Do Now:

1. Do Now: • What do you see here? • What year do you think this is? • How do you think the public responded?

3. Seneca Falls, NY 1848 • In early 1800s, women involved in abolition (no slavery), temperance (no alcohol) • Group of men and women gather in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848 • Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott • Write Declaration of Sentiments

4. Fifteenth Amendment, 1871 • Grants African-American men the right to vote • Disappoints many women who thought African American men and women would be enfranchised together • African Americans split over whether men should get vote before women

5. Before 1910 • Women’s suffrage movement splits, but then unites in 1890 • National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) • Big leaders: Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton • Two big strategies: • Try to win suffrage state-by-state • Try to pass a Constitutional Amendment (but this would need to be ratified by 36 states--or three-fourths)

6. Susan B. Anthony • Susan B. Anthony tried several times to introduce an Amendment bill in the late 1800s, but it was always killed in the Senate.

7. Anti-Suffragists: Those who opposed suffrage (many “Anti’s” were women)

8. Arguments of Anti-Suffragists: • Women were high-strung, irrational, emotional • Women were not smart or educated enough • Women should stay at home • Women were too physically frail; they would get tired just walking to the polling station • Women would become masculine if they voted

10. The Next Generation • Elizabeth Cady Stanton died 1902 • Susan B. Anthony died 1906 • But in the early 1900s many young middle-class women were going to college and joining the suffrage movement • Many working-class women also joined the cause, hoping the right to vote would help improve working conditions

11. National Woman’s Party • Alice Paul led the National Woman’s Party; believed in more aggressive strategies: • Focused on passing a Constitutional Amendment • Picked up un-ladylike strategies from British suffragists (e.g., heckling politicians, picketing) • Refused to support President Wilson if he wouldn’t support woman suffrage

12. President Wilson • Woodrow Wilson entered office at the pinnacle of the women’s suffrage movement in 1913. • Wasn’t a huge supporter or opposer—very lukewarm • 1917, rally outside the White House demanding that Wilson do something, turned violent • A few women were incarcerated

13. Wilson • The incarcerated women protested with hunger strikes • Wilson discovered that these women were being force-fed and he was very appalled • Finally he stepped forward

14. Wilson • Wilson’s voice proved unequivocal in the ultimate passing of the 19th amendment. In a 1918 speech before the Congress, Wilson – for the first time in his time in office – publically endorsed women’s rights to vote. Realizing the vitality of women during the First World War, President Wilson asked Congress, “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?”

15. 19th Amendment • Wilson’s endorsement did not mean the amendment immediately passed, it took a few years of Wilson constantly communicating with Congress

16. 19th Amendment, 1920 “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. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” (Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify and it passed by only 1 vote)

17. 19th Amendment • Wilson spoke fondly of its passage saying that, “I deem it one of the greatest honors of my life that this great event, so stoutly fought for, for so many years, should have occurred during the period of my administration.”