Women, Suffrage and Rights - Essay Example

Women, Suffrage and Rights Copyright The movement of women towards emancipation and liberation in the United s of America was a long and arduous struggle that was to last more than half a century, with many contributions and perspectives shaping the struggle. However, it was this struggle for women’s rights that was the basis of the freedom that is enjoyed by women in the United States of America today and perhaps even elsewhere. This brief essay presents a discussion about the perspectives that were contributed by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Amelia Bloomer who were amongst the more prominent personalities of the time of struggle for women’s right in America. Declaration I certify that, except where cited in the text, this work is the result of research carried out by the author of this study. _____________________________________________ Name and Signature of Author September 2008 This write - up is presented in fulfilment for the requirements related to an essay on Women, Suffrage and Rights. Biographical Sketch Acknowledgements Contents Introduction 1 Women’s Rights and Perspectives from Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Amelia Bloomer 3 Conclusion 8 Bibliography/ References 10 (This page intentionally blank) Introduction Women had been universally excluded from voting since the founding of the United States of America, but they had not been explicitly excluded from voting until they first made their dissatisfaction known. 1 However, as the number of women in the workforce grew and the movement against slavery gained strength in the early nineteenth century, it was felt that women should also be granted the right to vote. At that time, a politician had stated that if women were to be given the vote, they would lose their femininity. 2 However, Rose Schneiderman of the Garment Workers Union had responded to the previously mentioned remark by stating at a Cooper Union meeting in New York that women who stood for fourteen hours a day in a laundry with their hands in starch were unlikely to lose their femininity by putting a ballot in a ballot box once a year. It was such sentiments that turned women of that time into socialists and anarchists, with an increasingly larger number joining up to campaign for suffrage. The women’s rights movement had begun at Seneca Falls, NY in 1847 and in a 1912 demonstration for women’s suffrage, men and women who walked from the Fifth Street of Washington Square to the 57th Street and blocked every cross street. In the spring of 1913, 50,000 people in Washington watched thousands of women march for their cause. However, women in the United States of America could only succeed in winning the vote in 1920. During the struggle, women in the United States were compared with women in Australia and New Zealand who had been given the right to vote and working men were increasingly more sympathetic to their plight because after all, women and children worked with them in factories. This popular support was in evidence in 1912 when Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party supported women’s suffrage. 3 Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Amelia Bloomer were amongst the more prominent supporters of the women’s rights movement in the mid 1840s. However, their role and purpose in the movement was somewhat different. This brief essay presents a discussion about the manner in which the three previously mentioned personalities had approached women’s suffrage and rights. Women’s Rights and Perspectives from Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Amelia Bloomer Susan B. Anthony who was reared in the Quaker tradition and she never married, preferring to work with other females for the cause. 4 She had been a teacher and she was the most prominent women’s suffrage organizer and activist of the nineteenth century. Her religious background had compelled her activism and the religious thinking of her group emphasized gender equality, something that was contrary to the European tradition of Christianity. Her attitudes towards women’s suffrage were shaped by wage inequality and the requirement for women to listen and not to speak even when working as professionals. Susan B. Anthony, together with Elizabeth Cady Stanton headed the National Woman Suffrage Association which was to later merge with American Woman Suffrage Association headed by Lucy Stone to present a united front for suffrage. Susan B Anthony was as much for suffrage for blacks as she was for suffrage for women and she was the owner and editor of the women’s rights newspaper Revolution. Her strategy for bringing about change was to bring about awareness and to educate. However, Elizabeth Cady Stanton her close associate viewed her suffrage first – strategy as being conservative. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wanted stronger action and social reform as being more useful for bringing about women’s suffrage. However, because Susan B. Anthony had never married she was able to devote more energy to the women’s rights movement without any interruption due to childbirth. Susan B. Anthony appeared every year in front of the United States Congress from 1869 to 1906 to petition for women’s suffrage and she wanted women to work actively in the professions. She raised US$ 50,000 for the University of Rochester in exchange for admitting women for the first time in 1900. In recognition of her efforts to change attitudes by advocating for the rights of women, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is often known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. 5 Amongst the more popular of Susan B. Anthony’s written works are the first four volumes of the six-volume History of Woman Suffrage, written with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda J. Gage. 6 It is said that Susan B. Anthony preferred giving the vote to educated women as compared to illiterate men. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born into a prominent and wealthy family. Her father was a United States congressman and later a New York Supreme Court judge. 7 She studied at the Johnstown Academy, Emma Willards Troy Female Seminary, from which she graduated in 1832 and she later studied law at her father’s office. Elizabeth Cady Stanton had a rebellious spirit and she had insisted that the word “obey” be dropped from her vows at her wedding to Henry Brewster Stanton, her husband who was also a lawyer and an abolitionist. She is said to have threatened rebellion if the rights of her sex were not secured and she wanted stronger action as compared to the advocacy of Susan B. Anthony. 8 She had also called for an expanded Women’s Property Act, education for women and black Americans as well as women having better control over their wages. Her views on the rights of women were not based on any religious sanction and she is said to have not required any sanction from Moses or Paul for her views. Because Elizabeth Cady Stanton had seven children, she was often less able to actively engage in the struggle for her beliefs about the rights of women and she relied on writing as a form of activism. Her writing suggests that she wanted stronger action for women’s rights as compared to Susan B. Anthony. She wanted women to be able to divorce their drunken and abusive husbands and had stated that “Man marrying gives up no right, but a woman, every right.” She ran for Congress in 1866 at a time when women were not even eligible to vote, but she received only 24 votes out of 12,000. She is said to have stated that educated white women were more deserving of the vote than ex-slaves and she wrote about topics that others had not even started to think about, such as prostitution. She was impatient and stated that she grew more radical as she grew older, while Susan B. Anthony became more conservative. In 1895, she wrote The Woman’s Bible, a feminist analysis of the Old and New Testaments and a denouncement of them for degrading teachings about women and she is said to have views close to atheism. However, her criticism of religion was toned down by other members of the women’s movement. Clearly, Elizabeth Cady Stanton was more resentful about not having been able to achieve her desires about women’s suffrage during her lifetime as compared to Susan B. Anthony who had sound religious convictions. 9 However, she was much respected by the New York legislature and her 1854 speech to this legislature resulted in new legislation in 1860 that granted married women rights to their wages and to equal guardianship of their children. 10 Amelia Jenks Bloomer worked as a teacher and private tutor who married Dexter C. Bloomer, a Quaker newspaper editor of Seneca County in 1840. She later established newspapers for women that were edited by a woman and The Lily: A Ladies Journal Devoted to Temperance and Literature accepted articles from women’s rights activists and reformers. She is said to have been less active in the struggle for women’s suffrage, as compared to the liberation of women and she attempted a dress – reform movement that attempted to present more radical ideas for women’s dress. When she first appeared wearing full – cut pantaloons under a short skirt, she attracted ridicule and her design was said by the press to advocating an end to marriage because of the masculine appearance that it presented for women. However, her ideas about dressing were picked up by Susan B. Anthony who called her design “bloomers”. 11 Conclusion It is clear from the previous discussion that the liberation of women in the American society was a gradual process that was influenced by many different perspectives, ideas and contributions. Although the perspectives that have been presented by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Amelia Bloomer are somewhat different in their approach, they along with many others shaped the future of feminism in America. (This page intentionally blank) Bibliography/ References 1. Berkley, Kathleen C. The Womens Liberation Movement in America. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. 2. Carnes, Mark C. The Routledge Historical Atlas of Women in America. Routledge, 2000. 3. Claeys, Gregory. Encyclopaedia of Nineteenth Century Thought. Routledge, 2005. 4. Dubois, Ellen. Woman Suffrage and Womens Rights. New York University Press, 1998. 5. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Woman suffrage. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Ultimate Reference Suite.  Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2008. 6. Fitzpatrick, Ellen F. Century of Struggle: the Womans Rights Movement in the United States. Eleanor Flexner and Ellen Fitzpatrick (Editors). Cambridge, Mass.; London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996. 7. Gordon, Ann D. The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. New Brunswick, N.J.; [London]: Rutgers University Press, 1997. 8. Graham, Sara Hunter. Woman Suffrage and the New Democracy. Yale University Press, 1996. 9. Johnson, Thomas H and Wish, Harvey. The Oxford Companion to American History. Oxford University Press, 1966. 10. Kerr, Andrea Moore. 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The Longman Handbook of Modern American History, 1763-1996. London; New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1998. 18. Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States, 1492 – Present. Harper Perennial, 2003. Read More