Women's suffrage in the United States: The Road to Representation
by Risa Cohn
Suffrage Beginnings
The abolition movement provided an outlet where “women first learned to hold public meetings, to conduct petition campaigns” and “began to evolve a philosophy of their place in society and of their basic rights.” Some women felt that the issue of African American and women suffrage should be combined, since certain women were able to draw parallels between the subordination of their own lives and that of slaves.

1833: The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society is formed.

1836: Ernestine Rose works to introduce the first petition for a Married Woman’s Property Law in New York, trying to create a legislation that “recognizes the right of married women to hold property”. The petition is brought to the legislature with six signatures.

1837: The first National Female Anti-Slavery assembles in New York, with eighty one delegates representing twelve states.

1844: Margaret Fuller publishes Woman in the Nineteenth Century. She is revered as “a beacon to generations of women.”
• The Lowell Female Labor Reform Association is created as “five mill girls meet to plan how they could win the ten-hour day.”
• In May of 1845, Sarah Bagley is made president of 600 members. The mission of this group shows how women were led to “build a stable organization, develop leadership with intellectual ability and courage, and conduct a systematic campaign which would leave its mark.”

1848: The Married Women’s Property Act is passed April 6, in New York.
• July 19-20: The Seneca Falls Convention takes place. The meeting is regarded as “the birth of the movement for women’s rights.” The Declaration of Rights and Sentiments is drawn up which lists “resolutions, demanding that women be allowed to speak in public, be accorded equal treatment under the law, and at the insistence of Mrs. Stanton, be granted the vote.” It is signed by sixty-eight women and thirty-two men in Seneca Falls, New York.

1849: Amelia Bloomer publishes a feminist journal devoted to temperance known as The Lily, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton submits her writing under the pseudonym “Sunflower”.

1850: The Fugitive Slave Act is passed “placing federal power behind the slave-catchers.”
• Dress reform, takes hold in the form of the Bloomer costume, designed by Libby Smith Miller. This style of apparel is noted to be “a revolt against the fantastically uncomfortable and unhealthy garb worn by women.” The costume “consisted of a tunic loosely belted at the waist, a skirt not much more than knee length, and Turkish pantaloons which reached the ankle.” Unfortunately, since this mode of dress detracted from the seriousness of women’s suffrage, the style was abandoned.
• Isaac Merritt Singer designs the “first practical sewing machine” to be mass produced. Manual labor to machine made products, led women from the domestic arena into factory workforce. The machine increases both productivity and employment. “In the women’s clothing industry 112,000 were at work in 1905, by comparison with only 5,729 in 1850.” The labor saving invention also provoked negative qualities for the apparel industry. Women who were “seamstresses at their machines were crowded in hundreds of unsanitary and unsafe factories”, but the Singer Manufacturing Company was designed to be fireproof, keeping with the premise that his company “was a model of the Victorian virtues of straight dealing and fidelity”, even though his personal life was not.

1851: Sojourner Truth takes the floor at the woman’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio. She gives a passionate speech to repudiate words of the previous speaker, proclaiming “that man over there says women need to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages or over puddles, or gives me the best place-and ain’t I a woman?”

1854: Susan B. Anthony set out on a new campaign, with sixty women representing every county in the state; they petitioned for signatures to be sent to the New York legislature. The following three reforms were requested; “control by women over their own earnings, guardianship of their children in case of divorce, and the right to vote.”
• With 6,000 signatures collected, Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the first woman to go before a Joint Judiciary Committee, and give a “speech that dealt with the legal disabilities of women.”

1861-65: The Civil War
“The influx of women into teaching and their entrance into government offices date back from the Civil War. Thousands more broke away from stove and laundry tub to look for work in the cities, or to do the heavy manual labor required to keep the family homestead going.”
• In February of 1861, the last woman’s rights convention is held before the war, and suffrage activities came to a stand still. Efforts by Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony gave their support by “touring New York State under slogans such as ‘No Compromise With Slave Holders’, and ‘Immediate and Unconditional Emancipation’ while enduring ‘the roughest treatment of their lives at the hands of aroused mobs in every city where they stopped between Buffalo and Albany.’”
• In April of 1861, The Women’s Central Association of Relief was formed by combining all women’s aid societies residing in New York to support the Union army.
• 1862: The Married Woman’s Property Act is altered taking away the authorization pertaining to “equal custody of her children and her right to use a deceased husband’s estate for the benefit of her children.”
• 1862: Josephine S. Griffing organizes “ration-houses” to feed former slaves. Although African Americans were now “free from bondage, many were without education and most lacked worldly goods as basic as a change of clothing.” Originally brought to the House of Representatives two years earlier by Josephine S. Griffing, the National Freedman’s Relief Association of the District of Columbia is approved in 1865, making her general agent.
• 1863: Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton hold a conference to support the bill introduced by Charles Sumner, outlawing slavery in every state. The Woman’s National League is formed, accepting resolutions that “pledged the women’s support to the government, as long as it continued to wage war for freedom” along with vowing to “collect a million signatures asking Congress to pass the Thirteenth Amendment.”

1866: The Fourteenth Amendment is presented to Congress. From the viewpoints of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone, the word “male” appeared controversial, and “its three-fold use, always in connection with the term ‘citizen’, raised the issue of whether women were actually citizens of the United States.”

1868: The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified.
• In January of 1868, the first issue of The Revolution is published by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, financially backed by George Francis Train and David Melliss. The motto decrees, “Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.”

1869: The Fifteenth Amendment is proposed stating: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton come to decide, “this was not ‘negro suffrage’ but male suffrage expanded.”
• 1869, George Julian of Indiana and Senator S.C. Pomeroy of Kansas are the first to propose a federal suffrage amendment to Congress, due to the likelihood that “there was little hope of either amending or opposing the Fifteenth Amendment, they acted instead to keep the woman suffrage issue alive by taking steps towards a federal woman suffrage amendment.”
• In May of 1869, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton split from the Equal Rights Association and start the National Woman Suffrage Association for women only. This organization strove for a federal amendment regarding suffrage and was viewed as being more “radical” than the AWSA. • In November of 1869, American Woman Suffrage Association is formed, admitting members based upon their alliance with acknowledged suffrage organizations.
• 1870: The Woman’s Journal is published in association with the AWSA, being “adequately financed by a joint-stock company” and “conservatively edited by Mrs. Stone, Mr. Blackwell, and Mrs. Mary Livermore, drew around it as contributors and readers the rapidly growing numbers of women emerging into the greater social freedom and multiple activities of the ‘70’s’-club women, professionals, and writers. The Woman’s Journal spoke for this group, many of whom were not yet ready to espouse the cause of woman suffrage, just as The Revolution spoke for and to the exploited woman worker or social outcast.”

Success in the West- “The settlers brought with them a legacy of values still in a state of conflict and transition. Among these values lingered the dominant attitude that women were destined, because of their own bodily and mental limitations, for a subordinate existence, chiefly in the home.” With the educational objectives approaching from the East, this notion was counteracted “by the realities of frontier life, where the demands for survival did not encourage the idea that women should be sheltered and dominated.”
• 1870: Esther Morris organizes “community leaders and legislatures, appealing for the woman’s vote,” successfully winning a bill of suffrage, including the “control of property, protection of discrimination as teachers, and the ability to be prospective jurors.”

Vying for the Vote-“In 1871 and 1872 some 150 women tried to vote in ten states and the District of Columbia; being unsuccessful, they tried to win the right to vote through court action.” Susan B. Anthony is associated with one of the most renowned cases when she attempted to vote in the presidential election of 1872.
• Susan B. Anthony expresses her main line of defense in that “by voting in good faith she considered herself legally entitled to do so, she could not be held guilty of criminal action or intent.”
• The judge declared her guilty, stating that she has no protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. He issues a fine for $100, along with the stipulation that she cannot be imprisoned until it was paid, knowing well enough she will never give in to the fine. This constructed a barrier against her own legal rights, for if she did pay the fine her case could be taken to the US Supreme Court on a writ of habeas corpus to receive a fair trial.

1873: The Comstock Act is passed, “for the suppression of trade in, and circulation of, obscene literature and articles for immoral use." Originally introduced as a bill by Anthony Comstock, the act became “part of a campaign for legislating public morality in the United States.” The act “targeted not only obscene literature, but birth control devices and information on such devices, as well as on sexuality and on sexually transmitted diseases. The act is widely used to prosecute those who distributed information or devices for birth control.”

1874: The Women’s Christian Temperance Union is formed with Annie Wittenmeyer as the President and Frances Willard as the corresponding secretary. Frances Willard coins the “Do Everything” motto, along with creating various departments, each dealing with its own program of activity, addressing women with diverse levels of awareness. By 1894, the organization began endorsing women’s suffrage under "protection of the home”, due to their lack of civil rights since “in most states women could not have control of their property or custody of their children in case of divorce. There were no legal protections for women and children and women could not vote.”

1878: Senator A. A. Sargent of California introduces a woman suffrage measure known as the “Anthony Amendment,” eventually used without any alterations to the wording over 40 years later.

Fusion of the Movement- Between the years of 1880 to 1890, “the factors which had brought about the existence of two separate suffrage organizations were steadily diminishing in importance.”

1881: The Knights of Labor start to “organize men and women on an equal basis” while also having the first woman’s assembly accredited. Women ranging in a variety of occupations from shoe workers, dressmakers, writers, students, printers, and many more, give their membership to the organization.

1887: Negotiations began over the merger of the two suffrage organizations and was finally accomplished in 1890 to become the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The organization was thriving on “the policies it had been advocating for twenty years” which “had now become dominant” and was also “the main reason why the AWSA was smaller and had done less organizing,” coming to a point where it was appropriate to coordinate both camps.

1888: The International Council of Women and the Chicago Columbian Exposition are created with the intentions “to strengthen the leadership of women with independent incomes or professional prestige.”

1890: Wyoming achieves statehood along with women suffrage. In a telegraph sent to the legislature, territorial delegate Joseph M. Carey rejects the notion that woman suffrage might have to be dropped “as the price of admission to the federal union” stating that “We will remain out of the Union a hundred years rather than come in without the women.”

1892: Elizabeth Cady Stanton resigns from her presidency of the NAWSA.

1895 and 1898: Mrs. Stanton “publishes successive volumes of an astringent critique of the Old Testament, called The Woman’s Bible, consisting of detailed analyses of Biblical passages derogatory to women.” Many fellow suffragists felt this could possibly harm their goals by “alienating religious believers.” In 1896, the organization “passes a resolution explicitly disavowing any responsibility” for her work.

1900: The first locals of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union are founded.

1907: Equality League of Self Supporting Women is organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s daughter, Harriet Stanton Blatch. The League joined together with the Equality League of Self Supporting Women to “stage an even more ambitious meeting at Cooper Union” in order to interest labor unions in their activities.
• 1907-08: The Interurban Council is organized by Carrie Chapman Catt. She develops the group through present suffrage organizations which is “officially launched on October 30th at Carnegie Hall with 1,000 women in attendance as delegates and alternates from the five boroughs.”
• In October of 1908, membership of the League reaches about 19,000; as they campaign against assemblymen, who are unsupportive of New York suffrage, hold open air meetings, set up card files that coordinated members to their particular political districts, and fight in Albany for the right for women to be poll watchers on Election Day.

In September of 1909-10, “resentment against the intolerable conditions” leads to the first major strike in New York and Philadelphia. This event becomes “the potent answer to the threadbare arguments that women could not be organized, and that they could not be counted on to hold out in a long, hard fight.”
• Infinite amounts of clerical work, organizing picket lines, enlisting responsible leaders to deal with police violence and bail, strike relief, and welfare aid were among the many factors that needed strict attention. Therefore, “never again would it be quite so easy to argue that it was no use trying to organize women.”

• 1910: Carrie Chapman Catt receives a phone call that “ the state of Washington had broken the fourteen year deadlock by a majority of almost 2 to 1,” a rewarding achievement after loosing their original vote under territorial status, which could not be regained by referendum in 1889 and 1898.

1911: Intense campaigning takes place in California with “billboard ads, and electric signs, High School prize essay contests, pageants, plays, and other kinds of special entertainment”, in addition to “whole flotillas of automobiles at the service of organizers and speakers.” The state wins by “3, 587 votes, an average majority of one vote in every voting precinct in the state,” leading to the fact that now “women could vote in six western states, with a total of 37 electoral votes for presidency.”

1913: Alice Paul is made chairman of the Congressional Committee by the Board of the National Suffrage Association. Along with Lucy Burns, Lawrence Lewis, Crystal Eastman, and Mary Beard, a parade was arranged which consisted of 5,000 women to be held on March 13th in Washington, D.C. the day before President Wilson’s inauguration. The women marchers are “so badly harassed during this parade that a special session of the United States Congress would conduct hearings to investigate the behavior of the District of Columbia police department, and the chief of police would be dismissed.”

1914: The Congressional Union splits from the National American Women Suffrage Association. A conflict between the two positions held by Alice Paul in both organizations starts to form a “rift between dynamic and static methods of work aims,” noticeably felt among members.
• Margaret Sanger publishes The Woman Rebel, “instructing women on how to avoid pregnancy, such as in the case of illness or poverty. She does not give any instructions regarding specific methods for contraception, but the New York City postmaster bans the journal under the Comstock Law category of obscene, lewd, lascivious matter. In the June issue she coins the term birth control, and is indicted for nine violations of the Comstock Law. Rather than face the charges, she flees the country to continue her work in England.”

1915: Carrie Chapman Catt is re-elected President for the National American Women Suffrage Association.

1916: The “Winning Plan” is formulated by Carrie Chapman Catt, laying out a new suffrage campaign to work with at least 36 states, the number needed to ratify a federal amendment. “Every state was assigned a specific role to play. Where favorable opportunities existed for a referendum for amending the state constitution were to prepare for such campaigns, and a third group, primarily in the South, were to work for presidential, or at least, primary suffrage.”

Taking Control of Birth Control-“When suffragists shifted from a ‘natural rights’ to an ‘expediency’ argument for the vote, they insisted ‘that women needed the ballot for ‘self protection.’ In other words, they asked for political power to combat the forces that victimized them.”
• In October of 1916, Margaret Sanger opens a clinic in the Brownsville area of Brooklyn with her sister Ethel Byrne (also a trained nurse), and Fania Mindell. Ten days later, “Sanger's clinic is raided by the vice squad and shut down. The women are arrested and all the condoms and diaphragms at the clinic are confiscated.”

World War I and War Time Work
1917: “No long satisfied with delegations to the President and lobbying recalcitrant congressmen”, the first suffrage pickets from the Congressional Union and Woman’s Party stand outside the White House on January 10th. Moreover, Carrie Chapman Catt “knew that the ability of suffragists to plead their cause successfully would depend in some measure on whether they too had joined in the national war effort.”
• On October 27th the last suffrage parade was held in New York, having 2,500 marchers “carrying placards enumerating the signatures of more than a million women.”

1917-18: Understanding the necessity to compensate for absent labor the “enormous influx of women into industrial work and public service sharply altered their standing in the community.” Women stepped into jobs “manufacturing explosives, armaments, machine tools, agricultural implements” and many others.
• 1918: On September 30th, Woodrow Wilson addresses the Senate stating, “We have made a partner 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? This war could not have been fought, either by the other nations engaged or by America, if it had not been for the services of women.” Unfortunately “the measure was defeated, securing just two votes less than the two-thirds majority needed.”
• On January 18, voting for the Anthony Amendment is planned to take place in the House. Woodrow Wilson makes it clear that no matter the outcome of the vote, he “had committed himself to the leadership of his party in favor of the measure.”
• In the case of Margaret Sanger and operating the Brooklyn clinic, “the Crane decision, is the first legal ruling to allow birth control to be used for therapeutic purposes.”

1919: The House of Representatives passes the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment on May 21st, as the Nineteenth Amendment. On June 4th it is then passed by the Senate and sent to the states for ratification.

Suffrage is Sanctioned-August 26, 1920: Suffragists were uncertain as to how Harry Burn from Tennessee would vote, for “he had promised only that he would vote in favor if his vote was necessary for ratification; the political leaders of his district were opposing ratification.” Along with Representative Banks Turner, who also voted in favor of the measure, “the amendment was carried, 49 to 47,” and it was as that point when “twenty-six million women of voting age had been enfranchised.”



Works Cited
Beatty, Virginia. “Woman’s Christian Temperance Union: The History of the WCTU.” N.d. (5 November 2006).

Evans, Harold. They Made America. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2004.

Flexner, Eleanor. Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States. New York: Antheneum, 1971.

Frost, Elizabeth, and Cullen-DuPont, Kathryn. Women’s Suffrage in America: An Eyewitness History. New York: Facts on File, 1992.

Kennedy, David M.Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970.

Klotz, Hilary. “Timeline: The Pill.” N.d. (16 October 2006).
Lewis, Jone Johnson. “History of the Comstock Law.” N.d (16 October 2006).

Ward, Geoffrey C. Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony New York: Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House Inc., 1999.

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