August 2020 CIVICS 101 ` 100 Years+ of Women Suffrage We stand on their shoulders lwvwilliamsburg.org Mary Ann Moxon & Bobbie Falquet LEA EAGU GUE E OF OF WOM WOMEN EN VOTER OTERS — WI WILLIAMSB SBUR URG G AREA EA
LOOKING BACK 100 years go, in 1920 . . . ▪ Suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt founded the League of Women Voters on February 14, 1920; 6 months before the 19th Amendment was ratified! ▪ Catt envisioned LWV as a "mighty political experiment" to help 20 million women carry out their new responsibilities as voters.
What will we cover today? The Fight for Women’s Suffrage in America for MANY Generations • How the fight began • Who were in the many generations of suffragists beyond the well-known? Who was left out of the history of suffrage? • • Answer your questions, submit in Chat Box Again. . . THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING!
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) may be the best known suffragist. But it took the U.S. Mint until 1979 to produce the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin to honor her.
But long before Susan B. Anthony was Abigail Adams (1744-1818) I desire that you would “Remember the Ladies!” to husband John, in 1776 “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) • Quakers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton are closely connected with fighting for the right to vote, opposing slavery & equality of the sexes Most Quakers were • abolitionists.
Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) • A powerful advocate for human rights • Women of color were integral to the women suffrage movement but often overlooked. • In an 1867 speech, Sojourner Truth had argued that giving black men the right to vote without affording black women the same right only promoted black men's dominance.
Did the women’s suffrage movement start at a tea party in New York State on July 9, 1848? A well-to-do Quaker had ▪ invited four other Quakers to enjoy a cup of tea with her. Two of the women there that ▪ day were Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902). ▪ They began to air their grievances about the world’s injustices toward women.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton had A LOT to say that day over tea, including . . . “The right to vote is ours. Have it, we must. Use it, we will.”
So just 10 days after that tea, . . . • About 300 women and men gathered in Seneca Falls, New York on July 19- 20, 1848 for “a Convention to discuss the social, civil and religious condition and rights of women.” • They drafted the Declaration of Sentiments that included the vote for women as ONE of the human Susan B. Anthony was NOT at this rights . convention. • Right to vote passed & was signed by 62 women & 32 men
1870: Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony Amelia Bloomer
Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) friendship, betrayal & reconciliation
Lucy Stone (1818-1893) • Abolitionist, suffragist & renowned orator • First female college graduate in Massachusetts • Helped form AWSA (American Woman Suffrage Association) • Favored giving women the right to divorce, eventually coming to the view that the reform of marriage laws was more important than women's voting rights • Died 30 years before women could vote; daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell, carried the torch
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825-1911) • Born free in Baltimore • Abolitionist & suffragist • Poet, novelist & orator; one of the first Black women to be published in the U.S. • Refused to give up her seat on a trolley car in Philadelphia in 1858 (100 years before Rosa Parks) • Helped to found the National Association of Colored Women in 1894 • Died in 1911, nine years before women won the right to vote
Black Suffrage Associations
“Suffering” husbands
Suffrage Opponents Organized in Virginia • In 1912, the Virginia Association Opposed to Women Suffrage believed that women were “above the dirty business of politics.” • They believed that African- American women would vote in large numbers, elect blacks and threaten white supremacy in Virginia.
NOT particularly kind either!
Suffragist or suffragette? American women called themselves suffragists. • Suffragettes was a term coined by a British journalist in 1906 to mock women who used “militant” efforts like arson, hunger strikes, & destruction of public property. • The diminutive suffix, “ -ette ,” was meant to minimize these women but they embraced this intended insult and called themselves “ suffra-GET-tes ,” with a hard “g,” to signify that they were going to “get” the right to vote.
Virginia women: VERY active suffragists too. • Twenty prominent Richmond women founded the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia (ESL) with Lila Meade Valentine as president until 1920. • In 1912, Virginia House of Delegates voted 85 to 12 against amending the Virginia Constitution to allow women to • In 1871, Anna Whitehead vote. Bodeker dropped a note into a • 74 to 13 against it in 1914 ballot box in Richmond after • 52 to 40 in 1916 election judges refused to • NO against the 19th in 1920 accept her ballot; Victoria • Finally ratified 19 th Amendment in Woodhull too 1952
• Janie Porter Barrett an active advocate • Approved a resolution supporting women suffrage • Advocated creation of “political study clubs” to stay informed • Hampton and Norfolk members staged a suffrage In 1912, numerous African- parade American women in Virginia attended the • Blacks women NOT welcome as National Association of members of the Equal Suffrage Colored Women’s League convention in Hampton.
They marched so that WE could vote! 1912
Mabel Ping-Hua Lee (1896-1966) • Chinese advocate for women’s suffrage • Famous for riding horseback in the 1912 suffrage parade in New York • New York allowed women to vote in 1917 but Lee could NOT vote because of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 • 1934’s Magnuson Act granted citizenship & the vote to Chinese
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) • Teacher, writer and early leader in the civil rights movement • Founded first African American suffrage organization in Chicago (Alpha Suffrage Club) • Investigative journalist who exposed the horrors of lynching • Awarded Pulitzer in 2020 27
Mary Church Terrill (1863-1954) • Worked to end discriminatory practices of Washington D.C. restaurants using sit-ins & boycotts • Racism and discrimination frequently showed its ugly face inside some women suffrage campaigns • 1896, founder & first president of National Association of Colored Women (NACW) • By the 1900s, Black suffrage clubs had been launched all over the country.
Inez Milholland (1886-1916) March 3, 1913, Washington D.C.
Alice Paul (1885-1977) • New Jersey’s Alice Paul believed in more MILITANT tactics. Organized the first-ever • march on the National Mall in D.C. in 1913, calling for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote • Thousands of women from across the country gathered • 1923: Introduced the ERA to Congress
March 3, 1913 Parade; Washington D.C. Who was there?
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority • Rumors that the March 3, 1913 parade in D.C. would be met by catcalls and perhaps violence • 22 Sorority members marched at that parade • Segregated at back at start of the march • Some broke ranks and mixed in with other marchers Osceola Macarthy Adams & Bertha • At age 92, Bertha Campbell led Pitts Campbell co-founded this sorority at Howard University in 10,000 Deltas in 1981 in a 1913 commemoration of that parade
1913 Suffrage Parade program
Mary Louise Bottineau Baldwin (1863-1952) • A suffragist who has really been marginalized • Chippewa lawyer; first Native American graduate of Washington College of Law • Emphasized the value of traditional Native cultures • Marched in the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade in Washington D.C.
WE STILL MARCH! Rose Bowl Parade, Pasadena, California 2020
How to get Wilson’s attention
The “Silent Sentinels” visit President Wilson Virginians Pauline Adams and Maud Jamison were on the picket line and imprisoned in 1917 and 1918, leading to the “turning point” that we will soon address.
SUFFRAGE! . . . that rather intimidating word. Frequently mispronounced as SUFFERage — and some of the early proponents of women voting did indeed suffer.
Alice Paul had past experience in England with Emmeline Pankhurst
“Night of Terror” November 14, 1917 • 27 arrests between June 22 and 26, 1917 • After picketing the White House, 33 suffragists were arrested, incarcerated, tortured and some were force fed at the Occuquan Workhouse in Virginia. Lucy Burns (1879-1966) was • one of them. She served six different prison sentences for picketing the White House. • Oldest was 73-year-old Mary Nolan who wrote down the account
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