Women’s suffrage is simply women’s right to vote. From the early 1800s until the early 1900s, women were expected to do what they were told, and not question men, specifically their husbands. The women decided to make a move forwards to change the way they were living. This will forever be the start of women’s fight for human rights. They had to fight long and hard to get what they wanted. For quite a long time, women were left out of all decisions. They had few property rights, faced employment and educational barriers, and had no legal protection in divorce and child custody cases. The biggest thing that was kept from them was the right to vote. Their fight for the right to vote was a long and tedious battle, but ultimately it was a battle worth fighting.
The women’s suffrage movement first took place in the United States in the early 1820s. This movement spread on to Europe and the European colonized world. Women’s suffrage came about because they got tired of not being able to have a say in anything. They finally decided to stand up for their rights and what they strongly believed in. The women were fed up with their current situation. Women’s Suffrage was something that was fought for and not just given to them on a silver platter. They had to jump through many hoops and fight many battles. Before the women suffrage movement, they were denied basic rights because they simply were not male.
In 1840, two women from London, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott came to the U.S. and organized the women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls in 1848. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the leading feminist philosopher for the first generation of women’s rights activists. During the 1840s and 1850s, she was busy with being a mother and filling the role of what was expected for women in that time period, but she found time to write and plan a strategy for the women’s rights movement. One of the most outspoken leaders of the anti-slavery and women’s rights movement in America was Lucretia Mott. Mott was not only an activist for women’s rights but also for the abolition of slavery. She helped form two anti-slavery groups and she was well-known for her ability to speak against slavery. Mott attended the anti-slavery convention in England in 1840. She and a few other women were denied seats by men who controlled the convention. She joined forces with Stanton and other women to create the first women rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. On July 19th, 1848, the women gathered at Seneca Fall to start their activism for the rights that they wanted. The convention included several different demands from the women: the right to vote, better educational opportunities and employment possibilities.
In the mid-1800s, women felt discriminated by men. Men generally held discriminatory and stereotypical views of women. This made many women feel dissatisfied with their lives and made them feel like their lives were unfulfilled. The discrimination by men made the women take action. The women began to express the feeling that they had never expressed before. A strong example of women’s actions is showed in the journal by Judith K. Cole.
“Realizing that safeguarding the home was insufficient to protect their children, middle-class women bent their energies to reforming the society around them. This confrontation brought them to the point where they realized that significant social reforms could only be accomplished by having and exercising the right to vote” (Cole 11).
This shows a great example of women not wanting to stay fixed and just being a mother and wife. They wanted more. They believed the only way overcome all this prejudice is to earn the right to vote. These women from Montana are just one example from one state. This behavior was going on in the majority of the states.
In 1848, before the convention, there was a manifesto called The Declaration of Sentiments, which written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, containing “11 resolutions calling for equality before the law, equal rights in the workplace and in education, [and] the right to publicly voice their opinions” (Adare). It stated the women’s grievances and demands. The Declaration of Sentiments was based on the American Declaration of Independence. It demanded equality with men before the law, in education and employment. The declaration was the first proclamation demanding that women be given the right to vote. It was a calling for women to fight for equality as United States citizens. Stanton stated: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal…” ( Stanton 1). The document urged women that they deserved: family, politics, education, jobs, etc. The declaration was signed during the convention by 68 women and 32 men (Newman). This demonstrated that not all men were opposed to women being included and having a voice.
The Seneca Falls Convention was the main event that launched the women Suffrage movement. It took place in Seneca Falls, New York on July 19-20, 1848. Seneca Falls, NY is nicknamed the “birthplace of women’s rights” (Newman). There were over 300 people in attendance, including both women and men. The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, active members of the abolitionist movement. Stanton was introduced by a mutual friend to Susan B. Anthony, who was involved in the temperance movement at the time. The purpose of the Seneca Falls Convention was to discuss a wide range of controversial issues including why women could not vote and why men could, why men could own property and women could not, why women were denied custody of a child during a divorce but men were granted custody of their children, and why men could attend college and women could not (Newman). The Seneca Fall Convention was the start to women expressing what they believed was right from wrong in the eyes on the law. Women wanted to be included in the laws and rights because they knew that if they had the right to vote it would open the doors to additional rights and give them a voice in the government to bring about social reform. The Seneca Falls Conventions resulted in the passage of the Declaration of Sentiments. It was written before the convention but was finalized during the convention.
In the midst of fighting for the rights they deserved, the women were forced to take a step back because of the Civil War. The women’s suffrage movement had gathered many followers before the war and after. Most of the women were forced to return to traditional housewife roles. The war had given women a chance to control their own lives, they earned money and managed their finances while their husbands were fighting for the country. The image of women during wartime brought them more support and publicity. Some of the women had entered the workforce in government services, and the work industry.
“These shifts in the social structure fostered diverse efforts to rethink and promote the rights of women in the family, churches, and society at large. In addition, the antislavery movement proved to be a breeding ground—and training ground—for advocates of women’s rights: actively abolitionist women were frustrated by being treated as second-class members of the movement, while some male abolitionists were led, by the logic of their own convictions, to embrace gender as well as racial equality” (Keyssar 175).
By the end of the Civil War in 1865, during reconstruction, there were three Amendments that revolutionized the women’s rights movement: the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendment. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery. After the abolishment of slavery, the newly freed slaves and the women had an unspoken bond. They all worked towards gaining more rights. With the Fourteenth Amendment came new rights to the newly freed slaves, that everyone born in the United States was know considered a citizen. The Fifteenth Amendment declared the right to vote to all males, including the former slaves. In 1869, once the Fifteenth Amendment was passed, the bond between the women suffrage movement and the causes of the African-Americans were severed (Keyssar 179). African-Americas men were no longer discriminated against, making the discrimination focused solely on sex.
In 1869, following the passage of the fifteenth amendment, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). The NWSA was created because the women were outraged with the fiftieth amendment, which allowed men to vote. The NWSA wanted a constitutional amendment to secure the right to vote for women. Similarly, it supported a wide range of other reforms that aimed to make women an equal to men in multiple aspects of life and society. “It was wrong for the polity to enfranchise ignorant blacks and foreigners while barring educated, native-born white women” (Keyssar 190). Anthony and Stanton did not support the fiftieth amendment because they believed that a person who votes should be educated, which the former slaves were not. Anthony and Stanton felt that since a majority of the white women were educated and well informed with what was going on politically in the United States, they should have the right to vote instead of the newly freed slaves.
While Santon and Anthony were working on the suffrage movement in the east, Esther Hobart Morris set a plan to bring suffrage to Wyoming. Before Wyoming was formed, Morris invited two candidates for the new legislature, Colonel William Bright and Captain H.G. Nickerson, to her home for a tea party and asked each of them to promise to propose a women’s suffrage bill should they be elected into office. Colonel bright won and kept the promise. Fifty-one years before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, Wyoming becomes the first places in the whole world where women were able to exercise full enfranchisement (Morris 49).
During World War I from 1914 to 1918, a large number of women were put into the workforce to fill the jobs that were left by those who were fighting directly in the war. The women took work in the areas that were previously reserved for men. They worked as railway guards and ticket collectors, buses and tram conductors, postal workers, police, firefighters and as bank ‘tellers’ and clerks. Some women also worked heavy or precision machinery in engineering, led cart-horses on farms and worked in the civil service and factories. Regardless of how they worked, the women were paid less doing the same work that the men did. There is a tremendous wage gap between the sexes. Once the United States entered the war, some women started working in munitions factories. the work included women working with explosives and heavy machinery. The women who worked in the munitions factories fill Trinitrotoluene, TNT shells, which made them prone to TNT poisoning. When the women and girls came in contact with the explosive it would cause their skin to yellow. The women were referred to as “canaries” because of their bright yellow skin. One of the accounts recorded, by a woman named Ethel Dean, stated
“Everything that that powder touches goes yellow. All the girls’ faces were yellow, all round their mouths. They had their own canteen, in which everything was yellow that they touched… Everything they touched went yellow – chairs, tables, everything”(“9 Women Reveal The Dangers Of Working In A First World War Munitions Factory.”)
The women and girls were put into very dangerous situations to make do with the trivial money they were given. Being paid less lead to the earliest demand for women getting equal pay to men.
But there were many people who were against women’s suffrage. In the late 19th century, the anti-suffrage movement emerged which was designed to go against the women suffrage movement. The activist for this movement believed that woman suffrage would decrease the integrity of the women’s work in communities and their duties as a housewife and mother. Women and men opposed women suffrage and did so because of many reasons. Some argued that the majority of women would not vote, only the most radial would. The anti-suffragists were view as made up by the pro-suffragists and vice versa. An anti-suffragists, founder and president of the organization, Josephine Dodge, created the National Association Opposed to Women Suffrage (NAOWS). The organization began in 1911 and lasted until 1919. Just like the pro-suffragists, they organized an event and distributed propaganda for their side of the argument.
During the Progressive Era, 1890 to 1920, women played more active roles in the larger economic, cultural, and political transformation of American society. The NAWSA motivated women to get involved with working the war efforts. This brought on more support for the women by the people who were disapproving of the movement. A strong example of this is President Woodrow Wilson, who had previously refused to support the women suffrage movement. But in September 1918, he became in favor and addressed the situation in front of the Senate. By June of 1919, the Nineteenth Amendment was passed by Congress. The Nineteenth Amendment 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” (“The 19th Amendment.” ). This differs from the fifteenth amendment because it referred to both men and women being able to vote not just the men that the fifteenth amendment referred to. The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, when Tennessee became the 36th state giving 2/3 majority of states to complete and ratify the amendment.
With passage of the nineteenth amendment came a different life for the women. Women continued to evolve from what they were used to, from staying home and being a wife and mother. Women started to attend college and entered the labor force. Gaining the right to vote led to many more opportunities for women. It helped women get closer to equality in all aspects of their life. Women fought for fairer wages, better education, job opportunities and birth control.
Women have truly suffered trying to gain suffrage. It was a long process with many people who tried to stop them but still they succeeded. From the Seneca Falls convention in 1848, with the Declaration fo Sentiments, all the way to President Woodrow Wilson, a previous blockage, standing up to the senate and petitioning for women’s suffrage, the women never gave up. They continued to persevere and when they put to their minds to it, they accomplished so much.