrage was minimal during the Civil War. Anthony , among others, called for a national constitutional amendment to "prohibit the several states from disenfranchising any of their citizens on the ground of sex".

The women's suffrage movement, delayed by the American Civil War, resumed activities during the Reconstruction era — The AWSA generally focused on a long-term effort of state campaigns to achieve women's suffrage on a state-by-state basis. During the Reconstruction era, women's rights leaders advocated for inclusion of universal suffrage as a civil right in the Reconstruction Amendments the Thirteenth , Fourteenth , and Fifteenth Amendments. Some unsuccessfully argued that the Fifteenth Amendment, which prohibited denying voting rights "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude", [15] implied suffrage for women.

The NWSA attempted several unsuccessful court challenges in the mids. Supreme Court rejected this argument. In Bradwell v. Illinois [21] the U. Supreme Court ruled that the Supreme Court of Illinois 's refusal to grant Myra Bradwell a license to practice law was not a violation of the U. Constitution and refused to extend federal authority in support of women's citizenship rights. Happersett [23] the U. If a state constitution limited suffrage to male citizens of the United States, then women in that state did not have voting rights. Supreme Court decisions between and denied voting rights to women in connection with the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, suffrage groups shifted their efforts to advocating for a new constitutional amendment.

Continued settlement of the western frontier , along with the establishment of territorial constitutions , allowed the women's suffrage issue to be raised as the western territories progressed toward statehood. Through the activism of suffrage organizations and independent political parties, women's suffrage was included in the constitutions of Wyoming Territory and Utah Territory Existing state legislatures in the West, as well as those east of the Mississippi River , began to consider suffrage bills in the s and s. Several held voter referendums, but they were unsuccessful [19] until the suffrage movement was revived in the s.

Full women's suffrage continued in Wyoming after it became a state in Colorado granted partial voting rights that allowed women to vote in school board elections in and Idaho granted women suffrage in Beginning with Washington in , seven more western states passed women's suffrage legislation, including California in , Oregon , Arizona , and Kansas in , Alaska Territory in , and Montana and Nevada in All states that were successful in securing full voting rights for women before were located in the West.

A federal amendment intended to grant women the right to vote was introduced in the U. Senate for the first time in by Aaron A. Sargent , a Senator from California who was a women's suffrage advocate. House of Representatives called for limited suffrage for women who were spinsters or widows who owned property. By the s, suffrage leaders began to recognize the need to broaden their base of support to achieve success in passing suffrage legislation at the national, state, and local levels. While western women, state suffrage organizations, and the AWSA concentrated on securing women's voting rights for specific states, efforts at the national level persisted through a strategy of congressional testimony, petitioning, and lobbying.

Suffrage supporters also had to convince American women, many of whom were indifferent to the issue, that suffrage was something they wanted. Apathy among women was an ongoing obstacle that the suffragists had to overcome through organized grassroots efforts. Thousands of African-American women were active in the suffrage movement, addressing issues of race, gender, and class, as well as enfranchisement, [34] often through the church but eventually through organizations devoted to specific causes. Wells-Barnett advocated for suffrage in tandem with civil rights for African-Americans.

Harper , Josephine St. Pierre , Harriet Tubman , and Ida B. Wells Barnett were founding members. Anthony abandoned the AERA, which supported universal suffrage, to found the National Woman Suffrage Association in , saying black men should not receive the vote before white women. NAWSA president Anna Howard Shaw refused, saying she was "in favor of colored people voting", but did not want to alienate others in the suffrage movement. Wells defied these instructions and joined the Illinois unit, prompting telegrams of support. Mary B. Du Bois in August Burroughs, asked what women could do with the ballot, responded pointedly: "What can she do without it?

Catt revitalized NAWSA, turning the focus of the organization to the passage of the federal amendment while simultaneously supporting women who wanted to pressure their states to pass suffrage legislation. The strategy, which she later called "The Winning Plan", had several goals: women in states that had already granted presidential suffrage the right to vote for the President would focus on passing a federal suffrage amendment; women who believed they could influence their state legislatures would focus on amending their state constitutions and Southern states would focus on gaining primary suffrage the right to vote in state primaries.

One of their first acts was to organize a women's suffrage parade in Washington, D. The procession of more than 5, participants, the first of its kind, attracted a crowd of an estimated ,, as well as national media attention, but Wilson took no immediate action. In March , the Congressional Union joined with Women's Party of Western Voters to form the National Woman's Party NWP , whose aggressive tactics included staging more radical acts of civil disobedience and controversial demonstrations to draw more attention to the women's suffrage issue. When World War I started in , women in eight states had already won the right to vote, but support for a federal amendment was still tepid. The war provided a new urgency to the fight for the vote.

When the U. By contrast, the NWP used the war to point out the contradictions of fighting for democracy abroad while restricting it at home. In the constitutional amendment proposed by Sargent, which was nicknamed the "Susan B. Anthony Amendment", was once again considered by the Senate, where it was again rejected. On July 4, , police arrested of the protesters, who were sent to prison in Lorton, Virginia. Some of these women, including Lucy Burns and Alice Paul, went on hunger strikes; some were force-fed while others were otherwise harshly treated by prison guards.

The release of the women a few months later was largely due to increasing public pressure. In , President Wilson faced a difficult midterm election and would have to confront the issue of women's suffrage directly. The vote was then carried into the Senate where Wilson made an appeal on the Senate floor, an unprecedented action at the time. Between January and June , the House and Senate voted on the federal amendment five times. On May 21, , the amendment passed the House to 89, with 42 votes more than was necessary. The final vote tally was: [54]. Within a few days, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan did so, their legislatures being in session.

It is arguable which State was considered first to ratify the amendment. While Illinois's legislature passed the legislation an hour prior to Wisconsin, Wisconsin's delegate, David James, arrived earlier and was presented with a statement establishing Wisconsin as the first to ratify. Much of the opposition to the amendment came from Southern Democrats; only two former Confederate states Texas and Arkansas and three border states voted for ratification, [42] with Kentucky and West Virginia not doing so until Alabama and Georgia were the first states to defeat ratification. The governor of Louisiana worked to organize 13 states to resist ratifying the amendment. The Maryland legislature refused to ratify the amendment and attempted to prevent other states from doing so.

Carrie Catt began appealing to Western governors, encouraging them to act swiftly. By the end of , a total of 22 states had ratified the amendment. Resistance to ratification took many forms: anti-suffragists continued to say the amendment would never be approved by the November elections and that special sessions were a waste of time and effort. Other opponents to ratification filed lawsuits requiring the federal amendment to be approved by state referendums. In the middle of July , both opponents and supporters of the Anthony Amendment arrived in Nashville to lobby the General Assembly.

Anthony Amendment, who had served as dean and chair of philosophy at Christian College in Columbia. Especially in the South, the question of women's suffrage was closely tied to issues of race. Carrie Catt warned suffrage leaders in Tennessee that the "Anti-Suffs" would rely on "lies, innuendoes, and near truths", raising the issue of race as a powerful factor in their arguments. Prior to the start of the General Assembly session on August 9, both supporters and opponents had lobbied members of the Tennessee Senate and House of Representatives.

Though the Democratic governor of Tennessee, Albert H. Roberts , supported ratification, most lawmakers were still undecided. Anti-suffragists targeted members, meeting their trains as they arrived in Nashville to make their case. When the General Assembly convened on August 9, both supporters and opponents set up stations outside of chambers, handing out yellow roses to suffrage supporters and red roses to the "Antis". On August 12, the legislature held hearings on the suffrage proposal; the next day the Senate voted 24—5 in favor of ratification. As the House prepared to take up the issue of ratification on August 18, lobbying intensified. Walker attempted to table the ratification resolution, but was defeated twice with a vote of 48— The vote on the resolution would be close.

Representative Harry Burn , a Republican, had voted to table the resolution both times. When the vote was held again, Burn voted yes. The year-old said he supported women's suffrage as a "moral right", but had voted against it because he believed his constituents opposed it. In the final minutes before the vote, he received a note from his mother, urging him to vote yes. Rumors immediately circulated that Burn and other lawmakers had been bribed, but newspaper reporters found no evidence of this.

The same day ratification passed in the General Assembly, Speaker Walker filed a motion to reconsider. When it became clear he did not have enough votes to carry the motion, representatives opposing suffrage boarded a train, fleeing Nashville for Decatur, Alabama to block the House from taking action on the reconsideration motion by preventing a quorum. Thirty-seven legislators fled to Decatur, issuing a statement that ratifying the amendment would violate their oath to defend the state constitution.

Speaker Walker was unable to muster any additional votes in the allotted time. When the House reconvened to take the final procedural steps that would reaffirm ratification, Tennessee suffragists seized an opportunity to taunt the missing Anti delegates by sitting at their empty desks. When ratification was finally confirmed, a suffragist on the floor of the House rang a miniature Liberty Bell. On August 18, , Tennessee narrowly approved the Nineteenth Amendment, with 50 of 99 members of the Tennessee House of Representatives voting yes. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby , whose office received it at a. Constitution in the presence of his secretary only. Congress proposed the Nineteenth Amendment on June 4, , and the following states ratified the amendment.

The ratification process required 36 states, and completed with the approval by Tennessee. Though not necessary for adoption, the following states subsequently ratified the amendment. Some states did not call a legislative session to hold a vote until later, others rejected it when it was proposed and then reversed their decisions years later, with the last taking place in With Mississippi's ratification in , the amendment was now ratified by all states having existed at the time of its adoption in The U. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the amendment's validity in Leser v.

Randolph, "'a colored female citizen' of West Biddle Street", [92] and Cecilia Street Waters, "a white woman, of North Eutaw Street", [92] applied for and were granted registration as qualified Baltimore voters on October 12, To have their names removed from the list of qualified voters, Oscar Leser and others brought suit against the two women on the sole grounds that they were women, arguing that they were not eligible to vote because the Constitution of Maryland limited suffrage to men [93] and the Maryland legislature had refused to vote to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment.

Two months before, on August 26, , the federal government had proclaimed the amendment incorporated into the Constitution. Leser said the amendment "destroyed State autonomy" because it increased Maryland's electorate without the state's consent. The Supreme Court answered that the Nineteenth Amendment had similar wording to the Fifteenth Amendment, which had expanded state electorates without regard to race for more than fifty years by that time despite rejection by six states including Maryland. The Court replied that state ratification was a federal function granted under Article V of the U. Constitution and not subject to a state constitution's limitations.

Finally, those bringing suit asserted the Nineteenth Amendment was not adopted because Tennessee and West Virginia violated their own rules of procedure. The Court ruled that the point was moot because Connecticut and Vermont had subsequently ratified the amendment, providing a sufficient number of state ratifications to adopt the Nineteenth Amendment even without Tennessee and West Virginia. The Court also ruled that Tennessee's and West Virginia's certifications of their state ratifications was binding and had been duly authenticated by their respective Secretaries of State.

Another challenge to the Nineteenth Amendment's adoption was dismissed by the Supreme Court in Fairchild v. Hughes , [96] [97] because the party bringing the suit, Charles S. Fairchild , came from a state that already allowed women to vote and so Fairchild lacked standing. Adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment enfranchised 26 million American women in time for the U. This fear led to the passage of such laws as the Sheppard—Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act of , which expanded maternity care during the s. It was the first federal social security law and made a dramatic difference before it was allowed to lapse in Department of Labor in and passage of the Cable Act in According to political scientists J.

Kevin Corder and Christina Wolbrecht , few women turned out to vote in the first national elections after the Nineteenth Amendment gave them the right to do so. In , 36 percent of eligible women voted compared with 68 percent of men. The low turnout among women was partly due to other barriers to voting, such as literacy tests, long residency requirements, and poll taxes. Inexperience with voting and persistent beliefs that voting was inappropriate for women may also have kept turnout low.

The participation gap was lowest between men and women in swing states at the time, in states that had closer races such as Missouri and Kentucky, and where barriers to voting were lower. African-Americans had gained the right to vote, but for 75 percent of them it was granted in name only, as state constitutions kept them from exercising that right. Three million women south of the Mason—Dixon line remained disfranchised after the passage of the amendment. African-Americans continued to face barriers preventing them from exercising their vote until the civil rights movement arose in the s and s, which posited voting rights as civil rights.

However, state officials continued to refuse registration until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of , which prohibited racial discrimination in voting. Native Americans were granted citizenship by an Act of Congress in , [] but state policies prohibited them from voting. In , a suit brought by World War II veteran Miguel Trujillo resulted in Native Americans gaining the right to vote in New Mexico and Arizona, [] but some states continued to bar them from voting until Poll taxes and literacy tests kept Latina women from voting.

In Puerto Rico, for example, women did not receive the right to vote until , but was limited to literate women until National immigration laws prevented Asians from gaining citizenship until After adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment, women still faced political limitations. Women had to lobby their state legislators, bring lawsuits, and engage in letter-writing campaigns to earn the right to sit on juries. In California, women won the right to serve on juries four years after passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.

In Colorado, it took 33 years. Women continue to face obstacles when running for elective offices, and the Equal Rights Amendment, which would grant women equal rights under the law, has yet to be passed. Originally only women could join the league, but in the charter was modified to include men. Today, the League of Women Voters operates at the local, state, and national level, with over 1, local and 50 state leagues, and one territory league in the U.

Virgin Islands. Some critics and historians question whether creating an organization dedicated to political education rather than political action made sense in the first few years after ratification, suggesting that the League of Women Voters diverted the energy of activists. Alice Paul and the NWP did not believe the Nineteenth Amendment would be enough to ensure men and women were treated equally, and in the NWP announced plans to campaign for another amendment which would guarantee equal rights not limited to voting.

The first draft of the Equal Rights Amendment , written by Paul and Crystal Eastman and first named "the Lucretia Mott Amendment", stated: "No political, civil, or legal disabilities or inequalities on account of sex or on account of marriage, unless applying equally to both sexes, shall exist within the United States or any territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof. It was introduced in every congressional session from to , usually not making it out of committee. The amendment did not have the full support of women's rights activists, and was opposed by Carrie Catt and the League of Women Voters. Whereas the NWP believed in total equality, even if that meant sacrificing benefits given to women through protective legislation, some groups like the Women's Joint Congressional Committee and the Women's Bureau believed the loss of benefits relating to safety regulations, working conditions, lunch breaks, maternity provisions, and other labor protections would outweigh what would be gained.

Labor leaders like Alice Hamilton and Mary Anderson argued that it would set their efforts back and make sacrifices of what progress they had made. He wasn't sure what biological differences made women and men distinct, calling them "one of degree. Before "Emile," Rousseau listed the numerous woman heroes who've impacted society. The contributions of heroines should not be overlooked. Here, Rousseau makes it plain that if given the opportunity to shape society as men had, women could very well change the world. Whatever biological differences between men and women existed, the so-called weaker sex had shown repeatedly that they were capable of greatness.

Share Flipboard Email. Jone Johnson Lewis. Women's History Writer. Jone Johnson Lewis is a women's history writer who has been involved with the women's movement since the late s. She is a former faculty member of the Humanist Institute. Cite this Article Format.