Stages of Movement

•Suffrage movement lasted 72 years

•Went forward in at least three stages: 1848-1869, 1879-1890, and 1890-1920.

•The suffrage movement did not become a mass political movement until the 20th century.

•It enrolled roughly:13,150 in 189345,507 in 1907100,000 in 1915200,000 in 1917

First Stage: 1848-1869

• Outgrowth of abolitionism– Frustration and marginalization within the movement– Women’s votes will end slavery

• “The Negro’s Hour”– Put ending slavery ahead even of arguments for women’s “natural human rights”

• Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Lucretia Coffin Mott(1793-1880)• Quaker teacher,reformer, abolitionist,suffragist, civil rightsadvocate• With Stanton, author of“Declaration ofSentiments” and laterauthor of Discourse onWomen (1850), keyfeminist text.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton(1815-1902)• Deeply involved inreform movements, andthe wife of HenryStanton, an abolitionist• With Mott, an author ofthe “Declaration ofSentiments” and leaderof the suffragemovement to 1902.• Published TheWoman’s Bible in 1895.

II. Early History• A. London Convention (1840)– First meeting of Mott and Stanton• World Anti-slavery convention hosted by Britishand Foreign Anti-slavery Society invitesattendance of "the friends of the Slave of everynation and of every clime."• Garrison sends male AND female delegates (ledby L. Mott), but BFAS refuses access to women.– Rescinds invitation and reissues it to “gentlemenonly.”• Garrison sends women anyway, but they aredenied admission to the convention.• For Mott, this is a key moment.

II. Early History – LondonConvention• Mott (53) is staying at the same place thatthe newly-wed Stantons are (Henry is adelegate), she meets and speaks withElizabeth Stanton (25) at great length.• Stanton and Mott have many sharedexperiences of the silencing of women atabolitionist meetings and conventions.• Mott also fosters Stanton’s feminism moregenerally.

II. Early History –Birth of Stanton’s Feminism• Mott had read early feminists – esp. MaryWollstonecraft• Mott urged Stanton to read the writings of theGrimke sisters, former slave owners from SouthCarolina who had become Quakers andabolitionists with the American Anti-slaverySociety.– Both Sarah and Angelina Grimke made directconnections between oppression of slaves by theirmasters and women by men.• By the end of the World Convention, Stantonhad proposed to Mott that they call together awoman's rights convention upon their return.– but they find no time to do so until 1848 (Stanton hassmall children to raise).

II. Early History –Intent of the Convention• To mobilize reform sentiment in the SenecaFalls area– They announced the meeting only in the local paper,– and expected a small attendance because it washarvest time.• They called the convention for July 19 and 20,and spent a day drawing up an agenda and adeclaration of grievances.• Stanton chose the Declaration of Independenceas the model for their platform.

Declaration of Sentiments• The Declaration of Independence listed 18grievances, so the women in Seneca Fallsworked to find 18 injustices of their own.• They did not have far to look for a list ofwrongs against women.

List of Injustices Included:

Although married women in some states hadthe right to their own property, they had no legalright to their earnings or their children.• They could not testify against husbands incourt.• Single women could own property, but theypaid taxes on it without enjoying the right tovote ("taxation without representation").• In all occupations women were paid much lessthan men.

Early History – Tyranny• To the women of Seneca Falls, these grievancesjustified women to the charge men of practicing"tyranny" over women.• D. of S.: "He has endeavored, in every way thathe could, to destroy her confidence in her ownpowers, to lessen her self-respect, and to makeher willing to lead a dependent and abject life.“• In a lengthy series of resolutions, Stanton calledfor an end to all discrimination based on sex.

Early History – The aftermath• Of the 100 men and women who signedthe declaration, many retracted theirsignatures under family pressure.– Even Stanton’s father pressed for her toremove her signature from the “scandalousdocument.”• Elizabeth refused to withdraw her name.• She emerged from the fray a determined individualand for the rest of the 19th century, would lead thewoman's movement.

The focus of Seneca Falls was the ending ofslavery and granting full citizenship to Blacks– And allowing women to take an equal place in thatfight– The emphasis on the vote was in aid of endingslavery• Because it was assumed that women voters (North andSouth) would vote to end slavery• Efforts from 1848 to 1865 were on the “Negroes’Hour” – securing equality for African Americans• But in 1865, with the end of the Civil War,slavery ended – without a vote.– And the passage of the 15th Amendment in 1869 gaveBlack men the vote.– But what about women, both Black and white?

The Shift in 1869• From 1869, movement for woman's rights went forwardalong several paths:– 1) the narrowing focus on suffrage,– 2) the byways of racism and xenophobia, and– 3) an increasing recourse to domestic and feminine rhetoric.• NWSA make an effort in 1870s to base women'ssuffrage on the guarantee of national citizenship implicitin the Constitution.– Only when courts rejected this interpretation did the suffragemovement focus on amending the Constitution.• Later, suffragists would develop another strategy.– Two groups – the National American Woman's SuffrageAssociation and southern suffragists – pursued a state-by-statestrategy of winning vote for women, because they thoughtconstitutional amendment was impossible

Second Stage: 1879-1890• Frustration over the “betrayal” of the 15thAmendment• Belief that the “Negroes’ Hour” strategylost women their best chance for the vote• Political realism – use any methodsavailable to get the vote– Including playing the “race card”• Susan B. Anthony and the NWSA

Third Stage: 1890-1920• Suffrage movement as a mass movement• Movement made up of mostly young women –who identify as “New Women”• Explicitly feminist:– Women deserve the vote as a basic human right– Women assume equality in their methods andarguments– Willingness to be “unladylike” in the fight• Carrie Chapman Catt and the National AmericanWoman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), AlicePaul and the National Women’s Party (NWP)

III. Ideology – Racism and Ethnocentricity• New emphasis on gender difference in rhetoric woman'ssuffrage movement joined with increasing emphasis onrace, ethnic, and class differences as well.• Some historians have argued that the continued push forthe vote was a reflection of the “status discrepancy” facedby the suffrage leaders.• Many, perhaps most, leaders of the movement were white,Anglo-Saxon, protestant, and native-born women ofeducational and economic levels high above the averageAmerican.• The National Women's Suffrage Association explicitly usedthis fact as an attack on foreign-born, working class,Catholic men who had the franchise and increasinglyexerting their own ethnic and class interests in politics end19th century.• Remember the 19th Century is the age of the ethnic politicalboss and machine politics – Boss Tweed, etc.

• The same argument was made against Blacks asagainst European immigrant men.• The 1890s and 1900s were a period of rampantracism in American society.• This racism was freely and publicly acknowledgedby many– and often took the form of violent attacks uponblacks and immigrants.• Suffrage leaders reflected the racial attitudeswhich characterized a large segment of the whitemiddle-class.

• Harriet Stanton Blatch, daughter of ElizabethCady Stanton and leader of the Women'sPolitical Union, staged some of the mostsignificant.– She understood that rituals touchedpeople as education and advertisingcould not and learned this from theworking class women with whomassociated in WPU and in Women'sTrade Union League.• They were active in labororganizing and labor politics and inethnic politics and broughtstrategies with them to suffragemovement.• Said Blatch: "I saw the possibilitiesin a suffrage parade. What could bemore stirring than hundreds ofwomen, carrying banners,marching--marching--marching!The public would be aroused, thepress would spread the story farand wide, and the interest of ourown workers would be stirred.”• Blatch’s strategy met at first withtremendous opposition from women andmen but after tentative beginnings, itbecame commonplace.

Strategy and Political Style• They drew inspiration from Britain as muchas from the old popular politics of America.– Blatch had lived many years in England andbrought back the militant politics of thesuffragettes.– Alice Paul also lived in England andparticipated in militant activity there.• So too, English militants toured Americaand Americans corresponded with them --so sharing strategies.

Strategy and Political Style• These changes signify the broadening base ofthe women's suffrage movement.• Some newer suffragist activists, mostly middleclass like their predecessors, worked hard tofoster cross-class relationships –– they were settlement workers and trade union leagueparticipants.• Working together, despite many difficulties andmiscommunications, had led to a new sense offemale solidarity and power that such popularpolitics could express.