Women’s Suffrage

1. Women’s Suffrage

2. Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America (1840) • Alexis de Tocqueville was a French citizen who traveled to America and wrote about his observations of American culture and politics. • Tocqueville acknowledged that women were not completely equal in American society, but he also claimed that they enjoyed greater equality here than in Europe. • “Americans do not think that man and woman have either the duty or the right to perform the same offices, but they show an equal regard for both their respective parts; and though their lot is different, they consider both of them as beings of equal value.”

3. The Seneca Falls Declaration (1848) • The Seneca Falls Declaration of 1848 outlined the women's rights movement of the mid-19th century. • As can be seen in the opening passages, the document was modeled after the Declaration of Independence. • “…We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. “

4. Susan B. Anthony: In Favor of Women's Suffrage (1872) • In this speech, given following her arrest for attempting to vote in the 1872 election, Anthony argues that respect for America's fundamental principles requires that women be allowed to vote. • “In thus voting, I not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised my citizen's right, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any State to deny.” • “It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings or liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people-women as well as men. “

5. Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, and Margaret Fuller believed that giving women an equal education to that of men would do more to improve women’s position in society than voting rights.

6. Susan B. Anthony and Amelia Bloomer attended the New York Men’s State Temperance Society meeting while wearing short hair and bloomers.

7. Elizabeth Cady Stanton attended the 1840 Anti-Slavery Convention and her experience led her into the struggle for women’s rights. "We resolved to hold a convention as soon as we returned home, and form a society to advocate the rights of women."

8. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott met in 1848 to organize a convention to promote “the social, civil, and religious rights of women.”

9. “. . . The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. . . . He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise. He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she has no voice. . .” Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Declaration of Sentiments The first signatures on the Declaration of Sentiments.

10. Both Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were furious that Congress had given the vote to black men but denied it to women. This image made the point that, in being denied the vote, respectable, accomplished women were reduced to the level of the disenfranchised outcasts of society.

12. "The Stomach Tube" "The sensation is most painful," reported a victim in 1909. "The drums of the ears seem to be bursting and there is a horrible pain in the throat and breast. The tube is pushed down twenty inches; [it] must go below the breastbone." The prisoners were generally fed a solution of milk and eggs.

14. Women’s Suffrage Map

15. Headquarters of an Anti-Suffrage Group (c.1910) • Opposition to the goal of women’s suffrage came from many arenas. Some objected because they believed that women would only duplicate the voting of their husbands, while others believed that women were unable to exert the rational thought that voting required.

17. Anti-Suffrage Pamphlet (c.1910) • “Housewives! • You do not need a ballot to clean out your sink spout. A handful of potash and some boiling water is quicker and cheaper… • Why vote for pure food laws, when your husband does that, while you can purify your Ice-box with saleratus water?” • “Vote NO on Woman Suffrage • BECAUSE 90% of the women either do not want it, or do not care. • BECAUSE it means competition of women with men instead of co-operation. • BECAUSE 80% of the women eligible to vote are married and can only double or annul their husband’s votes… • BECAUSE in some States more voting women than voting men will place the Government under petticoat rule. • BECAUSE it is unwise to risk the good we already have for the evil which may occur. “

18. "Kaiser Wilson" • During World War I, militant suffragists, demanding that President Wilson reverse his opposition to a federal amendment, stood vigil at the White House and carried banners such as this one comparing the President to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. • In the heated patriotic climate of wartime, such tactics met with hostility and sometimes violence and arrest.

19. Women's Voting Rights • Possibly the biggest change in the political landscape of the 20th century has been the enfranchisement of women. When the century began, only one small country (New Zealand) allowed women to vote, but now, only one small country (Kuwait) does not allow women to vote.

20. Chronology of Women’s Suffrage • 1869 Wyoming Territory grants suffrage to women. • 1870 Utah Territory grants suffrage to women. • 1880 New York state grants school suffrage to women. • 1890 Wyoming joins the union as the first state with voting rights for women. By 1900 women also have full suffrage in Utah, Colorado and Idaho. New Zealand is the first nation to give women suffrage. • 1902 Women of Australia are enfranchised. • 1906 Women of Finland are enfranchised. • 1912 Suffrage referendums are passed in Arizona, Kansas, and Oregon. • 1914 Montana and Nevada grant voting rights to women. • 1915 Women of Denmark are enfranchised. • 1917 Women win the right to vote in North Dakota, Ohio, Indiana, Rhode Island, Nebraska, Michigan, New York, and Arkansas. • 1918 Women of Austria, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Scotland, and Wales are enfranchised. • 1919 Women of Azerbaijan Republic, Belgium, British East Africa, Holland, Iceland, Luxembourg, Rhodesia, and Sweden are enfranchised.

21. Finally, on Aug. 20, 1920, the 19th Amendment became part of the United States Constitution when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify it.

22. Passage of the 19th Amendment • Passed in 1919 • “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.”

23. MultimediaCitation • Slide 1: http://www.americaslibrary.gov/assets/jb/jazz/jb_jazz_19tham_1_e.jpg • Slide 2: http://clarke.cmich.edu/detroit/images/tocqueville.jpg • Slide 3: http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/images/2003/ElizabethCadyStanton.jpg • Slide 4: http://teachpol.tcnj.edu/amer_pol_hist/fi/00000113.htm • Slide 5: http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/images/hall/nestor.jpg • Slide 6: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pnp/cph/3b30000/3b39000/3b39700/3b39726r.jpg • Slide 7: http://www.constitutioncenter.org/timeline/html/cw08_12159.html • Slide 8: http://womenshistory.about.com/library/pic/bl_p_opposed_suffrage_hq.htm • Slide 9: http://www.jwa.org/teach/primarysources/orgrec_08.pdf • Slide 10: http://www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/current/miller_feature/intro_mainframe.htm# • Slide 11: http://www.archives.gov/global-pages/larger-image.html?i=/education/lessons/woman-suffrage/images/kaiser-wilson-l.gif&c=/education/lessons/woman-suffrage/images/kaiser-wilson.caption.html • Slide 12: http://www.brynmawr.edu/library/exhibits/suffrage/CCCatt.jpg • Slide 13: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/fem-vote.htm • Slide 14: http://www.americaslibrary.gov/assets/jb/jazz/jb_jazz_19tham_1_e.jpg • Slide 15: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/amendment_19/images/amendment_19.gif