Transcript Women’s Suffrage - Home | UC Irvine School of Humanities

Women’s Suffrage
A Brief History
Suff-what?
• Suffrage - The right to vote
• Franchise - The right to vote. The rights
of citizenship
• Vote - A formal indication of a choice
between two or more candidates or
courses of action, expressed typically
through a ballot or a show of hands or
by voice.
At the Beginning...
• Women were the “weaker vessel” - morally, mentally and
physically inferior to men.
• Women were subject to the authority of men - first their
fathers’ then their husbands’.
• With marriage a women was under the legal identity of
her husband.
• Women could not own or control property
• Women could not be the guardian of their children
• Women could not sue or be sued in court
• Any wages a women earned were legally her husbands
Women Speak Out
• Women begin speak out
and fight against slavery
(Abolitionists).
• By 1848, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Lucretia Mott
organized the first
women’s right convention
in Seneca Falls, New
York.
Seneca Falls
•
Over 300 men and women attended the
convention.
•
Women’s rights advocates at Seneca Falls
argued that political power came from the
consent of the governed and thus women
should be given the right to vote.
•
The Declaration of Sentiments (1848) was
drafted at Seneca Falls and 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.”
Progressive Era
• By the end of the 19th century more women were looking
beyond their home and into the public sphere.
• By 1900 there were over 500 women’s clubs with over
160,000 members.
• Many of these organizations focused on supporting
libraries, hospitals, schools, settlement houses, compulsory
education and child labor laws.
National American Woman
Suffrage Association
•
National American Woman
Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
led by Carrie Chapman Catt.
•
Catt devised a “winning plan”
which called for action on
two fronts.
•
Some groups lobbied
Congress to pass a
Constitutional
Amendment.
•
While other groups
utilized the new
referendum process to try
and pass state suffrage
laws.
National Woman’s Party
• National Woman’s Party (NWP) was created by Alice Paul
• NWP believed that NAWSA was moving too slowly
• NWP took a more militant approach to campaigning for
women’s suffrage.
• The NWP picketed outside of the White House.
• Women were arrested and sent to jail as a result of
the protests.
• While in jail some women (like Alice Paul) went on
hunger strikes until they were able to vote or be
released from jail.
National Association Opposed to
Woman Suffrage
•
National Association Opposed to
Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) was
formed in New York City in 1911
•
NAOWS felt that women’s
suffrage would decrease
women’s work within their
communities and societal
reforms.
•
NAOWS operated in Washington
D.C. until it was disbanded after
the passage of the 19th
Amendment in 1920.
National Association Opposed to
Woman Suffrage
Nineteenth Amendment
• The efforts of both NAWSA and the NWP
convinced a legislators to support a
women’s suffrage amendment.
• June 1919, Congress approved the 19th
Amendment which stated:
• “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.”
Sources
•
http://www.america.gov/st/pubs-english/2005/May/20050531160341liameruoy0.2459375.html
•
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr040.html
•
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/senecafalls.asp
•
http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Declaration_of_Sentiments.html
•
http://www.accessible-archives.com/2012/03/elizabeth-cady-stanton-profile-part-4/
•
http://www.biography.com/people/lucretia-mott-9416590
•
http://theautry.org/explore/exhibits/images/suffrage/equal_350.jpg
•
http://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/progressiveera/peace.html
•
http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/homeEc/suffrage/suffrage_pics/NAWSA_certificateAlt.jpg
•
http://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibition-hall/archives/images/1766?detail-image-node=1767
•
http://www.socialwelfarehistory.com/organizations/national-womans-party/
•
http://jwa.org/primarysources/orgrec_08.html
•
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/404481/National-Association-Opposed-to-WomanSuffrage-NAOWS