11.4
SUFFRAGE AT LAST
READING FOCUS
In what ways were Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth
Cady Stanton a “bridge” to the twentieth-century
suffrage movement?
 What two main strategies did suffrage leaders
pursue?
 What was the status of the suffrage movement by
the turn of the century?
 Why was a new generation of national leaders
needed in this suffrage effort?
 What factors led to a final victory for suffrage?

KEY TERMS
Civil Disobedience
 National American Women Suffrage
Association (NAWSA)
 Congressional Union

MAIN IDEA

Demonstrating their skills as organizers and
activists, women won the right to vote with the
ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in
1920.
SETTING THE SCENE
For nearly 70 years women’s groups had fought
for their right to vote
 As the movement grew, so too did opposition to
it.

 Men
and Women from all walks of life opposed
 Thought it Unnecessary
 Threaten the stability of Society and Government
 Upset the status quo
CONTINUED

Anti-suffragists argued that women would
become “too masculine.”
 What

about factory work or farming?
Would be too easily manipulated by politicians.
 What
about the illiterate farmer/former slave
ANTHONY AND STANTON
Suffragists faced discrimination and even
violence
 First demanded the right in 1848 at the
Seneca Fall Convention in New York (1st
women’s right convention)
 Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
became the faces of the suffrage movement.

WHAT THEY DID
1866, they founded the American Equal Rights
Association
 Began to publish the newspaper, The
Revolution
 (Anthony and Stanton) National Woman
Suffrage Association = fought for a
constitutional amendment for suffrage.

 Federal
Level
CONTINUED
Another group, the American Woman Suffrage
Association = worked at the state level to win
voting rights.
 Evidence of their work = When Wyoming
entered the union in 1890, it became the first
state to grant women full suffrage.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY
She and Father were abolitionists
 Founded her own temperance
group
 Campaigned hard for schools to open doors to
women/former slaves
 Fought for equal pay and 8 hr work days
 “Failure is impossible” - Anthony

CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

1872, Anthony led a group of women to the
polls in Rochester, NY to vote.
 Was
arrested for Civil Disobedience = nonviolent
refusal to obey the law in an effort to change it.
 Student
refusal of a test
 MLK
Jr.
 Gandhi

Was convicted and fined $100. Never paid the
fine but was still released.
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

“The preamble of the Federal Constitution says:
“We the people of the United States… It was
we, the people; not we, the white male citizens;
nor yet we the, the male citizens; but we, the
whole people, who formed the Union. And we
formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty,
but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves
and the half of our posterity, but to the whole
people – women as well as man.” - Anthony
SUFFRAGIST STRATEGIES

Two approaches
 Press
for a Constitutional Amendment
 Get the individual states to let women vote
 Worked
well with western states, greater sense of
equality because of all the shared duties.
Pushing for the Constitutional Amendment was
the more difficult approach.
 Bill failed time and time again, but the “Anthony
Amendment,” 1878, 1887-1896, 1913.

SUFFRAGE AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

Suffrage veterans such as Stanton and Anthony
joined forces with younger leaders and in 1890
formed the National American Women Suffrage
Association (NAWSA).
 By
the time this group was formed, women had
some rights (property) but still no suffrage.
 1890-1910 lost steam because of so many years of
opposition, even with the push for progressive
reform.
END OF AN ERA
Stanton died in 1902
 Anthony died in 1906
 As a result, it was time for a
new generation to take up the
cause and create momentum
for women’s suffrage.
“Failure is impossible.” Anthony

NEW GENERATION

Carrie Chapman Catt carries the torch into the
new century
 Heads

the NAWSA from 1900-1904, 1915
Alice Paul/Lucy Burns take over the NAWSA
committee working on the federal suffrage
amendment.
 The
two march on Washington DC and garner a lot
of attention for their cause.
SPLIT IN THE MOVEMENT

After her march on Washington DC, Paul splits
away from the NAWSA and forms the
Congressional Union, aka (CU).
Called for an aggressive constitutional campaign.
 Planned to bypass existing state suffrage organizations
and set up new ones.
 NAWSA opposed their actions/approaches and expelled
them in 1914.
 The CU went on to hold militant protests demonstrating
and burning an effigy of president Wilson who refused
to back the suffrage movement.
 CU members were arrested and sent to prison where
they held hunger strikes to protest prison conditions.

NAWSA

Continued to support the state
suffrage efforts.
 East
coast: NY, Penn, Mass, and
NJ (1915:all failed)
 Carrie Chapman Catt was then
reinstated as NAWSA president
and given free rein to bring about
victory.
 Out of this challenge came her
“Winning Plan.”
A “WINNING PLAN”
Wanted a group of full-time leaders of suffrage
campaigns over the next 6 years.
 Also focused on getting Congress to reintroduce the federal suffrage amendment.
 By 1917 the organization had 2 million
members which was the largest volunteer org.
 1917 NY state voted for women’s suffrage.

 Many
electoral votes so women were important.
IMPACT OF WWI
USA enters the war in April 1917
 Women rush to help

Volunteer ambulance corps
 Medical work
 Jobs left by men gone to fight
 18th amendment passes prohibiting liquor sales and as
a result liquor interests no longer fought suffrage.


Separate spheres for the sexes disappeared
during wartime.
VICTORY AT LAST…

1918 Congress formally proposed the suffrage
amendment

Thanks to:
 NAWSA
 Alice
Paul and the CU (prison condition embarrassment)
Battle for ratification (approval) begins.
 In 1920, Tennessee becomes the 36th state
needed to ratify the amendment.
 The 19th amendment is the last major reform of
the Progressive Era.
