Ideas and Strategies of the Woman Suffrage Movement (High School)
by Roland Marchand, adapted by Sherrill Futrell
Topic(s):
Women, Women's organizations, Pro feminist and suffrage
Table of Contents
Background
The campaign for woman suffrage in the U.S. began with the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. Sixty years later, however, women could vote in only four states: Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Wyoming. In 1910 the state of Washington voted nearly two to one for woman suffrage, energizing the movement in other states. Meanwhile, in contrast, the movement in Great Britain under such leaders as Emmeline Pankhurst had moved from mass meetings and marches to arson, violence and hunger strikes.
In 1911 California voted for woman suffrage, followed by Oregon, Kansas and Arizona in 1912. The next year the suffragists finally pushed east of the Mississippi River and persuaded the Illinois state legislature to give them the vote by legislative action. In 1912 the Progressive Party, headed by Theodore Roosevelt, endorsed woman suffrage. But the movement did not win everywhere. In 1912 it lost in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. By 1914 it had also lost in Missouri, Nebraska, and North and South Dakota. By the end of 1914, the suffrage map looked like this:
In 1915 Carrie Chapman Catt, a long-time suffragist and former president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), returned to its leadership. She immediately called for both state-by-state campaigns and pressure on the U.S. Congress to submit a suffrage amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Not all American suffragists agreed with Catt's strategy, however. Two years earlier, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns had returned from their experience in the militant British suffrage movement to strengthen NAWSA. And Harriot Stanton Blatch, the daughter of early suffrage leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had organized a small militant group, the Women's Political Union.
Task
You are writing a history of the 20th century U.S. and you have decided to write three pages telling the story of the ideas and tactics of the woman suffrage movement from 1912 until Congress passed the 19th Amendment in 1919. Using the following primary source documents, interpret for your readers the significant ideas and strategies in the woman suffrage movement in this period. Use the following questions to help you.
Questions
1. Judging from the history of the U.S. suffrage movement, was Inez Hayes Irwin correct in saying that only violence, like that in Britain, would get women the vote? Why or why not?
2. In what ways did Paul and Burns disagree with Catt on ways to achieve women's suffrage? How did Blatch disagree with Catt? Why?
3. In what ways did all four leaders agree?
4. What possible reasons could President Wilson and other Democrats have had for not supporting a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women's suffrage?
5. Why did American men finally give American women the vote? For what reasons?
Document #1: Molly Elliot Seawell, The Ladies' Battle (1911)
"...Women voters would inevitably become a privileged class, their mere exemption from military and naval duty making them such. The first fundamental of our present form of government is, that there shall be no privileged classes among voters....Already, the State of Washington, in adopting suffrage, has violated a principle of republican government, by exempting women from jury duty...
"The five suffrage states show...abnormal rate of divorces....Woman suffrage tends to divorce...Political differences in families, between brothers, for example, who vote on differing sides, do not promote harmony. How much more inharmonious must be the political differences between a husband and wife, each of whom has a vote which may be used as a weapon against the other?"
Document #2: Inez Hayes Irwin, American woman suffragist, on her reaction to the tactics of the English Suffragists (date unknown)
"When in England, the first militant of Mrs. Pankhurst's forces threw her first stone, my heart went with it....At last the traditions of female patience...had gone by the board. Women were using the tactics that, through all the ages, men had used; the only tactics that were sure to bring results; rebellion and violence."
Document #3: Theodore Roosevelt, "Women's Rights; and the Duties of Both Men and Women", The Outlook, Feb. 3, 1912
"I believe in woman's rights. I believe even more earnestly in the performance of duty by both men and women; for unless the average man and the average woman live lives of duty, not only our democracy but civilization itself will perish....
"The very unfortunate actions of certain leaders of that (suffrage) movement...seem desirous of associating it with disorderly conduct in public and with thoroughly degrading and vicious assaults upon the morality and the duty of women within and without marriage...
"Most of the women who I know best are against woman suffrage precisely because they approach life from the standpoint of duty. They are not interested in their 'rights' so much as in their obligations....Other women, wage-earning girls for instance, and wives whose husbands are brutal or inconsiderate, would...be helped by the suffrage, if they used it wisely and honorably."
Document #4: "Pageant Crowd Largest Washington Has Ever Seen", The New York Herald, March 4, 1913
...The suffrage parade and pageant here today attracted a greater crowd than any (presidential) inaugural ever did. An incoming and outgoing President were almost ignored. Only a few hundred persons saw Mr. Wilson's advertised arrival at his hotel; within six blocks fifty thousand were waiting for the suffragists."
Document #5: "Woman's Beauty, Grace and Art Bewilder the Capital. Miles of Fluttering Femininity Present Entrancing Suffrage Appeal", The Washington Post, March 4, 1913
"Richly Decorated Floats Tell the History and Point to the Future of Equal Rights Struggle - Entrancing Spectacle at Times is Marred by Scenes of Disorder Along the Line of March - Procession, Blocked by Throngs, Moves Only Ten Blocks in an Hour...
"Five thousand women, marching in the woman suffrage pageant yesterday, practically fought their way foot by foot up Pennsylvania Avenue, through a surging mass of humanity that completely defied the Washington police, swamped the marchers, and broke their procession into little [groups]....Such scenes...amounted to riots."
Document #6: Lucy Burns at the NAWSA Convention, Dec., 1913
"We ask the Democrats to take action now. Those who hold power are responsible to the country for the use of it...
"We have in our hands today not only the weapon of just cause; we have the support of ten enfranchised states....It is unthinkable that a national government which represents women...should ignore the issue of the right of all women to political freedom."
Document #7: Doris Stevens, Jailed for Freedom, 1920
"President Wilson...delivered his message [to Congress] Dec.2 [1913]...and failed to make any mention of the suffrage amendment. He recommended self-government for Filipino men instead.
"Immediately Miss Paul organized the entire convention into a deputation to protest this failure and to urge support in a subsequent message. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw led the interview. In reply to her eloquent appeal for his assistance, the President said in part: 'I am merely the spokesman of my party...I am not at liberty to urge upon Congress in messages, policies which have not had the...consideration of those for whom I am spokesman....I have to confine myself to those things which have been embodied as promises to the people at an election.'
"I shall never forget that day. Shafts of sunlight came in at the window and fell full and square upon the white-haired leader who was in the closing days of her power. Her clear, deep, resonant voice ringing with genuine love of liberty, was in sharp contrast to the halting, timid, little and technical answer of the President....Dr. Shaw had dramatically asked, 'Mr. President, if you cannot speak for us and your party will not, who then, pray, is there to speak for us?'
"'You seem very well able to speak for yourselves, ladies', he said with a broad smile.
"'We mean, Mr. President, who will speak for us with authority?' came back the hot retort from Dr. Shaw.
"The President made no reply..."
Document #8: Harriot Stanton Blatch, Challenging Years: The Memoirs of Harriot Stanton Blatch, 1940
"Alice Paul and Lucy Burns soon [began] a separate organization, the Congressional Union. It introduced political methods into its campaign for the Federal Amendment, and was experiencing...the opposition of conservative suffragists who believed that the work for suffrage should be kept non-partisan....
They continued to want pressure put on leading Democrats in New York, and we continued to insist that no attacks be made on New York Democrats because they had befriended us in our New York campaign....I felt...that it might be disastrous for our state campaign if they should begin active work for the Federal Amendment in New York at this time."
Document #9: Carrie Catt, letter to Jane Addams, Jan. 4, 1915
"[Any crusade against the Democrats is] exceptionally distasteful to most of us...because it commits the stupendous stupidity of making an anti-Democratic campaign when the suffrage question was pending in eleven states and depending for success upon Democratic votes."
Document #10: Anna Howard Shaw, President of NAWSA, during New York State suffrage campaign, June 21, 1915
"Twenty-one years ago I came here with Susan B. Anthony...Boys have been born since that time and have become voters, and the women are still trying to persuade American men to believe in the fundamental principles of democracy...
"Either a Republic is a desirable form of government, or else it is not. If it is, then we should have it; if it is not then we ought not to pretend that we have it. We ought at least to be true to our ideals, and the men of New York have, for the first time in their lives, the rare opportunity on the second day of November, of making the state truly a part of a Republic."
Document #11: "Cartoon Circulated by the 'Antis'", The Literary Digest, Oct. 9. 1915
DOCUMENT #12: "The Woman Suffrage Situation At A Glance", The Literary Digest, Nov. 13, 1915.
Document #13: Carrie Catt, Speech to NAWSA, March, 1916
"A serious crisis exists in the suffrage movement. A...number of women in the various states have turned to the
Federal Amendment as the most promising avenue....A considerable number of women in the South are dead set against the Federal Amendment. The first anti-suffrage organization of importance...in the South has been formed in Alabama with the slogan 'Home Rule, States Rights and White Supremacy'. A considerable number of other women wish to work exclusively for suffrage within their own states. The Congressional Union [under Alice Paul and Lucy Burns] is drawing off from [NAWSA] those women who feel it is possible to work for suffrage by the Federal route only."
Document #14: Harriot Stanton Blatch, speech at Convention forming the Woman's Party, Chicago, June, 1916
"We will deliver against the Party that blocks the progress of women, 500,000 votes....I intend to go into the West and appeal to the very last woman to stand by the women of the East, to stand by themselves, to make this nation at last a true and great democracy. Women, you voters from every State, will you join with us; will you come? Will you make every Party feel that you stand first by the women of our nation?"
Document #15: Carrie Catt, "The Winning Plan", speech to NAWSA, 1916
"When thirty-six state associations [of NAWSA], or preferably more, enter into a solemn compact to get the [Federal] Amendment submitted by Congress and ratified by their respective legislatures; when they live up to their compact by running a red-hot, never-ceasing campaign in their own states designed to create sentiment behind the political leaders of the states and to aim both these forces at the men in Congress as well as the legislatures, we can get the Amendment through. [The NAWSA associations] should be disciplined and obedient to the national officers in all matters...
"We should win, if it is possible to do so, a few more states before the Federal Amendment gets up to the state legislatures...A southern state should be selected and made ready for a campaign, and the solid front of the 'antis' should be broken as soon as possible. Some break in the solid 'anti' East should be made too."
Document #16: Harriot Stanton Blatch, campaign speech in Chicago at climax of 1916 election campaigns, Nov.5, 1916
"Who is the chief enemy in our path? The Democratic Party....The Democratic Party has declared for Suffrage, state by state....But what have this party and its leaders done to achieve a victory in any one state?....Nothing.
Document #17: Maud Wood Park, Front Door Lobby, 1960
"A few members of the Congressional Union (soon to change its name to the Woman's Party), the so-called militant group of suffragists, hung a votes-for-women banner over the railing of a gallery in the House while the President was speaking...
"We, who had nothing to do with the demonstration, were so constantly blamed for it that our chairman directed us to make clear in the first words of every interview that we represented the great mass of suffragists, organized in the NAWSA, who did not approve of the methods used by the small group of militants."
Document #18: Alice Paul, speech in New York, Dec., 1916
"We are not working to win New York. We are working to put the Federal Suffrage Amendment in the Constitution. The trouble with the suffragists is they are like the allies in the war....State suffrage by its scattered methods is losing as the allies have been losing."
Document #19: "'Picket' White House. Suffragists, After Futile Appeal, Announce Daily Vigil. New Step in Mild Militancy", The Washington Post, Jan. 10, 1917
"Women suffragists, after another futile appeal to President Wilson yesterday...announced plans for retaliation by picketing the White House grounds with 'silent sentinels'. Their purpose is to make it impossible for the President to enter or leave the White House without encountering a sentinel bearing some device pleading the suffrage cause..."
Document #20: Editorial, The Woman's Journal (official newspaper of NAWSA), Jan.13, 1917
"It is a very mild sort of militancy that the Congressional Union has adopted, in picketing all the approaches to the White House with 'silent sentinels' bearing suffrage placards....This action of the Congressional Union gets wide publicity in the press but unfortunately it is the kind of publicity which will make the average reader think that some women are doing a rather silly thing."
Document #21: Editorial, The Woman's Journal, March 3, 1917
"Mrs. Maud Wood Park said...'I believe that this falling off [of congressional support for suffrage] was due to the picketing of the White House by the Congressional Union. Personally, I think that the fuss made over the banner and picketing is out of all proportion to the actions themselves. People almost foam at the mouth about it. They feel that the President and the government have been insulted...
"'[NAWSA] wanted to have the federal amendment...brought to a vote in the House at this session....But the leaders of the Congressional Union [Paul and Burns] do not want to have it brought to a vote in Congress until President Wilson comes out for it, which they believe will give it the necessary two-thirds majority.'
"Mrs. Catt said: 'If the Congressional Union had not come back to Washington I believe we should have had the two-thirds vote in the House. If our organization in all the States were strong, we could do it despite the Congressional Union...'"
Document #22: Maud Wood Park, Front Door Lobby, excerpt from a NAWSA lobbyist's report of a meeting with a Senator from Texas, 1917
"Invited us in - polite manner. Believes that woman dwells apart from man - in her nature. 'She is different - nature made it so - all history, science and biology prove it! Look at the barnyard, the "cockerel" protects the hen, etc. Woman is meant for the home, the hearth, and to be sheltered by man.'....The dirty mire of politics could not be thought of. He deplored the lack of woman's trust in men..."
Document #23: The Woman's Journal, March 10, 1917
ARKANSAS IS FIRST SOUTHERN STATE IN SUFFRAGE RANKS
Governor Brough Sings Riggs Bill Permitting Women to Vote in Primaries - Means Practically Full Suffrage
DEMOCRATIC MAJORITIES SO LARGE PRIMARIES ARE REALLY ELECTION
Document #24: The Woman's Journal, March 10, 1917
CONGRESSIONAL UNION AND WOMAN'S PARTY UNITE
"The Congressional Union and the 'Woman's Party' at their recent meeting in Washington, D.C. voted to amalgamate under the name of the National Woman's Party. [President of the NWP is Alice Paul.]
Document #25: "Note to President and Government", NAWSA, The Women's Journal, March 3, 1917
"If...our nation is drawn into the [war] we stand ready to serve our country...With no intention of laying aside our constructive, forward work to secure the vote for the womanhood of this country and the right protective of all rights, we offer our services to our country..."
Document
Document #27: Harriot Stanton Blatch, Challenging Years, 1940
"[By] this time the war spirit in this country was well kindled, and in some quarters picketing was regarded as traitorous. Mobs began molesting the pickets, knocking them about and tearing down their banners. Late in June pickets were arrested on trumped up charges...
"There was much criticism of the picketing, but the arrests and the outrageous treatment of the women prisoners stirred the whole nation..."
Document #28: Doris Stevens, Jailed for Freedom, on the arrests of the pickets, June 26, 1917
"There was criticism in the press and on the lips of men that we were embarrassing our Government before the eyes of foreign visitors....Of course it was embarrassing. We meant it to be...
"Miss Lucy Burns and Miss Katharine Morey of Boston carried to the White House [a banner reading] 'We shall fight for the things we have always held nearest our hearts, for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government', and were arrested..."
Document #29: New York Times, June 27, 1917
"The coveted goal of the American militant suffragists - a hunger strike in jail - appeared in sight today when nine White House pickets who were arrested this morning...let it be known that they would go to jail before they would pay a fine....[They] are manoeuvering for a jail term so that they can start a hunger strike."
Document #30: Doris Stevens, letter to her husband from jail, July, 1917
"My fainting probably means nothing except that I am not strong after these weeks. I know you won't be alarmed. Alice Paul is in the psychopathic ward. She dreaded forcible feeding frightfully, and I hate to think how she must be feeling. I have a nervous time of it, gasping a long time afterward, and my stomach rejecting during the process....The poor soul who fed me got liberally besprinkled....I heard myself making the most hideous sounds..."
Document #31: Doris Stevens, Jailed for Freedom
"With thirty determined women on hunger strike, of whom eight were in a state of almost total collapse, the Administration capitulated. It would not afford to feed thirty women forcibly and risk the social and political consequences; nor could it let thirty women starve themselves to death....And so all the prisoners were unconditionally released....Immediately following the release of the prisoners and the magnificent demonstration of public support of them,....Committees of Congress acted on the amendment. President Wilson surrendered and a date for the vote was set."
Document #32: Maud Wood Park, Front Door Lobby
"Mrs. Catt's plan had brought great results in the legislatures of 1917*, though at the moment...everybody's chief concern was the...war....In less than eight months, state legislative action had raised our total from 91 [electoral votes] to 172."
* The state legislatures of Ohio and Indiana granted presidential suffrage to women in Feb., 1917. In March, Arkansas granted the right to vote in primary elections to women, the first breakthrough in the Deep South. Late in 1917, women gained the vote in Nebraska, Michigan and Rhode Island.