Anti-Suffragettes In The 19th Century

As the 19 century ended and the 20th began, the American wave of women pushing for access to the ballot box gathered momentum. As astonishing as it was many women were against the right to vote. These women were referred to in many ways: “anti-suffragettes,” “anti-suffragists,” “remonstrates,” “governmentalists,” “antis,” and “naysayers.” Anti-suffragists leaders were not average American women but were women of the higher, privileged, class. These women were already doing well in society and had a place in the existent system, which afforded most of their class with incentives to hang on to. These women were from all parts of the United States. In the North, the women were often from urban areas who were daughters or wives of prosperous men
who had their own businesses, worked in banking or were involved in politics. In the South, the anti-suffrage leaders were often women from the planter class who were afraid that if women got the ability to vote it would cause a disruption of the racial order due to the fact that the women suffrage was so tightly knit with the abolitionist theory. Although there were different driving forces for these women, they all were gathered under one ideal which was that women from all areas of the United States despite class or religion could gather together under the interests of childhood, womanhood, and civilization who may progress free form politics, parties, and their factions and return to the basic values of patriotism, morality, and Americanism. These women saw that the right to vote as a freedom that was far removed them from their ideals. Thus, they were going to stop such a threat, the right to vote, from devastating their womanhood.