This year New York State is celebrating the centennial of women gaining access to the voting booth. In the year 2020 the nation will be celebrating the centennial of the 19th amendment to the Constitution that allowed women nation-wide to the same right. This culminated a 72 year campaign that started in Seneca Falls in 1848. From its meager and uncertain beginnings it eventually brought together millions of women who spent countless hours organizing, canvassing, arguing, discussing, writing, studying and marching to gain a right that most people now feel should have been an afterthought by the Founding Fathers.
Women did things that no one thought possible, even to themselves. They organized meetings, led campaigns and very soon were creating organizations. These organizations started at the local level, and then went regional, then statewide and finally national. There was harassment, prejudice and insults that would last even into the last years of the effort. Angry mobs and physical assaults were a frequent phenomenon; women who risked arrest suffered during detention or incarceration by law enforcement authorities.
Although the author does not know of any women who were killed outright in the effort gain the vote (as was the case with a few abolitionists), there were several women including Inez Mulholland, Miss Aloysius Larch-Miller and Dr. Anna Howard Shaw who continued their efforts to promote suffrage in spite of ill health, and thus shortened their life spans. In addition to these three there were numerous women who sacrificed their careers, their social life, their family life, hopes for marriage and definitely shortened their lifespan by a few years by pushing their minds and bodies wholeheartedly into the fray.
The enemy was the men who resisted any change to a patriarchal society where the role of the female was to serve at the pleasure and for the benefit of the male gender. And once she married she lost an even greater degree of autonomy and independence. Until piecemeal reforms in the second quarter of the 19th century came along, women had no right to their wages, had no right to buy property, could not serve on a jury, no right to their children, had limited educational opportunities, were not given equal pay for equal work and had little recourse for excessive work hours or unsafe working conditions (the men in this regard weren’t treated much better). Husbands were even responsible for what crimes their wives might commit.
However, there were males out there who realized that this was a social justice cause that needed support. Maybe they were working for their daughters, their mothers, their spouses, their loved ones, their would-be loved ones or simply felt the pull of eliminating one more roadblock in the quest for a more equitable society.
What has been referred to as the “seed” (although it should more properly be called an “affront”) for the Seneca Falls Convention came in 1840 at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. Two of the would-be participants were Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. Unfortunately, they were not allowed a seat because of their gender. Eight years later five women called for a Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y.
The Seneca Falls Convention was quite an affair and anyone interested in the early days of the women’s rights movement should spend some time examining what took place on July 19 and 20 in 1848. There were two men who played a key role at the Seneca Falls Convention. One was James Mott, Lucretia Mott’s husband. On the first day it was envisioned that men would not even be allowed in the meeting place, but when 40 men appeared it was decided to let them attend. However, they weren’t allowed to participate. On the second day when both men and women would participate, it was viewed as too radical to have a female chairperson. James Mott agreed to fill this role, although sickness almost stopped his participation. Women ran the subsequent women’s rights meetings.
The other key figure was Frederick Douglass. Many abolitionist figures were early supporters of women’s rights. In coming up with a draft for the “Declaration of Sentiments”, the right to vote was a goal that Stanton wanted to include. However, everyone, including Lucretia Mott herself, viewed this as being too radical. Even Stanton’s husband, Henry B. Stanton, a social reformer of high rank, when learning of his wife’s plans stated he would not attend the convention and would leave town. He kept his word.
The person who tipped the balance was Frederick Douglass. He told Elizabeth that if she brought this up for discussion he would support it. Frederick Douglass was not only one of the most powerful, persuasion orators of the 19th century; he is in the top ranks in American history. This plank was the only one that did not have unanimous support from the convention floor, but its final passage was by a by a wide margin (although one account claims it passed by a narrow margin). The Sentiments were eventually signed by 68 women and 32 men, but if not for the efforts of Frederick Douglass, the stated right of women’s suffrage might have needed another day to make it into public discourse.
Gerrit Smith, who was a cousin to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, is another male ally from that era who deserves mention. Smith was one of the most prominent abolitionists and social reformers of his day. The National Liberty Party held its convention in June 1848 in Buffalo and nominated Gerrit Smith as its presidential candidate. Smith convinced the convention that universal suffrage should be one of its planks. There were also five votes for Lucretia Mott to be the vice-presidential candidate, the first time anyone had suggested that a woman run for a federal office.
Susan B. Anthony met Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1851. They became life-long friends and both devoted their entire lives to the cause of suffrage and women’s rights. Daniel Anthony, Susan’s father, was a strong supporter of what became his daughter’s life work. When Susan was a child she was not taught math at a school so Daniel opened his own school where male and female were treated as equals. Daniel also added his name to the Declaration of Sentiments.
Lucy Stone was one of the women who helped bring Susan B. Anthony into the cause for suffrage. Stone was the first woman to obtain a college degree in Massachusetts. Many give her equal credit with Stanton and Anthony for the cause of suffrage and feminism. Stone married Henry Blackwell in 1854, but not after long discussion, often by mail, regarding Stone’s concerns over the loss of rights and identity once vows were exchanged. Blackwell was in full agreement and Lucy Stone even kept her maiden name throughout her life. Here is part of their wedding vows:
“Marriage implied no sanction of, nor promise of voluntary obedience to such of the present laws of marriage as refuse to recognize the wife as an independent, rational being, while they confer upon the husband an injurious and unnatural superiority.”
Blackwell served as an editor for what would become the official newspaper for the National Woman Suffrage Association, the Woman’s Journal. He went on two very strenuous and demanding suffrage tours first with his wife in 1867 and with Susan B. Anthony in 1890 when he was 65.
Francis Minor, a lawyer, was the husband of suffragist Virginia Minor. In 1869 he wrote a pamphlet declaring that the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution passed in 1868 already gave suffrage to women. When his wife tried to vote in 1872 and was refused, he used this argument in his case against the registrar. This eventually went to the Supreme Court. Although the Supreme Court struck down the argument by a unanimous vote, this case did help Susan B. Anthony who had been arrested for attempting to vote in the same year.
The period of 1896 to 1910 has been described as “the doldrums” in the women’s suffrage campaign. Legislation was not moving forward, state referendums were stalled or failed altogether, and there was paralysis in the national organizations. Several women re-energized the movement. Two of these were Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. These two women had been in England where they had gotten involved with the British effort and admired the “militancy” of their tactics. They organized a parade of 5,000 women for the inauguration of President Wilson in March 1913. It created quite a sensation.
“Passing through two walls of antagonistic humanity, the marchers, for the most part, kept their tempers. They suffered insult, and closed their ears to jibes and jeers”. [Baltimore Sun, March 4, 1913]
These tactics would bring publicity and controversy to the suffrage movement, which would be reflected in the Tioga County campaign.
The other woman who was instrumental in jump-starting the campaign was Carrie Chapman Catt, who became leader of the National Woman Suffrage Organization in December 1915. With a personality, experience, and a bull-dog determination that reminded one of Winston Churchill when Britain faced the Germans in the early days of World War II, dominoes began to fall in the walls of opposition. Of substantial assistance was a personal bequest of $2,000,000 that Catt had received from Mrs. Frank Leslie, the wealthy publisher of Leslie’s Weekly.
At long last a vote on what became known as the “Anthony amendment” came on Jan. 10, 1918. It had been first introduced to Congress in 1868 and without any change in wording would be the language of the 19th amendment: “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 sex.” A two-thirds vote was needed to send the amendment to the Senate and the votes didn’t come easy. Here is where four Congressmen showed their mettle on behalf of women.
Thetus W. Sims of Tennessee had a broken arm and shoulder. He was worried that seeing a physician would not allow him to participate in the debate and stayed to cast his vote in spite of excruciating pain. Republican House Leader James Robert Mann of Illinois had been in a Baltimore hospital for six months. He was pale as a ghost and hardly able to stand upright. Henry A. Barnhart of Indiana was brought in on a stretcher for the very last roll call. Frederick C. Hicks of New York fulfilled a promise to his dying wife, an ardent suffragist, to vote for the amendment. He left her deathbed to participate in the vote; when he returned home he attended her funeral. The vote was 274 to 136, exactly the two-thirds majority needed.
The fight in the Senate was even worse. Even with an eloquent plea from President Wilson on Sept. 30, 1918, the two-thirds majority was two votes shy. A vote taken on Feb. 10, 1919, was one vote shy. Finally, on May 20, the 66 votes needed for passage were secured.
Now it was in the hands of the state legislatures and the “virulence of the opposition” was relentless. Since the vote stretched into the summer when most legislatures were out of session, this tactic was often used to basically “abstain” from voting. It all came down to the “border” state of Tennessee, and here the drama took a turn that seems lifted from the script of a Hollywood action-drama.
“Legislators who had expressed favorable sentiments toward women’s suffrage were threatened with the ruin of their business and political careers, some were all but kidnapped, and they were all systematically plied with liquor.” [Century of Struggle. Eleanor Flexnor. 1959]
In spite of the tactics of the anti-suffragist camp, the Tennessee Senate voted 35 to 4. Although this would seem to bode well for the vote in the House, the liquor, railroad and manufacturing lobbies were hard at work. Negrophobia was thrown into the mix of “old moss-worn” arguments against the amendment. The tally came up short by two votes although one legislator came from a hospital to cast his ballot. The opposition proposed a vote to table the measure when suddenly there was a tie. This meant that a vote must be taken and it all came down to Harry Burn, at age 24 the youngest member of the House. He came from a rural district that largely opposed the amendment. However, his mother was a suffragist and sent him a note that included the following advice, “Don’t forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the ‘Rat’ in Ratification.” The House vote was 49 to 47; the 19th amendment was now part of the US Constitution.
The only person still alive from the people who signed the Declaration of Sentiments was Charlotte Woodard Pierce. However, when Election Day 1920 came around she was too ill to leave her home and never cast a ballot.
Addenda
Making a list of all the disturbing political news and political happenings from the last two years would fill several volumes. Just limiting it to the women’s issues and the treatment that women have received would be substantial enough. Two incidents do seem to stand out in my mind. One involves Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts back in February, when she attempted to read a letter written by Coretta Scott King regarding her opinion of Jeffery Sessions for Attorney General. Senator McConnell shut her down using the excuse that she had violated Senate Rule XIX that there should be no testimony that is demeaning to another Senator. McConnell’s “Nevertheless she persisted” quote got passed around a few million times. So where does one draw the line between criticism and demeaning remarks?
In June of this year Senator Kamala Harris of California had an aggravating exchange both with newly appointed Attorney General Jeffery Sessions and Rod Rosenstein Deputy Attorney General. Both men were doing word dances with their answers. Harris kept jumping in for some specifics when Senator John McCain jumped in to chastise Harris’ exchange. If Elizabeth’s name had been Edward and Kamala’s name had been Cody, would the same reactions have happened on the part of McConnell and McCain? Who knows.
As a measure of how much “progress” we have made, the early years of Congressional hearings should be studied. Ten years after the “Anthony amendment” was introduced to Congress, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a “galaxy of women’s best speakers” appeared before the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections. This was how Stanton described her time before the Committee:
“In the whole course of our struggle for equal rights, I never felt more exasperated than on this occasion, standing before a committee of men many years my junior, all comfortably seated in armchairs. The peculiarly aggravating feature of the present occasion was the studied inattention and contempt of the chairman, Senator Wadleigh of New Hampshire. He alternately looked over some manuscripts and newspapers before him, and jumped up to open or close a door or a window. He stretched, yawned, gazed at the ceiling, cut his nails, sharpened his pencil, changing his occupation and position every two minutes, effectively preventing the establishing of the faintest magnetic current between the speakers and the committee. It was with difficulty that I restrained the impulse more than once to hurl my manuscript at his head.”
As you might imagine, the Committee’s report was unfavorable. Long live The Revolution. [The Revolution was a women’s weekly newspaper launched in 1868 through the efforts of two other male allies, George Francis Train and David Melliss. Although it had a brief lifespan it made a significant impact on publicizing the cause of women’s rights. Its motto was “Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less!”]
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