Alice Paul, the suffrage Movement, & the Passage of the 19th Amendment
Alice Paul
Head of the National Woman's party that campaigned for an equal rights amendment to the Constitution. She opposed legislation protecting women workers because such laws implied women's inferiority. Most condemned her way of thinking.
Alice Paul & Woodrow Wilson
Instead of supporting his election, the day before his inauguration, Paul held a huge women's suffrage march to take away from his publicity.
Laura Clay and Kate Gordon
Members of NAWSA who switched over to anti-suffrage after the movement shifted towards a national amendment. Did not approve of black women voting.
Abolition
Movement to end slavery. This movement was also the beginning of the women's suffrage movement.
What changed Woodrow Wilson's mind on suffrage?
NAWSAs dedication to the war effort led by Carrie Catt.
NAWSA
National American Woman Suffrage Association; founded in 1890 to help women win the right to vote by winning over states before the federal government.
NWP
National Women's Party; founded by Alice Paul to fight for women's suffrage through more radical means: picketing and demonstrating for a national (constitutional) amendment.
American Constitutional League
Organization of lawyers dedicated to fighting against suffrage
Alice Paul & NAWSA
Paul began with NAWSA by serving as the head of the congressional committee. She later left NAWSA in 1914.
Alice Paul & WW1
Paul refused to support American involvement in the war. How could the US "protect democracy" when women could not even vote at home?
Congressional Union
Radical organization led by Alice Paul which campaigned for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women's suffrage. Later renamed the National Women's Party
14th Amendment strategy
Susan B. Anthony originally tried to argue for women's suffrage through the 14th Amendment' Equal Protection clause.
Susan B. Anthony Amendment
This term refers to the 19th Amendment to the US Consitution, which gave women the right to vote. This term honors one of the women who worked hard to get suffrage (the right to vote) for women.
1848
Year of the Seneca Falls Convention: first women's rights convention held in US
Carrie Chapman Catt/NAWSA & WW1
unlike Alice Paul, Catt & NAWSA chose to abandon suffrage fight to support the US in the war.
Woodrow Wilson & suffrage
For the majority of his time in office, believed that the states should decide whether or not to adopt women's suffrage, and not a constitutional amendment.
The 19th amendment reads...
"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."
Carrie Chapman Catt
(1859-1947) A suffragette who was president of the National Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Instrumental in obtaining passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
Reasons given for opposing suffrage:
- undo protective labor laws for women - giving women the right to vote would also give black women the right to vote - women were not intellectually equal to men - men were already voting with women in mind
1st Women's Rights Convention
1848 Seneca Falls, NY
National Women's Party
A militant feminist group led by Alice Paul that argued the Nineteenth Amendment was not adequate enough to protect women's rights. They believed they needed a more constitutional amendment that would clearly provide legal protection of their rights and prohibit sex-based discrimination.
Great Britain, New Zealand, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Denmark
All had women's suffrage before the US
Susan B. Anthony
An American social reformer and feminist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. First tested the laws of the country in 1872 when she went to her local polling place and cast a ballot (a test!).
Temperance Movement
An organized campaign to eliminate alcohol consumption, also related to some members of the suffrage movement.
