Module 7 Reflection: Women's Suffrage Movement

After reading "The Struggle for Women's Suffrage" first paragraph it's hard to not feel some form of excitement. It speaks about how the American women of the 19th century had the highest female literacy rate in the world. Things were looking positive and progressive for women during that time, but as the article goes on you can't help to think they were sold a dream with the American Revolution. 

Women were living a nightmare in my opinion. Women could not own property, make contracts, bring suits, or sit on juries. If women did any of these things there was a possibility that they could be legally beaten by their husbands and were required to submit to their husbands' sexual demands. Women have had to overcome laws and customs that discriminated on the basis of sex. 

Many different women took on the task of trying to fight for change over the years. Some of these women included: Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton,  and Lucy Stone. Cady and Stanton wanted an amendment that was broader than suffrage, they wanted divorce rights, property rights, and dress reform for women. In 1878, Stanton convinced Sen. Aaron A Sargent to introduce a women's suffrage amendment to the Constitution. 

Their fight was only the beginning. By the 1890s, the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). The NAWSA had a more political approached and with that change took place at a slower rate than most women expected. 

Eager for quicker change, Alice Paul and other young women took a more confrontational approach.  In 1913, on the day of Woodrow Wilson's inauguration, Alice Paul and 5,000 protesters took to the streets and marched. As they were marching, protestors heckled them and no cops interfered sadly. Over the next few years there would be many more marches, some with crowds as large as 40,000 people. They protested in New York and in front of the White House. The combination of Catt's careful organizing and Paul's militant tactics, which included publicly burning copies of speeches by President Wilson, helped to make suffrage an inescapable issue.

Trixie Friganza (immediately behind the sign), who inspired the song "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," was a women's suffrage advocate from Cincinnati.

Bibliography:

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=11&smtID=2

The Movement Splits.pdf 

https://www.wvxu.org/post/exhibit-examines-ohios-forgotten-role-womens-suffrage-movement#stream/0

downloadNew Arguments and New Constituencies.pdf