{"id":10531,"date":"2020-08-18T05:57:30","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T12:57:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=10531"},"modified":"2020-08-18T06:09:34","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T13:09:34","slug":"suffrage-at-100-a-visual-history-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=10531","title":{"rendered":"“Suffrage At 100: A Visual History”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Text by Jennifer Harlan,\u00a0Introduction by Veronica Chambers, Jennifer Harlan and Jennifer Schuessler, Aug. 17, 2020<\/p>\n

On May 18, 1915, crowds streamed into the Polo Grounds in Manhattan to watch the New York Giants take on the Chicago Cubs. But beyond the diamond, a bigger contest was brewing.<\/p>\n

The state of New York was gearing up to hold a referendum, putting the question of women\u2019s suffrage to its (all-male) electorate. Supporters of the cause organized a \u201csuffrage day\u201d game, luring potential voters with the offer of a piece of chocolate cake<\/a> with every ticket purchased at their headquarters. They festooned the stadium with yellow banners and printed baseball-themed fliers, with exhortations like \u201cFans, Fair Play\u201d and \u201cMake a Home Run for Suffrage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everybody, The New York Times<\/a> noted<\/a>, \u201chad a \u2018lovely\u2019 time.\u201d But the festive mood would fizzle out come November: The men of New York rejected the suffrage measure, and its women would have to work another two years for the right to vote.<\/p>\n

Votes for women was a demand that was both radical and all-American. And the nearly century-long history of how women won that right is as colorful and kaleidoscopic as it is complicated and almost impossible to sum up.<\/p>\n

Those who fought for it were heroes, but not always moral paragons. The suffrage movement, like other social movements before and after, often reflected the racism, nativism and other prejudices that pervaded America as a whole.<\/p>\n

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Join The New York Times for \u201cFinish the Fight,\u201d<\/a> a new theatrical production celebrating some of the overlooked heroes of the movement, at 7 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, Aug. 18.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

At the heart of the suffrage battle was a conundrum: Women gaining the vote required persuading men to share it with them. And there were many who dismissed the cause as ridiculous, if not downright dangerous.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe benefits of woman suffrage are almost wholly imaginary,\u201d The Times declared<\/a> in 1913, in one of a long string of anti-suffrage editorials. \u201cIts penalties will be real and hard to bear.\u201d<\/p>\n

To combat such attitudes, suffragists used every weapon in the arsenal, from petitions and speeches to pins, parades and attention-grabbing stunts. The rise of the movement coincided with the birth of photography, and the suffragists deployed the medium to put human faces on their struggle. \u201cThey knew how to build a visual identity,\u201d the historian Susan Ware said, \u201cand use it for a political purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fight for the vote was the fight for democracy. No history can sum it all up. But these images help bring into focus how the largest enfranchisement in American history came to pass, and the generations of women who made it happen.<\/p>\n

THE STORY OF THE SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT<\/strong> usually starts like this: In July 1848, a group of people got together in Seneca Falls, N.Y., and set forth a series of demands for women\u2019s rights, including the right to vote. But the history of women and voting in the United States extends well before, and beyond, Seneca Falls. In the years after the American Revolution, there were women who voted \u2014 in New Jersey. The state\u2019s original constitution assigned voting rights to all free, property-owning residents \u2014 regardless of gender or race \u2014 and some women, and African-Americans, there voted<\/a> until 1807, when the state passed a law limiting the franchise to white men. And while the campaign for women\u2019s suffrage may have formally kicked off in Seneca Falls, it quickly expanded across the country.<\/p>\n

Many of the movement\u2019s leaders were based in the East, where organizations such as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and the National Woman\u2019s Party (N.W.P.) were headquartered, but its earliest victories came in the West. Women including Susan B. Anthony and the NAWSA president Carrie Chapman Catt traveled to states such as Washington and Colorado in the late 1800s, giving speeches and helping them wage successful campaigns for the right to vote, but they continued to be excluded from the franchise themselves back home. As momentum grew in the West, women in the rest of the country asked, \u201cWhy not us?\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Wyoming Territory was the first place in the United States to pass a women\u2019s suffrage measure, in 1869. Officials there stood firm in their commitment to suffrage, even when it later threatened their petition for statehood. \u201cWe will remain out of the Union one hundred years rather than come in without the women,\u201d they told Congress, which relented and admitted them in 1890 (as shown on this postcard, circa 1910).<\/span>Ken Florey Suffrage Collection\/Gado\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Not all of the western states were early adopters of suffrage: While Nevada attempted to amend its Constitution as early as 1869, it would not succeed until 1914. Mabel Vernon, an organizer from Delaware and leader in the N.W.P., traveled the state with Anne Martin, a Reno, Nev., suffragist, that year to rally support for the measure, which passed largely thanks to support in rural counties.<\/span>Special Collections and University Archives Department, University of Nevada, Reno<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In 1896, Idaho became the fourth state where women could vote, joining Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. Organizers used buttons, pins, sashes and other memorabilia, such as this umbrella, circa 1910, to celebrate their victories, show state pride and spread the word about their cause.<\/span>Ken Florey Suffrage Collection\/Gado\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Suffragists distributed more than 90,000 Votes for Women buttons in Southern California alone as part of the campaign for a suffrage referendum in the state in 1911. The measure passed by just 3,587 votes.<\/span>Ken Florey Suffrage Collection\/Gado\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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By the time this photo was taken, circa 1915, women in 12 states and the Alaska Territory could vote \u2014 although in some places they were limited to municipal or presidential elections. Slowly, progress began to spread to the East. In 1917, the movement achieved a major victory when New York, at the time the nation\u2019s most populous state, passed a suffrage referendum.<\/span>New York Public Library<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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By early 1919, as this flier shows, women had some form of suffrage in 24 states; Maine, Minnesota, Missouri and Tennessee would join their ranks later that year. Organizations such as NAWSA had shifted their focus from state-level battles to a national suffrage amendment, which could finally establish that American women had a right to the ballot.<\/span>Missouri Historical Society<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

THE SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT SPREAD<\/strong> to all corners of the country, reaching big cities and small towns in every region and pulling in women from all walks of life. But at a time when large swaths of the nation were segregated, the suffrage movement was no exception. While there were interracial suffrage organizations, for much of the movement\u2019s history they were the exception rather than the rule. Many white groups, particularly in the South, refused to accept Black members, and leaders of NAWSA and other national organizations, fearful of losing support in the region, kowtowed to racist demands to exclude women of color. Black women formed their own groups<\/a> to fight not only for the right to vote but also for greater equality and justice for their communities.<\/p>\n

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Suffragists marching in a parade in Mount Ayr, Iowa \u2014 population around 1,700 \u2014 in 1915. The following year, the state\u2019s all-male electorate rejected an amendment to Iowa\u2019s Constitution expanding the franchise to women, who would have to wait to vote until the 19th Amendment.<\/span>Transcendental Graphics\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A suffrage parade in Chicago in 1916. The movement in Illinois was spearheaded by organizations such as the Alpha Suffrage Club, a Black women\u2019s group founded in 1913 by Ida B. Wells-Barnett, with the help of her white friends and allies Belle Squire and Virginia Brooks. When Illinois women won limited voting rights that year, the club helped get hundreds of Black women to the polls.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The refrain \u201clifting as we climb,\u201d famously used by the Black suffragist Mary Church Terrell, became the motto of organizations such as the Arizona Federation of Colored Women\u2019s Clubs, pictured circa 1909.<\/span>Los Angeles Public Library<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Delegates of the City Federation of Colored Women\u2019s Clubs of Jacksonville at a meeting in Palatka, Fla., in 1915. Eartha M. M. White, an opera singer and businesswoman who became a leading advocate for social reform in Jacksonville, is seated front center.<\/span>Eartha M. M. White Collection\/University of North Florida<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

IN 1872, A WOMAN NAMED VIRGINIA MINOR<\/strong> attempted to register to vote in Missouri. When she was turned away, she sued. Her case advanced to the Supreme Court, which unanimously rejected her claim, declaring that \u201cthe Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone.\u201d This decision helped confirm for many suffragists the need for a constitutional amendment declaring that access to the ballot could not be denied on the basis of sex. A national amendment would require national support in order to pass the House and Senate and be ratified by legislatures in three-fourths of the states. The suffragists roamed far and wide to spread awareness of their cause. And after Congress passed the 19th Amendment in the summer of 1919, the battle came down to the states<\/a>, with all eyes eventually on Tennessee.<\/p>\n

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A group of suffragists who called themselves the Army of the Hudson prepared to march from New York to Washington, D.C., in February 1913. Led by \u201cGeneral\u201d Rosalie Jones, the Army hiked more than 200 miles in 17 days, through mud and slush, to deliver a letter to President Woodrow Wilson urging him to support women\u2019s fight for the vote. \u201cRemember, we are going through,\u201d Jones said. \u201cLet those who fall out return, but remember, our motto is, \u2018On to Washington.\u2019\u201d<\/span>George Eastman Museum<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The suffragists Nell Richardson, left, and Alice Burke set off from New York in April 1916 on a five-month cross-country road trip to rally support for the vote. Along with their cat, Saxon \u2014 a gift from a supporter in Mobile, Ala. \u2014 they traveled some 10,000 miles in a yellow Saxon roadster they called the Golden <\/a>Flier<\/a>, stopping in more than 100 cities, from New Orleans to San Francisco to Detroit, before returning to New York in September.<\/span>Ken Florey Suffrage Collection\/Gado\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A sheet of pro-suffrage stamps from 1914. Missouri women did not win the right to vote until 1920, with the 19th Amendment. Virginia Minor, who died in 1894, would not live to see it.<\/span>Missouri Historical Society<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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After Congress passed the 19th Amendment, the fight for ratification moved to the states. By the summer of 1920, 35 states had approved the law, and Tennessee became the leading candidate to push the amendment over the finish line. While the suffrage cause had been largely stymied in the South, a biracial coalition of Nashville women\u2019s groups successfully lobbied legislators to ratify the measure. It passed, 50-46, on Aug. 18.<\/span>Gado Images\/Alamy<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

WOMEN\u2019S QUEST FOR POLITICAL POWER<\/strong> involved Americans of every race, class and walk of life \u2014 and it did not start, or end, with the vote. As early as the 1810s, Black women preachers such as Jarena Lee were fighting for more equitable roles in their churches, and inspiring others to do the same. \u201cThe Black church is not just a place of spiritual refuge or contemplation but a major political organization,\u201d the historian Martha S. Jones said in a phone interview. \u201cIn May 1848, you have a group of Black church women in Philadelphia, from the same community as Lee, who organize and petition for preaching licenses \u2014 and win them. And then two months later, in July, another group of women gets together in a little village called Seneca Falls. And among their demands, along with the right to vote, is a demand for equality for women in religion. All of it stems from a critique of the notion that race and sex should determine political power, and a new visioning of what American political culture should look like\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1866, after the end of the Civil War, a coalition including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass formed the American Equal Rights Association, with the goal of securing the right to vote for all American citizens, \u201cirrespective of race, color or sex.\u201d That same year, the first petition for universal suffrage was presented to Congress. But when the government moved to enfranchise Black men with the 14th and 15th Amendments, while continuing to exclude women, many suffragists were indignant. The racism exposed by the debates over these laws festered for decades, and Black suffragists found themselves fighting a difficult battle for equal treatment on two fronts, as women and as African-Americans<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Stanton, the main author of the Declaration of Sentiments \u2014 the list of demands for women\u2019s equality crafted at Seneca Falls \u2014 was among the early suffragist leaders outraged that the 14th Amendment protected the voting rights of \u201cmale citizens\u201d \u2014 the first reference to gender introduced into the Constitution. \u201cIf that word \u2018male\u2019 be inserted,\u201d she warned, \u201cit will take us a century at least to get it out.\u201d<\/span>Library of Congress<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Black women such as Mary Church Terrell \u2014 eighth from left in the back row, at a conference for the Women\u2019s International League for Peace and Freedom in 1919 \u2014 often found themselves alone in rooms of white suffragists. Terrell implored organizations such as NAWSA to include more women of color. \u201cSeeking no favors because of our color, nor patronage because of our needs, we knock at the bar of justice, asking an equal chance,\u201d she said at their 1898 convention.<\/span>Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In 1896, Terrell, Harriet Tubman, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and others formed the National Association of Colored Women to spearhead their fight for equal rights, including the right to vote. The refrain \u201clifting as we climb,\u201d which Terrell used in her 1898 NAWSA convention speech, was the organization\u2019s motto.<\/span>Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In the nation\u2019s capital, a network of Black women banded together to campaign for women\u2019s rights and civil rights. Their ranks included Terrell, the poet Angelina Weld Grimk\u00e9, the author Anna Julia Cooper and Nannie Helen Burroughs, a leader of the National Baptist Convention, seen at left with an unidentified woman circa 1900.<\/span>Library of Congress<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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For Black suffragists, the fight did not end with the 19th Amendment. On the night before Election Day in 1920, members of the Ku Klux Klan came to a Black girls\u2019 school in Daytona, Fla., to intimidate its founder, Mary McLeod Bethune, and other Black women in the community from voting. Bethune, pictured circa 1905, was undeterred and cast her vote the next day. Still, many Black women<\/a> \u2014 and Black men \u2014 across the South would effectively be barred from the ballot by Jim Crow policies, violence and other forms of suppression for decades to come.<\/span>State Archives of Florida<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

LATINAS, ASIAN-AMERICANS, INDIGENOUS WOMEN AND IMMIGRANTS<\/strong>were all part of the multigenerational struggle<\/a> for the vote. They led marches, gave speeches and organized for their right to a voice in the political system. But when victory did come with the 19th Amendment, some of them would not be included<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Many of America\u2019s newest residents joined the battle for voting rights in the early 20th century. Immigrants such as the Polish-born organizer Rose Schneiderman \u2014 third from right in the front row, with members of the New York Women\u2019s Trade Union League in 1909 \u2014 became powerful advocates not only for suffrage but also for workers\u2019 rights and child-labor protections.<\/span>Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Women who came to the United States from nations such as Norway, where they had enjoyed some voting rights since 1907, found themselves disenfranchised in their new home. Many of these immigrants banded together to form organizations like the Scandinavian Suffrage Association of Minnesota \u2014 pictured in Washington, circa 1917 \u2014 that helped lead the campaign for the vote in the Midwest.<\/span>Harris & Ewing\/Buyenlarge\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In parts of the country with large Spanish-speaking communities, the fight for the right to vote was bilingual. This flier, distributed by the Los Angeles Political Equality League, urged voters to support California\u2019s suffrage referendum in 1911. Suffragists like Maria de Lopez traveled the state making the case for women\u2019s rights. A language instructor at a Los Angeles high school, de Lopez worked as a translator during the campaign and stumped for suffrage herself in Spanish.<\/span>Women’s Suffrage and Equal Rights Collection, Ella Strong Denison Library, Scripps College<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Adelina Otero-Warren, pictured in 1923, was an organizer for the N.W.P. who rallied support for the ratification of the 19th Amendment in New Mexico. In 1922, she became the first Latina to run for Congress, vying to represent the state as a Republican in the House of Representatives.<\/span>The New York Times<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, pictured in 1937, joined the suffrage movement as a teenager, leading thousands of women in a 1912 parade in New York while riding a white horse. But as a Chinese immigrant, she would be barred from American citizenship, and the vote, until the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943.<\/span>Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service\/National Archives<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Many Native American women, such as those in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, had wielded political power since well before the founding of the United States. And later, Native women<\/a> like the Yankton Sioux activist Zitkala-Sa \u2014 also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin, pictured circa 1898 \u2014 joined the fight for women\u2019s suffrage, even though many Native women would not be considered citizens until the passage of the Snyder Act in 1924.<\/span>National Museum of American History<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Suffrage was a generational fight<\/a> spanning nearly a century. Girls like this one, pictured in 1915 \u2014 five years before the 19th Amendment was ratified \u2014 would enjoy the fruits of their foremothers\u2019 labors, and continue their work.<\/span>Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

SUFFRAGISTS FOUGHT FOR THEIR RIGHTS<\/strong> not only at the ballot box but also in their daily lives. For some of them, that included whom they loved<\/a> and how they chose to express their identities. The terms \u201cgay\u201d and \u201clesbian\u201d were not used much at the time, but many women who might identify as part of the L.G.B.T.Q. community today were integral to the campaign for the vote. Several of the most prominent leaders of the suffrage movement were involved in so-called \u201cromantic friendships\u201d or \u201cBoston marriages\u201d that many historians now regard as same-sex relationships: the one-time NAWSA president Dr. Anna Howard Shaw and Lucy Anthony, niece of Susan B. Anthony (who was also believed to have had relationships with women); Mary Burrill and Lucy Diggs Slowe, both prominent members of the same circle of Black suffragists in Washington as Terrell; and Carrie Chapman Catt, another president of NAWSA, and Mary Garrett Hay \u2014 just to name a few.<\/p>\n

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The writer and suffrage organizer Alice Dunbar-Nelson, pictured circa 1915, documented her relationships with both men and women in her diaries and described a queer subculture within Black women\u2019s clubs and the suffragist community.<\/span>Alice Dunbar-Nelson Papers, University of Delaware<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Catt and her partner, Hay \u2014 shown casting their first ballots in New York in 1918 \u2014 traveled the country implementing Catt\u2019s \u201cWinning Plan\u201d to rally support for the 19th Amendment. Catt had been married twice, but when she died she insisted on being buried not with either of her husbands but with Hay. \u201cHere lie two,\u201d their headstone in Woodlawn Cemetery reads, \u201cunited in friendship for 38 years through constant service to a great cause.\u201d<\/span>Library of Congress<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

NOT ALL SUFFRAGISTS WERE WOMEN.<\/strong> (And not all women were suffragists<\/a>.) Male allies were part of women\u2019s campaign for the vote from the beginning. Many of them had collaborated with the suffragists in the movement to end slavery in the United States, and they saw the enfranchisement of women as a natural extension of their work to achieve liberty for all Americans. Among them was Frederick Douglass, who published the abolitionist newspaper The North Star. Its motto was: \u201cRight is of no sex. Truth is of no color. God is the father of us all, and all we are brethren.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen I ran away from slavery, it was for myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people,\u201d said Douglass, who was among the 32 men who signed the Declaration of Sentiments at Seneca Falls. \u201cBut when I stood up for the rights of woman, self was out of the question, and I found a little nobility in the act.\u201d<\/span>Library of Congress<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A scrapbook documenting the activities of the Men\u2019s League for Woman Suffrage, founded in New York in 1909 by Max Eastman, who later edited the socialist magazine The Masses.<\/span>Library of Congress<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Counterintuitive though it may seem, there were women who actively opposed the suffrage movement<\/a>. Some argued that having the vote would make women masculine, disrupt their traditional roles as wives and mothers and destroy American society. Their fears were illustrated in this cartoon by Laura Foster, published by an anti-suffrage group in 1915.<\/span>Ken Florey Suffrage Collection\/Gado\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n
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THE FIRST SEVERAL DECADES OF THE SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT<\/strong> largely revolved around meetings, speeches and petitions. But in the 1910s, things began to shift. \u201cYou still have mainstream organizations like NAWSA doing the traditional political grunt work within the system, with their index cards keeping track of votes and which representatives support it and who needs to be swayed,\u201d the historian Susan Ware said in a phone interview. \u201cBut that on its own isn\u2019t enough. And so you start to see public spectacles like the marches and parades that really put it in your face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspired in part by the British suffrage movement \u2014 led by Emmeline Pankhurst and the Women\u2019s Social and Political Union, whose motto was \u201cDeeds not words\u201d \u2014 new leaders including Alice Paul and Lucy Burns and groups such as the N.W.P. emerged that took a more radical tack. While they never adopted their British counterparts\u2019 most violent tactics, which included bombings and arson, they did take to heart the sentiment that, if the vote was finally to be won, they would have to take their fight to the streets, and to the very doorstep of power itself. Many tools of protest that activists use today were honed by the suffragists, from mass marches and picketing outside the White House to wearing badges and pins to express support for a cause. \u201cWhat these women were so good at was making sure suffrage was a topic on everyone\u2019s mind,\u201d Dr. Ware said. \u201cIt was everywhere. And you had to take a stand.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Organized protest did not become a main tool of the movement until the 1900s, but some suffragists were performing acts of civil disobedience well before Paul or Burns entered the picture. In 1872, Susan B. Anthony, pictured circa 1850, was arrested in Rochester, N.Y., for voting. She channeled her indignation into a speech the following year: \u201cIt is downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government.\u201d<\/span>Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In 1913, the day before President Woodrow Wilson\u2019s inauguration, thousands of suffragists descended on Washington for the Woman Suffrage Procession, organized by Paul and Burns for NAWSA. Inez Milholland, a 26-year-old suffragist, led the parade on horseback. Three years later, she would collapse while giving a speech in Los Angeles and die shortly thereafter. Her last public words were reportedly, \u201cMr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?\u201d<\/span>Library of Congress<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Bowing to pressure from segregationist factions in the South, NAWSA\u2019s white leaders told Black suffragists including Ida B. Wells-Barnett, pictured with her daughters in 1914, that they had to walk at the back of the parade. Wells-Barnett refused and marched with the rest of the Illinois delegation.<\/span>Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In January 1917, members of the N.W.P. who called themselves the Silent Sentinels began picketing outside the White House. It was the first demonstration of its kind. They would remain there for over two years: Their goal, The Washington Post reported in 1917, was to make it \u201cimpossible for the President to enter or leave the White House without encountering a sentinel bearing some device pleading the suffrage cause.\u201d<\/span>National Archives<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Silent Sentinels were arrested multiple times and frequently mistreated by law enforcement. In one particularly brutal incident in November 1917, 33 of them (including Burns) were taken to the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia, where they were violently abused. The Sentinel Minnie Quay described her experience in an affidavit about the episode, which became known as the Night of Terror.<\/span>Library of Congress<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The N.W.P. issued pins in the shape of a prison door to protesters who had been jailed; the women wore these \u201cJailed for Freedom\u201d pins as a badge of honor. Survivors of the Night of Terror capitalized on the public\u2019s horror at their treatment to sway more supporters to their cause. In 1919, a group of them went on a 16-city tour \u2014 the \u201cPrison Special\u201d \u2014 wearing their jailhouse garb and sharing their stories. They called the train they traveled on the Democracy Limited.<\/span>National Museum of American History<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

FROM THE EARLIEST DAYS OF THE MOVEMENT<\/strong>, the suffragists creatively and relentlessly spread the word about their cause. Renowned orators such as Sojourner Truth, Mary Church Terrell and Dr. Anna Howard Shaw gave speeches. Leaflets and posters made the suffragists\u2019 case in print. And when the mainstream (male-run) press refused to cover the movement for women\u2019s rights, or did so in disparaging terms and with grotesque caricatures, women created their own<\/a>. Several of the continent\u2019s first publications written by and for women emerged with the suffrage movement, including Amelia Bloomer\u2019s The Lily, which covered issues from suffrage to temperance to dress reform, and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin\u2019s The Woman\u2019s Era, the first newspaper published by a Black woman in the United States.<\/p>\n

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Terrell, a prominent Black suffragist and the first woman appointed to the Washington D.C. Board of Education, used her gift for languages \u2014 she spoke at least three \u2014 to fight for the suffrage movement and for Black women\u2019s inclusion in it.<\/span>Oberlin College Archives<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In a pamphlet published in 1903 by the Rochester Political Equality Club in New York, suffragists rebutted some of the most common arguments against women\u2019s right to vote.<\/span>Women’s Suffrage and Equal Rights Collection, Ella Strong Denison Library, Scripps College<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage \u2014 which would become the N.W.P. \u2014 put out a weekly journal, The Suffragist, to advertise its activities and recruit people to the cause. The publication ran from 1913 to 1921 and was staffed by women such as Frances Pepper, left, and Elizabeth Smith, pictured in the newsroom in 1916. During the Silent Sentinel pickets, The Suffragist exposed the ill treatment of imprisoned protesters.<\/span>Library of Congress<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Texas suffragist Jovita Id\u00e1r<\/a>, second from right, came from a family of journalists and activists, and she used the pages of their newspapers La Cr\u00f3nica and Evoluci\u00f3n to advocate women\u2019s rights and the rights of Mexican-Americans.<\/span>General Photograph Collection\/UTSA Libraries Special Collections<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

THE ORGANIZERS WHO FOUGHT<\/strong> FOR WOMEN\u2019S RIGHT TO VOTE<\/strong> were skilled in the relatively new art of public relations, and they found innovative ways to get their message out \u2014 from flashy stunts to all manner of memorabilia. The \u201csuffrage day\u201d baseball game on May 18, 1915, for example, drew plenty of attention to the suffragists\u2019 cause \u2014 even if the referendum it promoted failed that fall.<\/p>\n

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The suffrage cartoonist Lou Rogers, far left; the labor organizer Margaret Hinchey, fourth from left; and others advertising the \u201csuffrage day\u201d game.<\/span>FPG\/Archive Photos\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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This cookbook, sold as a fund-raiser at an 1886 suffrage festival in Boston, contained \u201cthoroughly tested and reliable recipes for cooking, directions for the care of the sick and practical suggestions.\u201d In the preface, its editor, Hattie A. Burr, wrote that she hoped it would \u201cgo forth a blessing to housekeepers, and an advocate for the elevation and enfranchisement of woman.\u201d<\/span>Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A 1900 Valentine\u2019s Day card, spreading love and women\u2019s equality.<\/span>Ken Florey Suffrage Collection\/Gado\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Some suffragists went to great heights to get the word out: Dr. Cora Smith Eaton \u2014 a Washington State physician and mountaineer, pictured in Yellowstone National Park in 1902 \u2014 climbed with a group of 68 other people to the top of Mount Rainier in 1909 with a Votes for Women banner, which she planted at the summit.<\/span>Barnes Albums (MSC31), Yellowstone National Park Archives<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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And Margaret Foley took to the skies in August 1910 to distribute pro-suffrage literature to the citizens of Lawrence, Mass.<\/span>Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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WOMEN\u2019S STRUGGLE FOR THE RIGHT TO VOTE<\/strong> intersected with many other social movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries, from abolition to temperance to labor. It collided with wars and grappled with changing social norms. It even had to contend with a pandemic<\/a>. \u201cSuffragists were never single-issue people,\u201d the historian Ellen Carol DuBois said in a phone interview. \u201cThey understood that getting the right to vote was the crucial tool for every important political change in American society \u2014 and they had a long list of changes they wanted to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the early suffragists \u2014 including organizers of the Seneca Falls convention such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott \u2014 were ardent abolitionists, and their experiences in that movement informed how they waged their campaigns for women\u2019s rights. \u201cThe early suffragists were schooled in antislavery,\u201d Dr. DuBois said. \u201cThey\u2019re sibling movements.\u201d But after the Civil War, the fight over the 15th Amendment, which enfranchised Black men but did nothing to address women\u2019s demand for the vote, divided some white suffragists from their former allies<\/a>. \u201cStanton in particular repeatedly used very disturbing racial rhetoric when objecting to what she called the closing of the constitutional door\u201d on women\u2019s suffrage, Dr. DuBois explained. The effects of this schism would continue to ripple through the movement for decades.<\/p>\n

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An advertisement for a lecture by the abolitionist and suffragist Sojourner Truth, circa 1878. Among the testimonials to Truth\u2019s skill as an orator was one from Mott, who called her \u201ca valued friend and co-laborer.\u201d<\/span>Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In the late 19th century, as the suffrage movement \u2014 and the country \u2014 became increasingly segregated, a thriving Black women\u2019s club movement developed, made up of organizations like the Women\u2019s Newport League in Rhode Island. Members of these clubs worked for a range of social and political reforms, including better health care, child care and education, as well as women\u2019s suffrage.<\/span>Library of Congress<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

AT ITS HEART, THE SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT <\/strong>was a fundamental reimagining of the roles of women in American society, not as the dependents of men but as full citizens. Women such as the newspaper publisher Amelia Bloomer and other advocates of dress reform sought liberation, in the first instance, from the corsets and petticoats that constricted their everyday lives. (Bloomer would lend her name to the cohort\u2019s preferred attire: pantaloons worn under a short skirt, also known as bloomers.) For others, it meant fighting for control over one\u2019s body. And for many suffragists, voting meant having a chance to combat the abuse of alcohol, which they saw a main cause of domestic violence: The campaign for the vote became interwoven with the movements for temperance and prohibition.<\/p>\n

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A self-portrait by the photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston, posing as an independent, modern woman in 1896. The suffrage movement was part of a transformative time when women were pushing back against the bounds of what was considered acceptable, \u201cladylike\u201d behavior.<\/span>Library of Congress<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A 1918 cartoon by Lou Rogers. She was part of a contingent of the suffragist movement, including her fellow cartoonist Blanche Ames Ames, who campaigned for access to contraception. Birth control would not become fully legal in the United States until 1972.<\/span>Lou Rogers<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Organizations such as the Women\u2019s Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.) saw laws banning the sale and consumption of alcohol as key to protecting women and children from abuse. Prohibition would go into effect in January 1920 \u2014 a year after the ratification of the 18th Amendment, and eight months before that of the 19th.<\/span>Montana Historical Society<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

THE W.C.T.U. DID NOT JUST ADVOCATE <\/strong>suffrage and temperance. Like many other turn-of-the-century women\u2019s groups in the newly industrialized nation, they also pushed for legal protections for the millions of women and children working in factories and mills. Immigrants, who made up a large portion of the work force, would prove instrumental to this campaign. Organizers such as Rose Schneiderman<\/a> and Margaret Hinchey helped bring many of them into the fight, not just for stronger workplace safety measures but also for a voice in the system that was responsible for such laws.<\/p>\n

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Lewis Hine, an investigative photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, used his camera to expose the living and working conditions that affected children like this one, a worker at a cotton mill in Lancaster, S.C., in 1908.<\/span>Library of Congress<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Hine captured the everyday details of working people\u2019s lives, from coal mines and meatpacking warehouses to tenement apartments. In this 1912 portrait, a mother and her three children sew dresses for Campbell\u2019s Soup Kids dolls.<\/span>Library of Congress<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In 1911, a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York killed 146 people, most of them women and girls. Organizations such as the Women\u2019s Trade Union League, pictured circa 1900, recruited many working-class and immigrant women to the suffrage movement by arguing that, if they wanted to prevent such a tragedy from ever occurring again, they needed a voice in the political system.<\/span>National Archives<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Irish-born labor organizer Margaret Hinchey met with President Wilson in 1914 to press him on working women\u2019s need for the ballot. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to push every man of them to the very pin of his collar,\u201d she said in a speech recounting the meeting and advocating women\u2019s suffrage in New York. \u201cNo one has a right to go up to Albany and make a pill for me to swallow whether I want to or not.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

FROM 1914 TO 1918, EVERYDAY LIFE <\/strong>was brought to a halt by World War I. Carrie Chapman Catt, the president of NAWSA, believed that being seen as patriotic would help the suffrage cause and threw the group\u2019s support behind President Wilson when the United States entered the conflict in 1917. NAWSA would pour considerable resources into the war effort. But the N.W.P. took a different tack: The Silent Sentinels continued to picket the While House six days a week, demanding the very liberty that the country professed to be defending abroad. Ultimately, women\u2019s highly visible roles in the war effort may have helped. In January 1918, nine months before the war\u2019s end, the House of Representatives approved a suffrage amendment 274-136, and, as it moved through the Senate, Wilson gave it his full support. \u201cWe have made partners of the women in this war,\u201d he said on Sept. 30. \u201cShall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not a partnership of privilege and right?\u201d (The Senate rejected the amendment the next day, but would ultimately approve it in June 1919.)<\/p>\n

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A pair of \u201csuffrage farmerettes\u201d at work in East Patchogue, N.Y., as part of the effort on the home front to keep the country fed during the war.<\/span>National Archives<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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NAWSA sponsored all-female medical units during the war, sending dozens of doctors and nurses to serve at field hospitals on the front in France. When these women returned home, they found themselves waging another war: against the deadly influenza pandemic of 1918.<\/span>National Archives.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

THE 19TH AMENDMENT <\/strong>\u2014 ratified on Aug. 18, 1920, and added to the constitution eight days later \u2014 was the single largest act of enfranchisement in the history of the United States. Millions of women cast their first ballots that fall. But the amendment\u2019s promise was incomplete. Many American women, including some who had fought fiercely for suffrage, were still excluded from the ballot box. Many Native Americans were not able to vote until 1924, when the Snyder Act made them U.S. citizens. Chinese immigrants were similarly barred until the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943. And many Black and Latinx people who, on paper, had an unequivocal right to vote, were functionally disenfranchised for decades by poll taxes, literacy tests, \u201cwhite primary\u201d laws and other forms of voter suppression. It is for this reason that many scholars point to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which barred racial discrimination in voting, as another milestone in suffrage history.<\/p>\n

And the fight for suffrage was not just about the right to vote. It was about equality for women in all areas of life. From pay equity to educational resources and access to credit, women have continued to fight for their rights<\/a>, and for equal representation in the bodies of power that regulate them. The Equal Rights Amendment, Title IX, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act: All are descended from the suffragists and their work. \u201cThe suffrage movement is not this finite, discrete thing: It\u2019s part of a much broader story about women\u2019s roles in American society,\u201d the historian Susan Ware said in a phone interview. \u201cThis isn\u2019t about one issue from 100 years in the past that a bunch of women in long dresses and big hats cared about. These are issues we\u2019re still fighting for today. And getting the vote was an absolutely necessary step in everything that came afterward.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Black suffragists at a Head-Quarters for Colored Women Voters in Georgia, circa 1910s. Their struggle for the vote would continue well after 1920, with ramifications on nearly every aspect of their daily lives. \u201cIf the right to vote was a minor issue, then there wouldn\u2019t be so much energy put into suppressing it,\u201d the historian Nikki Brown said in a phone interview. \u201cYour vote is how you determine if there\u2019s a school in your neighborhood, whether you can buy a house, if you have access to clean water. It is a building block of full citizenship.\u201d<\/span>New York Public Library<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In the 1950s and \u201960s, civil rights activists took to the streets to demand fuller enfranchisement for all Black Americans. \u201cWe cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote, and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote,\u201d the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said in his famous \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.<\/span>Bob Adelman Estate<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Organizers such as Fannie Lou Hamer, speaking outside the U.S. Capitol in 1965, were instrumental to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. Their struggle to make the nation fulfill the promises of the 15th and 19th Amendments for all citizens continues to this day, from battles over voter ID laws to the push for better access to polling places, early voting and voting by mail.<\/span>William J. Smith\/Associated Press<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

AFTER THE RATIFICATION OF THE 19TH AMENDMENT<\/strong>, many suffragists shifted their attention to ensuring that women knew how to use their new right, and to establishing further protections for them under the law. In 1923, Alice Paul and her fellow suffragist Crystal Eastman, a co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, sat down to write what became the Equal Rights Amendment, which built on the promises of the 19th to ensure equality for women in all aspects of the law. The measure was first introduced to Congress that same year. Paul rewrote it in 1943, with the text that stands to this day: \u201cEquality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.\u201d The E.R.A. was passed by Congress in 1972. It moved to the state legislatures but failed to reach the three-fourths threshold for ratification before a congressional deadline. On Jan. 15, 2020, Virginia finally became the 38th state to ratify the E.R.A.<\/a> The law\u2019s fate is still uncertain.<\/p>\n

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Anita Pollitzer \u2014 a South Carolina suffragist who helped lead the final campaign for the 19th Amendment in Tennessee, left \u2014 and Paul visiting Susan B. Anthony\u2019s grave in 1920.<\/span>Library of Congress<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago in 1920 to help millions of women exercise their new right to the ballot. Today, there are more than 700 local chapters of the league, in all 50 states.<\/span>Library of Virginia<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Mary Church Terrell \u2014 pictured in 1901 with her daughter, Phyllis \u2014 was among the suffrage leaders who campaigned for the E.R.A. \u201cIt is hard to believe that the men in this country who have it in their power to deal justly in this particular will refuse any longer to enact this legislation which will redress a wrong and lighten the burdens which thousands of women now unnecessarily bear,\u201d she testified before Congress in 1948.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A supporter at a rally for the E.R.A. in New York on March 12, 1977, a few months before Paul died. Indiana became the 35th state to ratify the measure \u2014 which is also known as the Alice Paul Amendment, in her honor \u2014 that year. It would be the last to do so until Nevada in 2017.<\/span>Tyrone Dukes\/The New York Times<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Hazel Hunkins Hallinan marching at the front of a suffrage protest in Washington in 1917 and at an E.R.A. rally in the capital, 60 years later.<\/span>Library of Congress; Teresa Zabala\/The New York Times<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

AMERICAN WOMEN\u2019S STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY<\/strong> wasn\u2019t just about what laws said: It was about making sure women\u2019s voices were part of the conversation when those laws were made. The first woman elected to Congress \u2014 Jeannette Rankin, Republican of Montana \u2014 won her seat in the House of Representatives in 1916. But for a long time, she was in a very small club. Ten years, and five elections, after the 19th Amendment became law, there were nine women in the 531-member Congress, all in the House. The first woman elected to the Senate \u2014 Hattie Caraway, Democrat of Arkansas \u2014 would not win her seat until 1932. By 1970, 50 years after the enfranchisement of America\u2019s women, there were still only 11 of them in Congress; one was Shirley Chisholm, the legislature\u2019s first Black female member.<\/p>\n

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Cora Reynolds Anderson, a member of the Ojibwe tribe, was the first Native woman elected to a state legislature. She served one term as a Republican in the Michigan House of Representatives, from 1925 to 1926. The first Native women elected to the national legislature \u2014 Deb Haaland of New Mexico, a member of Laguna Pueblo, and Sharice Davids of Kansas, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, both Democrats \u2014 would not win their seats in the House until 2018<\/a>.<\/span>Michigan Tech Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Patsy Takemoto Mink, a Democrat from Hawaii, was the first woman of color elected to Congress, in 1964. As a member of the House of Representatives, she was the lead author of Title IX, the landmark 1972 law that bars schools that receive federal funding from discriminating on the basis of sex.<\/span>Bettmann\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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On the day in 1968 when she became the first Black woman elected to Congress, Chisholm wore white in a tribute to the suffragists. Four years later, she declared her candidacy for the presidency, making the New York Democrat \u2014 pictured at her announcement in January 1972 \u2014 the first African-American from either major political party to mount a campaign for the White House.<\/span>Don Hogan Charles\/The New York Times<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Margaret Chase Smith, Republican of Maine, was the first woman elected to both chambers of Congress, serving eight years in the House and 24 in the Senate. In 1964, she declared her candidacy for the presidency, becoming the first woman to seek the nomination from either major political party. (Only one woman, Hillary Clinton, has won a major party\u2019s nomination for president.)<\/span>David J. & Janice L. Frent\/Corbis, via Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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On Aug. 11, 2020, Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, tapped Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate. She will join Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin as only the third woman nominated for vice president by a major political party \u2014 and the first Black woman or person of Indian descent on a major party\u2019s presidential ticket.<\/span>Erin Schaff\/The New York Times<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

ONE HUNDRED YEARS<\/strong> after millions of American women cast their first ballots, Harris is one of 26 women serving in the Senate. Another 101 are Representatives in the House. Women are governors of nine states, as well as the territories of Puerto Rico and Guam. Four serve as Congressional delegates for American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. There is still progress to be made. But all this would be unimaginable if women had not won the vote.<\/p>\n

A project by Veronica Chambers, with Jennifer Harlan, Jennifer Schuessler, Anika Burgess, Christoph Fuhrmans and Nick Donofrio. Designed and produced by Danny DeBelius. Special thanks to Abby Wood, Laura Bullard, Arlene Schneider, Jim Schembari, Sarah Borell, Amanda Cordero and Dave Braun.<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Text by Jennifer Harlan,\u00a0Introduction by Veronica Chambers, Jennifer Harlan and Jennifer Schuessler, Aug. 17, 2020 On May 18, 1915, crowds streamed into the Polo Grounds in Manhattan to watch the New York Giants take on the Chicago Cubs. But beyond the diamond, a bigger contest was brewing. The state of New York was gearing up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10531"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10531"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10535,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10531\/revisions\/10535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}