Suffragette in the 1910's - Research Paper Example

?A Suffragette in the 1910s Background The women suffrage developed in America under the umbrella of American anti-slavery movement, related to the divide after the Civil War within the anti-slavery functionaries over suffragette and the later division in the women’s rights movement. New leaders of the movement such as Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton came from antislavery movement. Relations between the two movements were cordial at different political, personal and ideological levels but a turn came when Wendell Phillips set aside the issue of women suffrage to work for enfranchisement for newly independent blacks: “I hope in time to be as bold as Stuart Mill and add to that last clause ‘sex’!! But this hour belongs to the Negro.” From there on the movement split into two camps: the “moderates,” headed by Lucy Stone followed the Republican strategy while the radicals were led by Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, focusing the movement nearer to the New York Journal, The Revolution. P. 1 ___________________________ 1. Christine Stansell, “Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America by Ellen Carol DuBois,” Feminist Studies, 1980, 70-71. Introduction The history of women suffrage movement in the United States begins from 1848 when a call for the right to vote was made at the Seneca Falls Woman’s Right Convention. Initially, the movement vouched for equal rights in all areas of public interest such as civil, political, economic, and personal related to property, guardianship of their own children, equal salaries and reach to top-tier professional jobs besides freedom to right over family planning. The demand for the right to vote was not on the top of their agenda and there was no unanimity over demanding suffrage among the leading women functionaries of the movement. The new line of suffragists gaining national stature were the “New Women,” like Carrie Chapman Catt, Nettie Rogers Shuler, Harriet Taylor Upton, Anna Howard Shaw who saw no logic in running two parallel bodies and assimilated the associations into The National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA). This was a lackluster phase of the movement, as it was passing through “the doldrums,” period from 1896 to 1910. Presidency of Anna Howard Shah in 1904 could not revive the movement. After she stepped down, Carrie Chapman Catt was appointed the president of NAWSA. Her “winning plan,” made it sure that in stead of running state-level campaigns attention should be given on federal amendments to effectively get the right to vote for the American women. 2 ________________________________ 2. Elna C. Green, “Southern Strategies: Southern Women and the Woman Suffrage Question,” (The University of North Carolina Press), p. 2-4. There was no doubt over Catt’s capability of organization; she could handle NAWSA resources and staff in two states effectively. Finally, the nineteenth amendment was made on June 1919 by the Congress and was sent to the states for ratification. From 1910s onwards, the second wave on suffragette started on a forceful note bringing the movement out of “the doldrums,” recruiting women in large numbers with every southern state having a permanent suffrage organization by 1913. 3 Fanny Wright led the movement by supporting the cause of abolition of slavery, free secular education, birth control, and softer conditions on getting a divorce by women through her books such as Course of Popular Lectures (1829) and writing in the Free Enquirer. In 1840, the suffrage movement got another push when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott were not granted permission to speak in the World Anti-Slavery Convention, as Stanton remarked on it: "We resolved to hold a convention as soon as we returned home, and form a society to advocate the rights of women." The American Equal Rights Association came into existence in 1866 but no decision could be made in Kansas on Negro suffrage and women suffrage. Later, in 1869 the National Women Suffrage Association was made. 4 The second wave of the women suffrage movement starting from 1910 till 1920 was led by such names as Mary Church Terrel, Jane Addams, Rheta Childe Dorr, ___________________________________________ 3. Ibid. 4. USA Suffrage, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAsuffrage.htm>. William Du Bois, Alice Paul, and Woodrow Wilson. Mary Church Terrel, born to former slave parents in Memphis, Tennessee, was a teacher in a black secondary school in Washington at Wilberforce College in Ohio. She advocated the cause of women suffrage in the Washington Post (10Feb. 1900) by making sarcasm on the wrongful use of the word “people” taken only for boys to be born as white, as only they enjoyed the right to vote. Jane Addams wrote in Ladies Home Journal on the pitiable condition of homely women who could clean their homes only and had no strategy to handle the dirt accumulating outside their homes and mocked on the condition that only educated women could effectively use the right to vote. 5 Rheta Childe Dorr, while stating on “What Eight Million Women Want,” (1910) found the new element of voting right to be the most significant political reality of the time. She justified and defended the women suffrage on the economic needs compelling women to share financial responsibilities and they had to come outside the four walls of their homes. It was but natural for women to think in human terms about their role in society. Woodrow Wilson vehemently championed the cause of suffrage to women, which she claimed that it was her right while giving a speech in the Congress as reported in the New York Times on 1st Oct. 1918. 6 Another important name was of Alice Paul who was chair to NAWSA but later formed Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage to be evolved later to become the _________________________________ 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. National Woman’s Party (NWP) in 1917. She led the movement by holding protest rallies, sitting on hunger strikes, and was put behind bars thrice. Ideologically, her organization was in clash with NAWSA, led by Carrie Chapman Catt over Alice Paul’s stress on working for federal constitutional amendments while Carrie wanted to work at both state and federal levels simultaneously. Both organizations working designs helped the women’s suffrage movement to be in the limelight and getting political benefit from putting the stakes of women behind politicians for earning women votes. Paul remained active after 1920 win of the federal amendment on the issue of Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). 7 Church was very active in protests for woman suffrage. She along wither daughter, Phillis Terrell beside Alice Paul and Lucy Burns used to picket the White House. Later in 1909, Church formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) along with Mary White Ovington. Till her death in Annapolis on 24th July, 1954 she remained active against racial discrimination. 8 Thus, the second wave of the suffragette saw in action and materialization of the amendment on suffrage. ________________________ 7. Jone Johnson Lewis, “Alice Paul,” http://womenshistory.about.com/od/paulalice/p/alice_paul.htm> 8. Mary Church Terrell, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASterrell.htm> Sources Consulted Green, Elna C. Southern Strategies: Southern Women and the Woman Suffrage Question. The University of North Carolina Press, 1997. http://books.google.com/books?id=vKax5VD-aYEC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_book_similarbooks#v=onepage&q&f=false. Lewis, Jone Johnson “Alice Paul,”About.com Guide . Mary Church Terrell, Online, < http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASterrell.htm>. Stansell, Christine “Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America by Ellen Carol DuBois,” Feminist Studies, 1980, 70-71. . USA Suffrage, Online, . 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