Women's
Rights
Women's Suffrage
The struggle to achieve equal rights for women is often thought to have begun, in the English-speaking world, with the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
The United States
The demand for the enfranchisement of American women was first seriously formulated at the Seneca Falls Convention (1848). After the Civil War, agitation by women for the ballot became increasingly vociferous. In 1869, however, a rift developed among feminists over the proposed 15th Amendment, which gave the vote to black men. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others refused to endorse the amendment because it did not give women the ballot. Other suffragists, however, including Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe, argued that once the black man was enfranchised, women would achieve their goal. As a result of the conflict two organizations emerged. Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association to work for suffrage on the federal level and to press for more extensive institutional changes, such as the granting of property rights to married women. Stone created the American Woman Suffrage Association, which aimed to secure the ballot through state legislation. In 1890 the two groups united under the name National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). In the same year Wyoming entered the Union, becoming the first state with general women's suffrage (which it had adopted as a territory in 1869). http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=5193 1848
The first women's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York. After 2 days of discussion and debate, 68 women and 32 men sign a Declaration of Sentiments, which outlines grievances and sets the agenda for the women's rights movement. A set of 12 resolutions is adopted calling for equal treatment of women and men under the law and voting rights for women.
1850
The first National Women's Rights Convention takes place in Worcester, Mass., attracting more than 1,000 participants. National conventions are held yearly (except for 1857) through 1860.
1869
May
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association. The primary goal of the organization is to achieve voting rights for women by means of a Congressional amendment to the Constitution.
Nov.
Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and others form the American Woman Suffrage Association. This group focuses exclusively on gaining voting rights for women through amendments to individual state constitutions.
Dec. 10
The territory of Wyoming passes the first women's suffrage law. The following year, women begin serving on juries in the territory.
1890
The National Women Suffrage Association and the American Women Suffrage Association merge to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). As the movement's mainstream organization, NAWSA wages state-by-state campaigns to obtain voting rights for women.
1893
Colorado is the first state to adopt an amendment granting women the right to vote. Utah and Idaho follow suit in 1896, Washington State in 1910, California in 1911, Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona in 1912, Alaska and Illinois in 1913, Montana and Nevada in 1914, New York in 1917; Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma in 1918.
1896
The National Association of Colored Women is formed, bringing together more than 100 black women's clubs. Leaders in the black women's club movement include Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Mary Church Terrell, and Anna Julia Cooper.
1919
The federal woman suffrage amendment, originally written by Susan B. Anthony and introduced in Congress in 1878, is passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate. It is then sent to the states for ratification.
1920
The Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor is formed to collect information about women in the workforce and safeguard good working conditions for women.
Aug. 26
The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote, is signed into law by Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby.
1921
Margaret Sanger founds the American Birth Control League, which evolves into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942.
1935
Mary McLeod Bethune organizes the National Council of Negro Women, a coalition of black women's groups that lobbies against job discrimination, racism, and sexism.
1936
The federal law prohibiting the dissemination of contraceptive information through the mail is modified and birth control information is no longer classified as obscene. Throughout the 1940s and 50s, birth control advocates are engaged in numerous legal suits.
1961
President John Kennedy establishes the President's Commission on the Status of Women and appoints Eleanor Roosevelt as chairwoman. The report issued by the Commission in 1963 documents substantial discrimination against women in the workplace and makes specific recommendations for improvement, including fair hiring practices, paid maternity leave, and affordable child care.
1963
Betty Friedan publishes her highly influential book The Feminine Mystique, which describes the dissatisfaction felt by middle-class American housewives with the narrow role imposed on them by society. The book becomes a best-seller and galvanizes the modern women's rights movement.
June 10
Congress passes the Equal Pay Act, making it illegal for employers to pay a woman less than what a man would receive for the same job.
1964
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bars discrimination in employment on the basis of race and sex. At the same time it establishes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to investigate complaints and impose penalties.
1965
In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court strikes down the one remaining state law prohibiting the use of contraceptives by married couples.
1966
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded by a group of feminists including Betty Friedan. The largest women's rights group in the U.S., NOW seeks to end sexual discrimination, especially in the workplace, by means of legislative lobbying, litigation, and public demonstrations.
1967
Executive Order 11375 expands President Lyndon Johnson's affirmative action policy of 1965 to cover discrimination based on gender. As a result, federal agencies and contractors must take active measures to ensure that women as well as minorities enjoy the same educational and employment opportunities as white males.
1968
The EEOC rules that sex-segregated help wanted ads in newspapers are illegal. This ruling is upheld in 1973 by the Supreme Court, opening the way for women to apply for higher-paying jobs hitherto open only to men.
1973
As a result of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court establishes a woman's right to safe and legal abortion, overriding the anti-abortion laws of many states.
1974
The Equal Credit Opportunity Act prohibits discrimination in consumer credit practices on the basis of sex, race, marital status, religion, national origin, age, or receipt of public assistance.
In Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that employers cannot justify paying women lower wages because that is what they traditionally received under the "going market rate." A wage differential occurring "simply because men would not work at the low rates paid women" is unacceptable.
1976
The first marital rape law is enacted in Nebraska, making it illegal for a husband to rape his wife.
1986
Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, the Supreme Court finds that sexual harassment is a form of illegal job discrimination. http://www.infoplease.com/spot/women's timeline1.html
1839 The first state (Mississippi) grants women the right to hold property in their own name, with their husbands' permission..
1869 The first woman suffrage law in the U.S. is passed in the territory of Wyoming.
1870 The 15th Amendment receives final ratification, saying, "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 race, color, or previous condition of servitude." By its text, women are not specifically excluded from the vote.
1873 Bradwell v. Illinois, 83 U.S. 130 (1872): The U.S. Supreme Court rules that a state has the right to exclude a married woman (Myra Colby Bradwell) from practicing law.
1875 Minor v Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875): The U.S. Supreme Court declares that despite the privileges and immunities clause, a state can prohibit a woman from voting. The court declares women as "persons," but holds that they constitute a "special category of _nonvoting_ citizens."
1879 Through special Congressional legislation, Belva Lockwood becomes first woman admitted to try a case before the Supreme Court.
1890 The first state (Wyoming) grants women the right to vote in all elections.
1900 By now, every state has passed legislation modeled after New York's Married Women's Property Act (1848), granting married women some control over their property and earnings.
1916 Margaret Sanger tests the validity of New York's anti-contraception law by establishing a clinic in Brooklyn. The most well-known of birth control advocates, she is one of hundreds arrested over a 40-year period for working to establish women's right to control their own bodies.
1923 National Woman's Party proposes Constitutional amendment: "Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and in every place subject to its jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
1932 The National Recovery Act forbids more than one family member from holding a government job, resulting in many women losing their jobs.
1937 The U.S. Supreme Court upholds Washington state's minimum wage laws for women.
1938 The Fair Labor Standards Act establishes minimum wage without regard to sex.
1947 Fay v. New York, 332 U.S. 261 (1947), the U.S. Supreme Court says women are equally qualified with men to serve on juries but are granted an exemption and may serve or not as women choose.
1963 The Equal Pay Act is passed by Congress, promising equitable wages for the same work, regardless of the race, color, religion, national origin or sex of the worker. http://www.legacy98.org/timeline.html 19th Century Women: Second-class Citizens
In the nineteenth century, when the women's rights movement was born, women were essentially treated as second-class citizens. They were just beginning to gain admission to colleges. That they were prohibited from the medical and legal professions, as well as the pulpit, stands to reason.
Women who were married had to surrender many of their rights, including the right to own property, to their husbands. Even some of the nation's founding principles, including the right to representation in terms of taxation and any other governmental issues did not apply to women, who could not participate in elections.
The Seneca Falls Convention
The birthdate of the Women's Rights Movement is widely identified as July 19, 1848. While individual women had already begun to call for advancements in gender equality, it was at this time that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the first women's rights meeting.
Held in Seneca Falls, N.Y., the historic convention was attended by about 300 women and men. Many of them signed the "Declaration of Sentiments." This equal-rights adaptation of the Declaration of Independence received a great deal of negative press, bringing the convention ridiculebut also widespread publicity that helped fuel the women's rights cause. In the decades that followed, women achieved many social and legal gains, including the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment (granting women the right to vote) in 1920.
Modern Day Women
Today the number of women registered to vote exceeds the number of registered men by 8.3 million. In addition, women can not only expect to receive unbiased consideration by university admissions offices, but they are the majority gender of enrolled students. They can even earn their own income and not have to turn it over to their husbands. As strange as this sounds now, it was not always the case.
While stumbling blocks such as equal pay and achieving the presidency remain to be conquered, women are in a good position to do so. Women's History Month, which has been observed nationally since 1987 (and as Women's History Week from 1981-1986), celebrates the trailblazers who helped women to secure a more equal place in society. http://www.infoplease.com/spot/women's rights1.html
Another initially outlandish idea that has come to pass: United States citizenship for women. 1998 marked the 150th Anniversary of a movement by women to achieve full civil rights in this country.
The staggering changes for women that have come about over those seven generations in family life, in religion, in government, in employment, in education - these changes did not just happen spontaneously. Women themselves made these changes happen, very deliberately. Women have not been the passive recipients of miraculous changes in laws and human nature. Seven generations of women have come together to affect these changes in the most democratic ways: through meetings, petition drives, lobbying, public speaking, and nonviolent resistance. They have worked very deliberately to create a better world, and they have succeeded hugely.
A Tea Launches a Revolution
The Women's Rights Movement marks July 13, 1848 as its beginning. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was invited to tea with four women friends. When the course of their conversation turned to the situation of women, Stanton poured out her discontent with the limitations placed on her own situation under America's new democracy. Stanton's friends agreed with her, passionately. This was definitely not the first small group of women to have such a conversation, but it was the first to plan and carry out a specific, large-scale program.
Within two days of their afternoon tea together, this small group had picked a date for their convention, found a suitable location, and placed a small announcement in the Seneca County Courier. They called "A convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman." The gathering would take place at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls on July 19 and 20, 1848.
A "Declaration of Sentiments" is Drafted
These were patriotic women, sharing the ideal of improving the new republic. They saw their mission as helping the republic keep its promise of better, more egalitarian lives for its citizens. As the women set about preparing for the event, Elizabeth Cady Stanton used the Declaration of Independence as the framework for writing what she titled a "Declaration of Sentiments." In what proved to be a brilliant move, Stanton connected the nascent campaign for women's rights directly to that powerful American symbol of liberty. The same familiar words framed their arguments: "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."
In this Declaration of Sentiments, Stanton carefully enumerated areas of life where women were treated unjustly. Eighteen was precisely the number of grievances America's revolutionary forefathers had listed in their Declaration of Independence from England.
Stanton's version read, "The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world." Then it went into specifics:
Married women were legally dead in the eyes of the law
Women were not allowed to vote
Women had to submit to laws when they had no voice in their formation
Married women had no property rights
Husbands had legal power over and responsibility for their wives to the extent that they could imprison or beat them with impunity
Divorce and child custody laws favored men, giving no rights to women
Women had to pay property taxes although they had no representation in the levying of these taxes
Most occupations were closed to women and when women did work they were paid only a fraction of what men earned
Women were not allowed to enter professions such as medicine or law
Women had no means to gain an education since no college or university would accept women students
With only a few exceptions, women were not allowed to participate in the affairs of the church
Women were robbed of their self-confidence and self-respect, and were made totally dependent on men
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's draft continued: "Now, in view of this entire disenfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, -- in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States."
The First Women's Rights Convention
The convention was convened as planned, and over the two-days of discussion, the Declaration of Sentiments and 12 resolutions received unanimous endorsement, one by one, with a few amendments. The only resolution that did not pass unanimously was the call for women's enfranchisement. That women should be allowed to vote in elections was almost inconceivable to many. Lucretia Mott, Stanton's longtime friend, had been shocked when Stanton had first suggested such an idea. And at the convention, heated debate over the woman's vote filled the air.
The Backlash Begins
Stanton was certainly on the mark when she anticipated "misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule." Newspaper editors were so scandalized by the shameless audacity of the Declaration of Sentiments, and particularly of the ninth resolution -- women demanding the vote!-- that they attacked the women with all the vitriol they could muster. The women's rights movement was only one day old and the backlash had already begun!
In ridicule, the entire text of the Declaration of Sentiments was often published, with the names of the signers frequently included. Just as ridicule today often has a squelching effect on new ideas, this attack in the press caused many people from the Convention to rethink their positions. Many of the women who had attended the convention were so embarrassed by the publicity that they actually withdrew their signatures from the Declaration. But most stood firm. And something the editors had not anticipated happened: Their negative articles about the women's call for expanded rights were so livid and widespread that they actually had a positive impact far beyond anything the organizers could have hoped for. People in cities and isolated towns alike were now alerted to the issues, and joined this heated discussion of women's rights in great numbers!
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The Movement Expands
Women's Rights Conventions were held regularly from 1850 until the start of the Civil War.
The women's rights movement of the late 19th century went on to address the wide range of issues spelled out at the Seneca Falls Convention. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and women like Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Sojourner Truth traveled the country lecturing and organizing for the next forty years. Eventually, winning the right to vote emerged as the central issue, since the vote would provide the means to achieve the other reforms. All told, the campaign for woman suffrage met such staunch opposition that it took 72 years for the women and their male supporters to be successful.
Among these women are several activists whose names and and accomplishments should become as familiar to Americans as those of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, of course. And Susan B. Anthony. Matilda Joslyn Gage. Lucy Stone. They were pioneer theoreticians of the 19th-century women's rights movement.
Esther Morris, the first woman to hold a judicial position, who led the first successful state campaign for woman suffrage, in Wyoming in 1869. Abigail Scott Duniway, the leader of the successful fight in Oregon and Washington in the early 1900s.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell, organizers of thousands of African-American women who worked for suffrage for all women.
Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Stone Blackwell, Lucy Stone's daughter, who carried on their mothers' legacy through the next generation.
Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt, leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in the early years of the 20th century, who brought the campaign to its final success.
Alice Paul, founder and leader of the National Woman's Party, considered the radical wing of the movement.
After the Vote was Won
After the vote was finally won in 1920, the organized Women's Rights Movement continued on in several directions. While the majority of women who had marched, petitioned and lobbied for woman suffrage looked no further, a minority - like Alice Paul - understood that the quest for women's rights would be an ongoing struggle that was only advanced, not satisfied, by the vote.
In 1919, as the suffrage victory drew near, the National American Woman Suffrage Association reconfigured itself into the League of Women Voters to ensure that women would take their hard-won vote seriously and use it wisely.
In 1920, the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor was established to gather information about the situation of women at work, and to advocate for changes it found were needed. Many suffragists became actively involved with lobbying for legislation to protect women workers from abuse and unsafe conditions.
In 1923, Alice Paul, the leader of the National Woman's Party, took the next obvious step. She drafted an Equal Rights Amendment for the United States Constitution. Such a federal law, it was argued, would ensure that "Men and women have equal rights throughout the United States." A constitutional amendment would apply uniformly, regardless of where a person lived.
The second wing of the post-suffrage movement was one that had not been explicitly anticipated in the Seneca Falls "Declaration of Sentiments." It was the birth control movement, initiated by a public health nurse, Margaret Sanger, just as the suffrage drive was nearing its victory. The idea of woman's right to control her own body, and especially to control her own reproduction and sexuality, added a visionary new dimension to the ideas of women's emancipation. This movement not only endorsed educating women about existing birth control methods. It also spread the conviction that meaningful freedom for modern women meant they must be able to decide for themselves whether they would become mothers, and when.
The Second Wave
So it's clear that, contrary to common misconception, the Women's Rights Movement did not begin in the 1960s. What occurred in the 1960s was actually a second wave of activism that washed into the public consciousness, fueled by several seemingly independent events of that turbulent decade.
First: Esther Peterson was the director of the Women's Bureau of the Dept. of Labor in 1961. She considered it to be the government's responsibility to take an active role in addressing discrimination against women. With her encouragement, President Kennedy convened a Commission on the Status of Women, naming Eleanor Roosevelt as its chair. The report issued by that commission in 1963 documented discrimination against women in virtually every area of American life. State and local governments quickly followed suit and established their http://www.legacy98.org/move-hist.html#Victory Women's suffrage
In America at the time of the 1800's some rights allowed to single women were exempt to married women.
In 1866 the Isle of Man became the first national parliament to grant equal voting rights to men and women, based on property. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage Women's suffrage was permanently granted in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Civil War
In 1869 the National Woman Suffrage Association was formed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with the object of securing an amendment to the Constitution in favor of woman suffrage, thus opposing passage of the Fifteenth Amendment without it being changed to include female suffrage.
Another more conservative suffrage organization, the American Woman Suffrage Association, headed by Lucy Stone, was also formed at this time by those who believed that suffrage should be brought about by amendments to the various States constitutions. They supported the proposed 15th amendment as written. In 1890, these two bodies united into one national organization, led by Susan B. Anthony, and known as the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
National American Woman Suffrage Association
In 1900, regular national headquarters were established in New York City, under the direction of the new president Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, who was endorsed by Susan B. Anthony after her retirement as first president.
Regional Suffrage
It is notable that New Jersey, on becoming a Federal State after the American Revolution, placed only one restriction on the general suffrage the possession of at least £50 (~USD250) worth of cash or property. The election laws referred to voters as "he or she." In 1790 the law was revised to include women specifically. Female voters became so objectionable to professional politicians, that in 1807 the law was revised to exclude them. Later, the 1844 constitution banned women voting, the 1947 one then allowed it.
Illinois
In 1912, Grace Wilbur Trout, then head of the Chicago Political Equality League, was elected President of the state organization. Changing her tactics from a confrontational style of lobbying the state legislature, she turned to building the organization internally. She made sure that a local organization was started in every Senatorial District. One of her assistants, Elizabeth Booth, cut up a Blue Book government directory and made file cards for each of the members of the General Assembly. Armed with the names, four lobbyists went to Springfield to persuade one legislator at a time to support suffrage for women.
After passing the Senate, the bill was brought up for a vote in the House on June 11, 1913. Trout and her team counted heads and went as far as to fetch needed male voters from their homes.
Women in Illinois could now vote for Presidential electors and for all local offices not specifically named in the Illinois Constitution. However, they still could not vote for state representative, Congressman or governor; and they still had to use separate ballots and ballot boxes.
Besides the passage of the Illinois Municipal Voting Act, 1913 was also a significant year in other facets of the women's suffrage movement. In Chicago, African American anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells-Barnett founded the Alpha Suffrage Club, the first such organization for Negro women in Illinois. Although white women as a group were sometimes ambivalent about obtaining the franchise, African American women were almost universally in favor of gaining the vote to help end their sexual exploitation, promote their educational opportunities and protect those who were wage earners.
As the suffragists started down Pennsylvania Avenue, the crowd became abusive and started to close in, knocking the marchers around with hostility. With local police doing little to keep control, the cavalry was called in as 100 women were hospitalized. Many suffragists now concluded that public protests might be the quickest route to universal franchise.
Other states
One after another, western states granted the right of voting to their women citizens, the only opposition being presented by the liquor interests and the machine politicians. New York State, that old battle ground for suffrage, joined the procession in 1917.
19th Amendment
There was now considerable anxiety among politicians of both parties to have the amendment passed and made effective before the general elections of 1920, so the President called a special session of Congress, and a bill, introducing the amendment, was brought before the House again. On May 21, 1919, it was passed, 42 votes more than necessary being obtained. On June 4, 1919, it was brought before the Senate, and after a long discussion it was passed, with 56 ayes and 25 nays. It only remained now that the necessary number of States should ratify the action of Congress.
The term women's rights typically refers to freedoms inherently possessed by women and girls of all ages, which may be institutionalized or ignored and/or illegitimately suppressed by law or custom in a particular society.
Issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights include, though are not limited to:
The right to bodily integrity and autonomy,
The right to vote,
The right to hold public office,
The right to work,
The right to fair wages,
The right to own property,
The right to education,
Marital rights,
Parental rights,
Religious rights,
The right to serve in the military, and
The right to enter into legal contracts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_rights Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818 October 18, 1893, died at age 75) was a prominent American suffragist.
And so, shortly after Stone returned to Massachusetts, the first woman in that state to receive a college degree, she gave her first public speech: on women's rights. She delivered the speech from the pulpit of her brother's Congregational Church in Gardner, Massachusetts. Stone became a leader of the women's suffrage movement, lecturing extensively on both suffrage and abolition. In 1870 she founded, in Boston, the Woman's Journal, the publication of the American Woman Suffrage Association, and she continued to edit it for the rest of her life, assisted by her husband and their daughter. That daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell (1857-1950), wrote her biography, Lucy Stone: Pioneer of Woman's Rights (ISBN 0-8139-1990-8), which was published in 1930 and again in 1971 (2nd edition).
Legacy
Lucy Stone's refusal to take husband's name, as an assertion of her own rights, was controversial then and is what she is remembered for today. Women who continue to use their birth names after marriage are still occasionally known as "Lucy Stoners" in the U.S. In 1921, the Lucy Stone League was founded in New York City. It was reborn in 1997. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Stone Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1819October 17, 1910) was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet most famous as the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."
In 1870 she was the first to proclaim Mother's Day, with her Mother's Day Proclamation.
From 1872 to 1879, she assisted Lucy Stone and Henry Brown Blackwell in editing Woman's Journal.
On January 28, 1908 Julia Ward Howe became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She died of pneumonia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Ward_Howe Sojourner Truth (c. 1797November 26, 1883) was the self-given name, from 1843, of Isabella Baumfree, an American abolitionist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York. Her best-known speech, which became known as Ain't I a Woman?, was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.
"Ain't I a Woman?"
Truth delivered her best-known speech in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention. The speech has become known as Ain't I a Woman? after Truth's refrain.[8]
The speech as shown here has been revised from the 19th century dialect in which Truth spoke.
" Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the Negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or Negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it. The men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say. "
--Sojourner Truth
On a mission
Truth spoke about abolition, women's rights, prison reform, and preached to the Michigan Legislature against capital punishment. Not everyone welcomed her preaching and lectures, but she had many friends and staunch support among many influential people at the time, including Amy Post, Parker Pillsbury, Frances Gage, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Laura Smith Haviland, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony."[10]
Truth died on November 26, 1883, at her home in Battle Creek, Michigan. Her remains were buried there at Oak Hill Cemetery beside other family members. Her last words were "Be a follower of the Lord Jesus."[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sojourner_Truth Lucretia Coffin Mott (January 3, 1793 November 11, 1880) was an American Quaker minister, abolitionist, social reformer and proponent of women's rights. She is credited as the first American "feminist" in the early 1800s but was, more accurately, the initiator of women's political advocacy. Seneca Falls
The Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 was the first American women's rights meeting. Stanton's resolution that it was "the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves the sacred right to the elective franchise" was passed, and this became the focus of the group's campaign over the next few years. Mott was a signatory of the Declaration of Sentiments. While Elizabeth Cady Stanton is usually credited as the leader of that effort, it was Mott's mentoring of Stanton and their work together that organized the event. Lucretia's sister, Martha Coffin Wright also helped organize the convention and signed the declaration.
Opinions
Mott parted with the mainstream women's movement in one area, that of divorce. At that time it was very difficult to obtain divorce, and fathers were given custody of children. Stanton sought to make divorce easier to obtain and to safeguard women's access to and control of their children. The more conservative Mott opposed any significant legal change in divorce laws.
American Equal Rights Convention
Elected as the first president of the American Equal Rights Convention after the end of the Civil War, Mott strove a few years later to reconcile the two factions that split over the priorities between woman suffrage and black male suffrage. Ever the peacemaker, Mott tried to heal the breach between Elizabeth Cady Stanton/Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone over the immediate goal of the women's movement: suffrage for freedmen and all women? or suffrage for freedmen first?
Writing
In 1850 Mott wrote Discourse on Woman, a book about restrictions on women in the United States. She became more widely known after this. When slavery was outlawed in 1865, she began to advocate giving black Americans the right to vote. She remained a central figure in the women's movement as a peacemaker, a critical function for that period of the movement, until her death at age 87 in 1880.
Organizations
In 1866 Mott joined with Stanton, Anthony, and Stone to establish the American Equal Rights Association. She was a leading voice in the Universal Peace Union, also founded in 1866. The following year, the organization became active in Kansas where Negro suffrage and woman suffrage were to be decided by popular vote.
She was posthumously inducted into the U.S. National Women's Hall of Fame. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucretia_Mott Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 October 26, 1902) was an American social activist and leading figure of the early women's rights movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the first women's rights convention held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, is often credited with initiating the first
As an antidote to the boredom and loneliness she experienced in Seneca Falls, Stanton became increasingly involved in the community and, by 1848, had established ties to similarly minded women in the area. By this time, she was firmly committed to the nascent women's rights movement and ready to engage in organized activism.[15]
Stanton and the early years of the Women's Rights Movement
Mott's example and the decision to prohibit women from participating in the convention strengthened Stanton's commitment to women's rights. By 1848, her early life experiences, together with the experience in London and her initially debilitating experience as a housewife in Seneca Falls, galvanized Stanton.
Although best known for their joint work on behalf of women's suffrage, Stanton and Anthony first joined the temperance movement. Together, they were instrumental in founding the short-lived Woman's State Temperance Society (1852-53). During her presidency of the organization, Stanton scandalized many supporters by suggesting that drunkenness be made sufficient cause for divorce.[citation needed] Their focus,
The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the same way.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
By the time the Fifteenth Amendment was making its way through Congress, Stanton's position led to a major schism in the women's rights movement itself. Many leaders in the women's rights movement, including Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe strongly argued against Stanton's "all or nothing" position. By 1869, disagreement over ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment gave birth to two separate women's suffrage organizations. The National Woman's Suffrage Association (NWSA) founded in May 1869 by Stanton and Anthony, opposed passage of the Fifteenth Amendment without changes to include female suffrage. The American Woman's Suffrage Association (AWSA), founded the following November and led by Stone, Blackwell, and Howe, supported the amendment as written.[citation needed]
In a view different from many modern feminists, Stanton believed that abortion was infanticide[29] She addressed the issue in various editions of The Revolution and, in an 1873 letter to Julia Ward Howe recorded in Howe's diary at Harvard University Library, she wrote: "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."[citation needed] She suggested that solutions to abortion would be found, at least in part, in the elevation and enfranchisement of women.[citation needed]
As she aged, Stanton was also active internationally, spending a great deal of time in Europe, where her daughter and fellow feminist, Harriot Stanton Blatch, lived. In 1888 she helped prepare for the founding of the International Council of Women. In 1890, Stanton opposed the merger of the National Woman's Suffrage Association with the more conservative and religiously based American Woman Suffrage Association.[citation needed] Over her objections, the organizations merged, creating the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Despite her opposition to the merger, Stanton became its first president, largely because of Susan B. Anthony's intervention. In good measure because of the Women's Bible, she was, however, never popular among the more religiously conservative members of the 'National American'.[citation needed] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cady_Stanton Susan Brownell Anthony (February 15, 1820 March 13, 1906) was a prominent, independent and well-educated American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to secure women's suffrage in the United States. She traveled thousands of miles throughout the United States and Europe, and gave 75 to 100 speeches per year on women's rights for some 45 years. Susan B. Anthony died in Rochester, New York, in her house on Madison St. on March 13, 1906, and is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery.
Early social activism
In 1851, on a street in Seneca Falls, Anthony was introduced to Elizabeth Cady Stanton by mutual acquaintance and fellow feminist Amelia Bloomer. Anthony joined with Stanton in organizing in 1852, the first women's state temperance society in America. Stanton would remain a close friend and colleague of Anthony's for the remainder of their lives, but unlike Anthony, Stanton longed for a broader, more radical women's rights platform. Together, the two women traversed the United States giving speeches and attempting to persuade the government that society should treat men and women equally.
In 1869, long time friends Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony found themselves, for the first time, on opposing sides of a debate. The Equal Rights Association, which had originally fought for both blacks' and women's right to suffrage, voted to support the 15th Amendment to the Constitution granting suffrage to black men, but not women. Anthony questioned why women should support this amendment when black men were not continuing to show support for women's voting rights. Partially as a result of the decision by the Equal Rights Association, Anthony soon thereafter devoted herself almost exclusively to the agitation for women's rights.
National suffrage organizations
In the early years of the NWSA, Anthony made attempts to unite women in the labor movement with the suffragist cause, but with little success. She and Stanton were delegates at the 1868 convention of the National Labor Union. However, Anthony inadvertently alienated the labor movement not only because suffrage was seen as a concern for middle-class rather than working-class women, but because she openly encouraged women to achieve economic independence by entering the printing trades, where male workers were on strike at the time. Anthony was later expelled from the National Labor Union over this controversy.
United States v. Susan B. Anthony
For casting a vote in the presidential election held on November 5, 1872, in Rochester, New York, Anthony was arrested on November 18 and pled not guilty, asserting that the 14th amendment entitled her to vote because, unlike the original Constitution, it provides that all "persons" (which includes females) born in the US are "citizens" who shall not be denied the "privileges" of citizenship (which includes voting).
However, her defense was all for naught. The judge, Supreme Court Associate Justice Ward Hunt, explicitly instructed the jury to deliver a guilty verdict, refused to poll the jury, delivered an opinion he had written before trial had even begun, and on June 18, 1873, sentenced her to pay a $100 fine. Anthony responded, "May it please your honor, I will never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty." She never did pay the fine, and the government never pursued her for nonpayment, for otherwise she would be able to file a habeas corpus, which would give her a chance to be heard by the appellate justices, and Justice Ward Hunt could not risk her convincing them.
Legacy
Susan B. Anthony was honored as the first real (non-allegorical) American woman on circulating U.S. coinage with her appearance on the Susan B. Anthony dollar. The coin, approximately the size of a U.S. quarter, was minted for only four years, 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1999. Anthony dollars were produced at the Philadelphia and Denver mints for all four of these years, and at the San Francisco mint for all production years except 1999.
In the nineteenth century, the words that our forefathers wrote in the Declaration of Independence, "that all men were created equal," held little value. Human equality was far from a reality. If you were not born of white male decent, than that phrase did not apply to you. During this period many great leaders and reformers emerged, fighting both for the rights of African Americans and for the rights of women. One of these great leaders was Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Stanton dedicated her entire life to the women's movement, despite the opposition she received, from both her family and friends. In the course of this paper, I will be taking a critical look at three of Stanton's most acclaimed speeches "Declaration of Sentiments", "Solitude of Self", and " Home Life", and develop a claim that the rhetoric in these speeches was an effective tool in advancing the movement as a whole. Elizabeth Cady Stant.
The traditional view of women in society was to stay at home, clean, raise children , and to help with the family farm. This view started to change around the late 19th century and during the industrial revolution. Male domination kept women at home but in the early 19th century, legislatures and educators began expanding the opportunites of women in education. Though there were exceptions and problems with women and education was women's first step considering they could now get jobs in medicine and law. During the Civil War, women took over their husbands jobs and temporarially stopped fighting for sufferage. They started helping the black slaves achieve freedom. The antislavery movement, the 15th amendment, pushed women further dowm the trail leading to suffrage. Although it took three amendments later and 90 solid years of hard fighting for women to obtain the 19th amendment.
They finally did achieve their goal.
In the 1820s men were in power. In their homes, in the workplace, and everywhere else. The men philosopy included these ideas. First, it was accepted that women are possesions of their husbands, and therefore they must agree with everything they say. Second, it was believed that most women were uneducated, or stupid, so women were automatically assumed to be incapable of voting for president. Also, because women were unschooled and ignorant, their say was unimportant. And finally that they were superior and that they should stay that way. This was a difficult philosophy for women to overturn.
This is one reason why women's suffrage took so long to obtain. (Dickey, 1995)
In addition to male domination, women hurt their own cause.The public believed that sufferagists wereconnected with scandal-mongerers such as the Claflin sisters. Consequently, most sufferagists limited their work to conventional topics and scorned radical view points. For example,
"When Anthony Comstock of Boston and Josiah W. of
Philadelghia undertook crusades against obscenity, feminists applauded and approved the formation in 1895 of the American Puritan Alliance."
Which was why women hurt their own cause.
(pg151, Leonard Pitt, "We Americans, 1987)
However, women helped their cause gathering up the Seneca Falls Convention. The Seneca
Falls Convention, in 1848, "stated the injustices suffered by women." These injustices included " the denial of the right to vote, the fact that a married woman gave control of her property to her husband, the exclusion of women from the professions, and the nearly absolute legal control of women by men. (pg.305, Conlin)
In addition to their conservative views, most suffragists were elitists, that is they were not common people. For example, Pitt writes
"...the leaders were white college educated, and middle class. They were an elite and a minority within that elite." As a result, suffragists were taken less seriously by the common people.
(pg 152, Leonard Pitt, "We Americans, 1987)
It took an international crises, World War II, for the claims of the suffragists to be taken seirously. Only when the labor of women was need in war time, did the federal government act on considering national suffrage for women.
Even though the suffragist movement progressed slowly, their efforts did have an effect on the government. The movement brought the inequality of voting restrictions to public attention. This public attention combined with the heroic service of women in industry during World War I resulted in the passage of the 19th amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, in 1920. The
19th Amendment provides men and women with equal voting rights. After 90 years, the goal of sufferagists was achieved. (Grolier encyclopedia,
Electronic Publishing, Inc., 1995)
It may have taken women a long time to achieve the right of suffrage in spite of their conservative views.
Men were threatened by women who wanted to move forward.
Since males dominated the United States, they knew they had the power to keep women from getting the vote. Certain states, such as Wyoming, gave women the right to vote in state elections as early as 1869.
Male domination played a big part in the whole concept of women getting the right to vote.
Now, women are considered to be equals with men.
Even though women were "considered" to be lesser than men, they never really were, were they? (Encarta Encyclopedia,
1993.)
The struggle to achieve equal rights for women is often thought to have begun, in the English-speaking world, with the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
The United States
The demand for the enfranchisement of American women was first seriously formulated at the Seneca Falls Convention (1848). After the Civil War, agitation by women for the ballot became increasingly vociferous. In 1869, however, a rift developed among feminists over the proposed 15th Amendment, which gave the vote to black men. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others refused to endorse the amendment because it did not give women the ballot. Other suffragists, however, including Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe, argued that once the black man was enfranchised, women would achieve their goal. As a result of the conflict two organizations emerged. Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association to work for suffrage on the federal level and to press for more extensive institutional changes, such as the granting of property rights to married women. Stone created the American Woman Suffrage Association, which aimed to secure the ballot through state legislation. In 1890 the two groups united under the name National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). In the same year Wyoming entered the Union, becoming the first state with general women's suffrage (which it had adopted as a territory in 1869). http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=5193 1848
The first women's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York. After 2 days of discussion and debate, 68 women and 32 men sign a Declaration of Sentiments, which outlines grievances and sets the agenda for the women's rights movement. A set of 12 resolutions is adopted calling for equal treatment of women and men under the law and voting rights for women.
1850
The first National Women's Rights Convention takes place in Worcester, Mass., attracting more than 1,000 participants. National conventions are held yearly (except for 1857) through 1860.
1869
May
Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association. The primary goal of the organization is to achieve voting rights for women by means of a Congressional amendment to the Constitution.
Nov.
Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and others form the American Woman Suffrage Association. This group focuses exclusively on gaining voting rights for women through amendments to individual state constitutions.
Dec. 10
The territory of Wyoming passes the first women's suffrage law. The following year, women begin serving on juries in the territory.
1890
The National Women Suffrage Association and the American Women Suffrage Association merge to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). As the movement's mainstream organization, NAWSA wages state-by-state campaigns to obtain voting rights for women.
1893
Colorado is the first state to adopt an amendment granting women the right to vote. Utah and Idaho follow suit in 1896, Washington State in 1910, California in 1911, Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona in 1912, Alaska and Illinois in 1913, Montana and Nevada in 1914, New York in 1917; Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma in 1918.
1896
The National Association of Colored Women is formed, bringing together more than 100 black women's clubs. Leaders in the black women's club movement include Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Mary Church Terrell, and Anna Julia Cooper.
1919
The federal woman suffrage amendment, originally written by Susan B. Anthony and introduced in Congress in 1878, is passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate. It is then sent to the states for ratification.
1920
The Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor is formed to collect information about women in the workforce and safeguard good working conditions for women.
Aug. 26
The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote, is signed into law by Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby.
1921
Margaret Sanger founds the American Birth Control League, which evolves into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America in 1942.
1935
Mary McLeod Bethune organizes the National Council of Negro Women, a coalition of black women's groups that lobbies against job discrimination, racism, and sexism.
1936
The federal law prohibiting the dissemination of contraceptive information through the mail is modified and birth control information is no longer classified as obscene. Throughout the 1940s and 50s, birth control advocates are engaged in numerous legal suits.
1961
President John Kennedy establishes the President's Commission on the Status of Women and appoints Eleanor Roosevelt as chairwoman. The report issued by the Commission in 1963 documents substantial discrimination against women in the workplace and makes specific recommendations for improvement, including fair hiring practices, paid maternity leave, and affordable child care.
1963
Betty Friedan publishes her highly influential book The Feminine Mystique, which describes the dissatisfaction felt by middle-class American housewives with the narrow role imposed on them by society. The book becomes a best-seller and galvanizes the modern women's rights movement.
June 10
Congress passes the Equal Pay Act, making it illegal for employers to pay a woman less than what a man would receive for the same job.
1964
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bars discrimination in employment on the basis of race and sex. At the same time it establishes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to investigate complaints and impose penalties.
1965
In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court strikes down the one remaining state law prohibiting the use of contraceptives by married couples.
1966
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is founded by a group of feminists including Betty Friedan. The largest women's rights group in the U.S., NOW seeks to end sexual discrimination, especially in the workplace, by means of legislative lobbying, litigation, and public demonstrations.
1967
Executive Order 11375 expands President Lyndon Johnson's affirmative action policy of 1965 to cover discrimination based on gender. As a result, federal agencies and contractors must take active measures to ensure that women as well as minorities enjoy the same educational and employment opportunities as white males.
1968
The EEOC rules that sex-segregated help wanted ads in newspapers are illegal. This ruling is upheld in 1973 by the Supreme Court, opening the way for women to apply for higher-paying jobs hitherto open only to men.
1973
As a result of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court establishes a woman's right to safe and legal abortion, overriding the anti-abortion laws of many states.
1974
The Equal Credit Opportunity Act prohibits discrimination in consumer credit practices on the basis of sex, race, marital status, religion, national origin, age, or receipt of public assistance.
In Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that employers cannot justify paying women lower wages because that is what they traditionally received under the "going market rate." A wage differential occurring "simply because men would not work at the low rates paid women" is unacceptable.
1976
The first marital rape law is enacted in Nebraska, making it illegal for a husband to rape his wife.
1986
Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, the Supreme Court finds that sexual harassment is a form of illegal job discrimination. http://www.infoplease.com/spot/women's timeline1.html
1839 The first state (Mississippi) grants women the right to hold property in their own name, with their husbands' permission..
1869 The first woman suffrage law in the U.S. is passed in the territory of Wyoming.
1870 The 15th Amendment receives final ratification, saying, "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 race, color, or previous condition of servitude." By its text, women are not specifically excluded from the vote.
1873 Bradwell v. Illinois, 83 U.S. 130 (1872): The U.S. Supreme Court rules that a state has the right to exclude a married woman (Myra Colby Bradwell) from practicing law.
1875 Minor v Happersett, 88 U.S. 162 (1875): The U.S. Supreme Court declares that despite the privileges and immunities clause, a state can prohibit a woman from voting. The court declares women as "persons," but holds that they constitute a "special category of _nonvoting_ citizens."
1879 Through special Congressional legislation, Belva Lockwood becomes first woman admitted to try a case before the Supreme Court.
1890 The first state (Wyoming) grants women the right to vote in all elections.
1900 By now, every state has passed legislation modeled after New York's Married Women's Property Act (1848), granting married women some control over their property and earnings.
1916 Margaret Sanger tests the validity of New York's anti-contraception law by establishing a clinic in Brooklyn. The most well-known of birth control advocates, she is one of hundreds arrested over a 40-year period for working to establish women's right to control their own bodies.
1923 National Woman's Party proposes Constitutional amendment: "Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and in every place subject to its jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
1932 The National Recovery Act forbids more than one family member from holding a government job, resulting in many women losing their jobs.
1937 The U.S. Supreme Court upholds Washington state's minimum wage laws for women.
1938 The Fair Labor Standards Act establishes minimum wage without regard to sex.
1947 Fay v. New York, 332 U.S. 261 (1947), the U.S. Supreme Court says women are equally qualified with men to serve on juries but are granted an exemption and may serve or not as women choose.
1963 The Equal Pay Act is passed by Congress, promising equitable wages for the same work, regardless of the race, color, religion, national origin or sex of the worker. http://www.legacy98.org/timeline.html 19th Century Women: Second-class Citizens
In the nineteenth century, when the women's rights movement was born, women were essentially treated as second-class citizens. They were just beginning to gain admission to colleges. That they were prohibited from the medical and legal professions, as well as the pulpit, stands to reason.
Women who were married had to surrender many of their rights, including the right to own property, to their husbands. Even some of the nation's founding principles, including the right to representation in terms of taxation and any other governmental issues did not apply to women, who could not participate in elections.
The Seneca Falls Convention
The birthdate of the Women's Rights Movement is widely identified as July 19, 1848. While individual women had already begun to call for advancements in gender equality, it was at this time that Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the first women's rights meeting.
Held in Seneca Falls, N.Y., the historic convention was attended by about 300 women and men. Many of them signed the "Declaration of Sentiments." This equal-rights adaptation of the Declaration of Independence received a great deal of negative press, bringing the convention ridiculebut also widespread publicity that helped fuel the women's rights cause. In the decades that followed, women achieved many social and legal gains, including the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment (granting women the right to vote) in 1920.
Modern Day Women
Today the number of women registered to vote exceeds the number of registered men by 8.3 million. In addition, women can not only expect to receive unbiased consideration by university admissions offices, but they are the majority gender of enrolled students. They can even earn their own income and not have to turn it over to their husbands. As strange as this sounds now, it was not always the case.
While stumbling blocks such as equal pay and achieving the presidency remain to be conquered, women are in a good position to do so. Women's History Month, which has been observed nationally since 1987 (and as Women's History Week from 1981-1986), celebrates the trailblazers who helped women to secure a more equal place in society. http://www.infoplease.com/spot/women's rights1.html
Another initially outlandish idea that has come to pass: United States citizenship for women. 1998 marked the 150th Anniversary of a movement by women to achieve full civil rights in this country.
The staggering changes for women that have come about over those seven generations in family life, in religion, in government, in employment, in education - these changes did not just happen spontaneously. Women themselves made these changes happen, very deliberately. Women have not been the passive recipients of miraculous changes in laws and human nature. Seven generations of women have come together to affect these changes in the most democratic ways: through meetings, petition drives, lobbying, public speaking, and nonviolent resistance. They have worked very deliberately to create a better world, and they have succeeded hugely.
A Tea Launches a Revolution
The Women's Rights Movement marks July 13, 1848 as its beginning. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was invited to tea with four women friends. When the course of their conversation turned to the situation of women, Stanton poured out her discontent with the limitations placed on her own situation under America's new democracy. Stanton's friends agreed with her, passionately. This was definitely not the first small group of women to have such a conversation, but it was the first to plan and carry out a specific, large-scale program.
Within two days of their afternoon tea together, this small group had picked a date for their convention, found a suitable location, and placed a small announcement in the Seneca County Courier. They called "A convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman." The gathering would take place at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls on July 19 and 20, 1848.
A "Declaration of Sentiments" is Drafted
These were patriotic women, sharing the ideal of improving the new republic. They saw their mission as helping the republic keep its promise of better, more egalitarian lives for its citizens. As the women set about preparing for the event, Elizabeth Cady Stanton used the Declaration of Independence as the framework for writing what she titled a "Declaration of Sentiments." In what proved to be a brilliant move, Stanton connected the nascent campaign for women's rights directly to that powerful American symbol of liberty. The same familiar words framed their arguments: "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."
In this Declaration of Sentiments, Stanton carefully enumerated areas of life where women were treated unjustly. Eighteen was precisely the number of grievances America's revolutionary forefathers had listed in their Declaration of Independence from England.
Stanton's version read, "The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world." Then it went into specifics:
Married women were legally dead in the eyes of the law
Women were not allowed to vote
Women had to submit to laws when they had no voice in their formation
Married women had no property rights
Husbands had legal power over and responsibility for their wives to the extent that they could imprison or beat them with impunity
Divorce and child custody laws favored men, giving no rights to women
Women had to pay property taxes although they had no representation in the levying of these taxes
Most occupations were closed to women and when women did work they were paid only a fraction of what men earned
Women were not allowed to enter professions such as medicine or law
Women had no means to gain an education since no college or university would accept women students
With only a few exceptions, women were not allowed to participate in the affairs of the church
Women were robbed of their self-confidence and self-respect, and were made totally dependent on men
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's draft continued: "Now, in view of this entire disenfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, -- in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States."
The First Women's Rights Convention
The convention was convened as planned, and over the two-days of discussion, the Declaration of Sentiments and 12 resolutions received unanimous endorsement, one by one, with a few amendments. The only resolution that did not pass unanimously was the call for women's enfranchisement. That women should be allowed to vote in elections was almost inconceivable to many. Lucretia Mott, Stanton's longtime friend, had been shocked when Stanton had first suggested such an idea. And at the convention, heated debate over the woman's vote filled the air.
The Backlash Begins
Stanton was certainly on the mark when she anticipated "misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule." Newspaper editors were so scandalized by the shameless audacity of the Declaration of Sentiments, and particularly of the ninth resolution -- women demanding the vote!-- that they attacked the women with all the vitriol they could muster. The women's rights movement was only one day old and the backlash had already begun!
In ridicule, the entire text of the Declaration of Sentiments was often published, with the names of the signers frequently included. Just as ridicule today often has a squelching effect on new ideas, this attack in the press caused many people from the Convention to rethink their positions. Many of the women who had attended the convention were so embarrassed by the publicity that they actually withdrew their signatures from the Declaration. But most stood firm. And something the editors had not anticipated happened: Their negative articles about the women's call for expanded rights were so livid and widespread that they actually had a positive impact far beyond anything the organizers could have hoped for. People in cities and isolated towns alike were now alerted to the issues, and joined this heated discussion of women's rights in great numbers!
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The Movement Expands
Women's Rights Conventions were held regularly from 1850 until the start of the Civil War.
The women's rights movement of the late 19th century went on to address the wide range of issues spelled out at the Seneca Falls Convention. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and women like Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Sojourner Truth traveled the country lecturing and organizing for the next forty years. Eventually, winning the right to vote emerged as the central issue, since the vote would provide the means to achieve the other reforms. All told, the campaign for woman suffrage met such staunch opposition that it took 72 years for the women and their male supporters to be successful.
Among these women are several activists whose names and and accomplishments should become as familiar to Americans as those of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, of course. And Susan B. Anthony. Matilda Joslyn Gage. Lucy Stone. They were pioneer theoreticians of the 19th-century women's rights movement.
Esther Morris, the first woman to hold a judicial position, who led the first successful state campaign for woman suffrage, in Wyoming in 1869. Abigail Scott Duniway, the leader of the successful fight in Oregon and Washington in the early 1900s.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell, organizers of thousands of African-American women who worked for suffrage for all women.
Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Stone Blackwell, Lucy Stone's daughter, who carried on their mothers' legacy through the next generation.
Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt, leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in the early years of the 20th century, who brought the campaign to its final success.
Alice Paul, founder and leader of the National Woman's Party, considered the radical wing of the movement.
After the Vote was Won
After the vote was finally won in 1920, the organized Women's Rights Movement continued on in several directions. While the majority of women who had marched, petitioned and lobbied for woman suffrage looked no further, a minority - like Alice Paul - understood that the quest for women's rights would be an ongoing struggle that was only advanced, not satisfied, by the vote.
In 1919, as the suffrage victory drew near, the National American Woman Suffrage Association reconfigured itself into the League of Women Voters to ensure that women would take their hard-won vote seriously and use it wisely.
In 1920, the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor was established to gather information about the situation of women at work, and to advocate for changes it found were needed. Many suffragists became actively involved with lobbying for legislation to protect women workers from abuse and unsafe conditions.
In 1923, Alice Paul, the leader of the National Woman's Party, took the next obvious step. She drafted an Equal Rights Amendment for the United States Constitution. Such a federal law, it was argued, would ensure that "Men and women have equal rights throughout the United States." A constitutional amendment would apply uniformly, regardless of where a person lived.
The second wing of the post-suffrage movement was one that had not been explicitly anticipated in the Seneca Falls "Declaration of Sentiments." It was the birth control movement, initiated by a public health nurse, Margaret Sanger, just as the suffrage drive was nearing its victory. The idea of woman's right to control her own body, and especially to control her own reproduction and sexuality, added a visionary new dimension to the ideas of women's emancipation. This movement not only endorsed educating women about existing birth control methods. It also spread the conviction that meaningful freedom for modern women meant they must be able to decide for themselves whether they would become mothers, and when.
The Second Wave
So it's clear that, contrary to common misconception, the Women's Rights Movement did not begin in the 1960s. What occurred in the 1960s was actually a second wave of activism that washed into the public consciousness, fueled by several seemingly independent events of that turbulent decade.
First: Esther Peterson was the director of the Women's Bureau of the Dept. of Labor in 1961. She considered it to be the government's responsibility to take an active role in addressing discrimination against women. With her encouragement, President Kennedy convened a Commission on the Status of Women, naming Eleanor Roosevelt as its chair. The report issued by that commission in 1963 documented discrimination against women in virtually every area of American life. State and local governments quickly followed suit and established their http://www.legacy98.org/move-hist.html#Victory Women's suffrage
In America at the time of the 1800's some rights allowed to single women were exempt to married women.
In 1866 the Isle of Man became the first national parliament to grant equal voting rights to men and women, based on property. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage Women's suffrage was permanently granted in 1920 with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Civil War
In 1869 the National Woman Suffrage Association was formed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with the object of securing an amendment to the Constitution in favor of woman suffrage, thus opposing passage of the Fifteenth Amendment without it being changed to include female suffrage.
Another more conservative suffrage organization, the American Woman Suffrage Association, headed by Lucy Stone, was also formed at this time by those who believed that suffrage should be brought about by amendments to the various States constitutions. They supported the proposed 15th amendment as written. In 1890, these two bodies united into one national organization, led by Susan B. Anthony, and known as the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
National American Woman Suffrage Association
In 1900, regular national headquarters were established in New York City, under the direction of the new president Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, who was endorsed by Susan B. Anthony after her retirement as first president.
Regional Suffrage
It is notable that New Jersey, on becoming a Federal State after the American Revolution, placed only one restriction on the general suffrage the possession of at least £50 (~USD250) worth of cash or property. The election laws referred to voters as "he or she." In 1790 the law was revised to include women specifically. Female voters became so objectionable to professional politicians, that in 1807 the law was revised to exclude them. Later, the 1844 constitution banned women voting, the 1947 one then allowed it.
Illinois
In 1912, Grace Wilbur Trout, then head of the Chicago Political Equality League, was elected President of the state organization. Changing her tactics from a confrontational style of lobbying the state legislature, she turned to building the organization internally. She made sure that a local organization was started in every Senatorial District. One of her assistants, Elizabeth Booth, cut up a Blue Book government directory and made file cards for each of the members of the General Assembly. Armed with the names, four lobbyists went to Springfield to persuade one legislator at a time to support suffrage for women.
After passing the Senate, the bill was brought up for a vote in the House on June 11, 1913. Trout and her team counted heads and went as far as to fetch needed male voters from their homes.
Women in Illinois could now vote for Presidential electors and for all local offices not specifically named in the Illinois Constitution. However, they still could not vote for state representative, Congressman or governor; and they still had to use separate ballots and ballot boxes.
Besides the passage of the Illinois Municipal Voting Act, 1913 was also a significant year in other facets of the women's suffrage movement. In Chicago, African American anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells-Barnett founded the Alpha Suffrage Club, the first such organization for Negro women in Illinois. Although white women as a group were sometimes ambivalent about obtaining the franchise, African American women were almost universally in favor of gaining the vote to help end their sexual exploitation, promote their educational opportunities and protect those who were wage earners.
As the suffragists started down Pennsylvania Avenue, the crowd became abusive and started to close in, knocking the marchers around with hostility. With local police doing little to keep control, the cavalry was called in as 100 women were hospitalized. Many suffragists now concluded that public protests might be the quickest route to universal franchise.
Other states
One after another, western states granted the right of voting to their women citizens, the only opposition being presented by the liquor interests and the machine politicians. New York State, that old battle ground for suffrage, joined the procession in 1917.
19th Amendment
There was now considerable anxiety among politicians of both parties to have the amendment passed and made effective before the general elections of 1920, so the President called a special session of Congress, and a bill, introducing the amendment, was brought before the House again. On May 21, 1919, it was passed, 42 votes more than necessary being obtained. On June 4, 1919, it was brought before the Senate, and after a long discussion it was passed, with 56 ayes and 25 nays. It only remained now that the necessary number of States should ratify the action of Congress.
The term women's rights typically refers to freedoms inherently possessed by women and girls of all ages, which may be institutionalized or ignored and/or illegitimately suppressed by law or custom in a particular society.
Issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights include, though are not limited to:
The right to bodily integrity and autonomy,
The right to vote,
The right to hold public office,
The right to work,
The right to fair wages,
The right to own property,
The right to education,
Marital rights,
Parental rights,
Religious rights,
The right to serve in the military, and
The right to enter into legal contracts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_rights Lucy Stone (August 13, 1818 October 18, 1893, died at age 75) was a prominent American suffragist.
And so, shortly after Stone returned to Massachusetts, the first woman in that state to receive a college degree, she gave her first public speech: on women's rights. She delivered the speech from the pulpit of her brother's Congregational Church in Gardner, Massachusetts. Stone became a leader of the women's suffrage movement, lecturing extensively on both suffrage and abolition. In 1870 she founded, in Boston, the Woman's Journal, the publication of the American Woman Suffrage Association, and she continued to edit it for the rest of her life, assisted by her husband and their daughter. That daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell (1857-1950), wrote her biography, Lucy Stone: Pioneer of Woman's Rights (ISBN 0-8139-1990-8), which was published in 1930 and again in 1971 (2nd edition).
Legacy
Lucy Stone's refusal to take husband's name, as an assertion of her own rights, was controversial then and is what she is remembered for today. Women who continue to use their birth names after marriage are still occasionally known as "Lucy Stoners" in the U.S. In 1921, the Lucy Stone League was founded in New York City. It was reborn in 1997. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Stone Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1819October 17, 1910) was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet most famous as the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."
In 1870 she was the first to proclaim Mother's Day, with her Mother's Day Proclamation.
From 1872 to 1879, she assisted Lucy Stone and Henry Brown Blackwell in editing Woman's Journal.
On January 28, 1908 Julia Ward Howe became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She died of pneumonia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_Ward_Howe Sojourner Truth (c. 1797November 26, 1883) was the self-given name, from 1843, of Isabella Baumfree, an American abolitionist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, New York. Her best-known speech, which became known as Ain't I a Woman?, was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.
"Ain't I a Woman?"
Truth delivered her best-known speech in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention. The speech has become known as Ain't I a Woman? after Truth's refrain.[8]
The speech as shown here has been revised from the 19th century dialect in which Truth spoke.
" Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the Negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or Negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it. The men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say. "
--Sojourner Truth
On a mission
Truth spoke about abolition, women's rights, prison reform, and preached to the Michigan Legislature against capital punishment. Not everyone welcomed her preaching and lectures, but she had many friends and staunch support among many influential people at the time, including Amy Post, Parker Pillsbury, Frances Gage, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, Laura Smith Haviland, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony."[10]
Truth died on November 26, 1883, at her home in Battle Creek, Michigan. Her remains were buried there at Oak Hill Cemetery beside other family members. Her last words were "Be a follower of the Lord Jesus."[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sojourner_Truth Lucretia Coffin Mott (January 3, 1793 November 11, 1880) was an American Quaker minister, abolitionist, social reformer and proponent of women's rights. She is credited as the first American "feminist" in the early 1800s but was, more accurately, the initiator of women's political advocacy. Seneca Falls
The Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 was the first American women's rights meeting. Stanton's resolution that it was "the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves the sacred right to the elective franchise" was passed, and this became the focus of the group's campaign over the next few years. Mott was a signatory of the Declaration of Sentiments. While Elizabeth Cady Stanton is usually credited as the leader of that effort, it was Mott's mentoring of Stanton and their work together that organized the event. Lucretia's sister, Martha Coffin Wright also helped organize the convention and signed the declaration.
Opinions
Mott parted with the mainstream women's movement in one area, that of divorce. At that time it was very difficult to obtain divorce, and fathers were given custody of children. Stanton sought to make divorce easier to obtain and to safeguard women's access to and control of their children. The more conservative Mott opposed any significant legal change in divorce laws.
American Equal Rights Convention
Elected as the first president of the American Equal Rights Convention after the end of the Civil War, Mott strove a few years later to reconcile the two factions that split over the priorities between woman suffrage and black male suffrage. Ever the peacemaker, Mott tried to heal the breach between Elizabeth Cady Stanton/Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone over the immediate goal of the women's movement: suffrage for freedmen and all women? or suffrage for freedmen first?
Writing
In 1850 Mott wrote Discourse on Woman, a book about restrictions on women in the United States. She became more widely known after this. When slavery was outlawed in 1865, she began to advocate giving black Americans the right to vote. She remained a central figure in the women's movement as a peacemaker, a critical function for that period of the movement, until her death at age 87 in 1880.
Organizations
In 1866 Mott joined with Stanton, Anthony, and Stone to establish the American Equal Rights Association. She was a leading voice in the Universal Peace Union, also founded in 1866. The following year, the organization became active in Kansas where Negro suffrage and woman suffrage were to be decided by popular vote.
She was posthumously inducted into the U.S. National Women's Hall of Fame. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucretia_Mott Elizabeth Cady Stanton (November 12, 1815 October 26, 1902) was an American social activist and leading figure of the early women's rights movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the first women's rights convention held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, is often credited with initiating the first
As an antidote to the boredom and loneliness she experienced in Seneca Falls, Stanton became increasingly involved in the community and, by 1848, had established ties to similarly minded women in the area. By this time, she was firmly committed to the nascent women's rights movement and ready to engage in organized activism.[15]
Stanton and the early years of the Women's Rights Movement
Mott's example and the decision to prohibit women from participating in the convention strengthened Stanton's commitment to women's rights. By 1848, her early life experiences, together with the experience in London and her initially debilitating experience as a housewife in Seneca Falls, galvanized Stanton.
Although best known for their joint work on behalf of women's suffrage, Stanton and Anthony first joined the temperance movement. Together, they were instrumental in founding the short-lived Woman's State Temperance Society (1852-53). During her presidency of the organization, Stanton scandalized many supporters by suggesting that drunkenness be made sufficient cause for divorce.[citation needed] Their focus,
The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the same way.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
By the time the Fifteenth Amendment was making its way through Congress, Stanton's position led to a major schism in the women's rights movement itself. Many leaders in the women's rights movement, including Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe strongly argued against Stanton's "all or nothing" position. By 1869, disagreement over ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment gave birth to two separate women's suffrage organizations. The National Woman's Suffrage Association (NWSA) founded in May 1869 by Stanton and Anthony, opposed passage of the Fifteenth Amendment without changes to include female suffrage. The American Woman's Suffrage Association (AWSA), founded the following November and led by Stone, Blackwell, and Howe, supported the amendment as written.[citation needed]
In a view different from many modern feminists, Stanton believed that abortion was infanticide[29] She addressed the issue in various editions of The Revolution and, in an 1873 letter to Julia Ward Howe recorded in Howe's diary at Harvard University Library, she wrote: "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit."[citation needed] She suggested that solutions to abortion would be found, at least in part, in the elevation and enfranchisement of women.[citation needed]
As she aged, Stanton was also active internationally, spending a great deal of time in Europe, where her daughter and fellow feminist, Harriot Stanton Blatch, lived. In 1888 she helped prepare for the founding of the International Council of Women. In 1890, Stanton opposed the merger of the National Woman's Suffrage Association with the more conservative and religiously based American Woman Suffrage Association.[citation needed] Over her objections, the organizations merged, creating the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Despite her opposition to the merger, Stanton became its first president, largely because of Susan B. Anthony's intervention. In good measure because of the Women's Bible, she was, however, never popular among the more religiously conservative members of the 'National American'.[citation needed] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cady_Stanton Susan Brownell Anthony (February 15, 1820 March 13, 1906) was a prominent, independent and well-educated American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to secure women's suffrage in the United States. She traveled thousands of miles throughout the United States and Europe, and gave 75 to 100 speeches per year on women's rights for some 45 years. Susan B. Anthony died in Rochester, New York, in her house on Madison St. on March 13, 1906, and is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery.
Early social activism
In 1851, on a street in Seneca Falls, Anthony was introduced to Elizabeth Cady Stanton by mutual acquaintance and fellow feminist Amelia Bloomer. Anthony joined with Stanton in organizing in 1852, the first women's state temperance society in America. Stanton would remain a close friend and colleague of Anthony's for the remainder of their lives, but unlike Anthony, Stanton longed for a broader, more radical women's rights platform. Together, the two women traversed the United States giving speeches and attempting to persuade the government that society should treat men and women equally.
In 1869, long time friends Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony found themselves, for the first time, on opposing sides of a debate. The Equal Rights Association, which had originally fought for both blacks' and women's right to suffrage, voted to support the 15th Amendment to the Constitution granting suffrage to black men, but not women. Anthony questioned why women should support this amendment when black men were not continuing to show support for women's voting rights. Partially as a result of the decision by the Equal Rights Association, Anthony soon thereafter devoted herself almost exclusively to the agitation for women's rights.
National suffrage organizations
In the early years of the NWSA, Anthony made attempts to unite women in the labor movement with the suffragist cause, but with little success. She and Stanton were delegates at the 1868 convention of the National Labor Union. However, Anthony inadvertently alienated the labor movement not only because suffrage was seen as a concern for middle-class rather than working-class women, but because she openly encouraged women to achieve economic independence by entering the printing trades, where male workers were on strike at the time. Anthony was later expelled from the National Labor Union over this controversy.
United States v. Susan B. Anthony
For casting a vote in the presidential election held on November 5, 1872, in Rochester, New York, Anthony was arrested on November 18 and pled not guilty, asserting that the 14th amendment entitled her to vote because, unlike the original Constitution, it provides that all "persons" (which includes females) born in the US are "citizens" who shall not be denied the "privileges" of citizenship (which includes voting).
However, her defense was all for naught. The judge, Supreme Court Associate Justice Ward Hunt, explicitly instructed the jury to deliver a guilty verdict, refused to poll the jury, delivered an opinion he had written before trial had even begun, and on June 18, 1873, sentenced her to pay a $100 fine. Anthony responded, "May it please your honor, I will never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty." She never did pay the fine, and the government never pursued her for nonpayment, for otherwise she would be able to file a habeas corpus, which would give her a chance to be heard by the appellate justices, and Justice Ward Hunt could not risk her convincing them.
Legacy
Susan B. Anthony was honored as the first real (non-allegorical) American woman on circulating U.S. coinage with her appearance on the Susan B. Anthony dollar. The coin, approximately the size of a U.S. quarter, was minted for only four years, 1979, 1980, 1981, and 1999. Anthony dollars were produced at the Philadelphia and Denver mints for all four of these years, and at the San Francisco mint for all production years except 1999.
In the nineteenth century, the words that our forefathers wrote in the Declaration of Independence, "that all men were created equal," held little value. Human equality was far from a reality. If you were not born of white male decent, than that phrase did not apply to you. During this period many great leaders and reformers emerged, fighting both for the rights of African Americans and for the rights of women. One of these great leaders was Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Stanton dedicated her entire life to the women's movement, despite the opposition she received, from both her family and friends. In the course of this paper, I will be taking a critical look at three of Stanton's most acclaimed speeches "Declaration of Sentiments", "Solitude of Self", and " Home Life", and develop a claim that the rhetoric in these speeches was an effective tool in advancing the movement as a whole. Elizabeth Cady Stant.
The traditional view of women in society was to stay at home, clean, raise children , and to help with the family farm. This view started to change around the late 19th century and during the industrial revolution. Male domination kept women at home but in the early 19th century, legislatures and educators began expanding the opportunites of women in education. Though there were exceptions and problems with women and education was women's first step considering they could now get jobs in medicine and law. During the Civil War, women took over their husbands jobs and temporarially stopped fighting for sufferage. They started helping the black slaves achieve freedom. The antislavery movement, the 15th amendment, pushed women further dowm the trail leading to suffrage. Although it took three amendments later and 90 solid years of hard fighting for women to obtain the 19th amendment.
They finally did achieve their goal.
In the 1820s men were in power. In their homes, in the workplace, and everywhere else. The men philosopy included these ideas. First, it was accepted that women are possesions of their husbands, and therefore they must agree with everything they say. Second, it was believed that most women were uneducated, or stupid, so women were automatically assumed to be incapable of voting for president. Also, because women were unschooled and ignorant, their say was unimportant. And finally that they were superior and that they should stay that way. This was a difficult philosophy for women to overturn.
This is one reason why women's suffrage took so long to obtain. (Dickey, 1995)
In addition to male domination, women hurt their own cause.The public believed that sufferagists wereconnected with scandal-mongerers such as the Claflin sisters. Consequently, most sufferagists limited their work to conventional topics and scorned radical view points. For example,
"When Anthony Comstock of Boston and Josiah W. of
Philadelghia undertook crusades against obscenity, feminists applauded and approved the formation in 1895 of the American Puritan Alliance."
Which was why women hurt their own cause.
(pg151, Leonard Pitt, "We Americans, 1987)
However, women helped their cause gathering up the Seneca Falls Convention. The Seneca
Falls Convention, in 1848, "stated the injustices suffered by women." These injustices included " the denial of the right to vote, the fact that a married woman gave control of her property to her husband, the exclusion of women from the professions, and the nearly absolute legal control of women by men. (pg.305, Conlin)
In addition to their conservative views, most suffragists were elitists, that is they were not common people. For example, Pitt writes
"...the leaders were white college educated, and middle class. They were an elite and a minority within that elite." As a result, suffragists were taken less seriously by the common people.
(pg 152, Leonard Pitt, "We Americans, 1987)
It took an international crises, World War II, for the claims of the suffragists to be taken seirously. Only when the labor of women was need in war time, did the federal government act on considering national suffrage for women.
Even though the suffragist movement progressed slowly, their efforts did have an effect on the government. The movement brought the inequality of voting restrictions to public attention. This public attention combined with the heroic service of women in industry during World War I resulted in the passage of the 19th amendment to the
Constitution of the United States, in 1920. The
19th Amendment provides men and women with equal voting rights. After 90 years, the goal of sufferagists was achieved. (Grolier encyclopedia,
Electronic Publishing, Inc., 1995)
It may have taken women a long time to achieve the right of suffrage in spite of their conservative views.
Men were threatened by women who wanted to move forward.
Since males dominated the United States, they knew they had the power to keep women from getting the vote. Certain states, such as Wyoming, gave women the right to vote in state elections as early as 1869.
Male domination played a big part in the whole concept of women getting the right to vote.
Now, women are considered to be equals with men.
Even though women were "considered" to be lesser than men, they never really were, were they? (Encarta Encyclopedia,
1993.)
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