ASSIGNMENT #1 – WORD PROCESSING
As women marched for the vote, men reacted first with scorn, then alarm. Women suffrage is the right of women to vote. Today, women in all countries have the same voting rights as men. Men and women who suported the drive for woman suffrage were call suffragists.
During colonial times, the right to vot was limited to adult males who owned property. Many people thought property owners had the strongest interest in sound government and so were best qualified to make decisions. Some colonies gave the vote to widows who owned property. After the United States became an independent nation, the Constitution gave the states the right to decide who could vote. One by one, the states abolished property requirements and, by 1830, all white male adults could vote. Only New York gave womn the right to vote, but in 1810, that state also limited voting rights to men.
Changing conditions for women in the early 1800’s, combined with the idea of equality, led to the birth of the woman suffrage movement. Opponents of woman suffrage believed women were less smart and less able to make political decisions than men. They argued that men could represent their wives better than the wives could represent themselves. Some peple were afraid that women’s participation in politics would lead to the end of family life.
In the 1900’s Americans where strong in their feelings regarding women’s place in society. It was felt that women should be home tending their children and they had no place in a voting booth. President Grover Cleveland smugly stated that “Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote”. He also stated that God himself had worked out a social and political hierarchy with men on top. It was amazing that many women dutifully agreed. Only four states gave ballot privileges to femals: Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Ohio, and Utah.
The rule women played was rapidly changing in the 1900’s. As many as 700,500 young women had left their family kitchens to work as teachers, clerks, or office assistance. Many women’s colleges were graduating young ladies, women ran businesses, drove cars and became involved in sports. Even with these advances and changes in society, many states denied married women the right to own property. In New York City, women could be arrested for smoking in public. Women believed that they could get changes changes made that would increase women’s rights by acquiring the right to vote. Over 500,000 spectators cheered over 15,000 women and male supporters on as they marched down Fifth Avenue In New York in May of 1912. After WWI, it was obvious to everyone that the 19th Amendment was just around the corner.
A woman suffrage amendment was first introduced in Congress in 1878. It failed to pass but was reintroduced in every session of Congress for the next 40 years. During World War I, the contributions of women to the war effort increased support for a suffrage amendment. In 1918, the House of Representatives held another vote on the issue. Spectators packed the room, and several congressmen came to vote despite illness. One congressman was brought on a stretcher. Representative Frederick C. Hicks of New York left his wife’s deathbed – at her request – to vote for the amendment. The House approved the amendment, but the Senate defeated it. In 1920, the Senate finally passed the amendment and sent it to the states for approval. In 1920 the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. The amendment says, “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.”
Women suffrage existed in three forms before it became law in the United States in 1920 – voting in all elections, voting only in presidential elections, or voting only in primary elections. Two of the most prominent leaders of women suffrage include Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton. Susan B. Anthony was from a Quaker family who believed in the equality of men and women. Through her temperance work, Anthony became increasingly aware that women did not have the same rights as men. Anthony soon became close friends with Elizabeth Stanton and devoted herself completely to women’s rights. They supported dress reform, equal education opportunities and property rights for women.
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Anthony served as president to the National Woman Suffrage Association from 1892 until 1900. She died in 1906, 14 years before the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution became and gave women the right to vote. She is the first woman to be pictured on a U.S. coin in general circulation.