: Carrie Chapman Catt, Nettie Rogers Shuler, Mary Sumner Boyd, Henry Wade Rogers
: The Inner Story of the Suffrage Movement Woman Suffrage and Politics, Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment
: Madison& Adams Press
: 9788026884958
: 1
: CHF 1.80
:
: Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung
: English
: 417
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
Throughout the suffrage struggle, America's history, principles and traditions stood forth to indicate the inevitability of woman suffrage, to suggest that it would normally be the first country in the world to give the vote to women. Yet the years went by, decade followed decade, and twenty-sixother countries gave the vote to their women while America delayed. Why the delay? It is a question that was the despair of two generations of American women. It is a question that students of history and national psychology will ponder through generations to come. We think that we have the answer. It was, not an antagonistic public sentiment, nor yet an uneducated or indifferent public sentiment-it was the control of public sentiment, the deflecting and the thwarting of public sentiment, through the trading and the trickery, the buying and the selling of American politics. We think that we can prove it. Suffragists consider that they have a case against certain combines of interests that systematically fought suffrage with politics and effectively delayed suffrage for years. We think that we can make that case. We find it difficult to concede to the general opinion that, because of the tendency to overestimate the importance of events with which they are most familiar, those who have been a part of a movement are disqualified to write its history. We are sure that history would be worthless if it took no account of the observations made within a movement by those who have been a part of it. That is why we, who have had an opportunity to become acquainted with facts which throw light upon the political aspects of the woman suffrage question, feel impelled to pass our knowledge on to others.

THE AVERTED TRIUMPH 1848-1860


It was not until 1848 that the compact, made in 1840 by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, to call a woman's rights convention was carried out. Mrs. Mott was occupied with religious and reform obligations, Mrs. Stanton with a family of young children. The project was revived while Mrs. Mott was visiting her sister, Martha C. Wright, in Seneca Falls, New York, where Mrs. Stanton also had become a resident. Action followed so shortly upon the decision to call a convention that the news had not spread through the neighborhood when an astonished public read a notice in the town paper on July 14 that a Woman's Rights Convention would be held in the Wesleyan Chapel on the 19th and 20th of the month. The program of the first day as announced was to be exclusively for women, and of the second day for the general public, when “Lucretia Mott and others” would speak. The call was unsigned.

The five days intervening were busy ones for the four sponsors, Mrs. Lucretia Mott, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mrs. Ann McClintock and Mrs. Martha C. Wright. Having called the convention, they set themselves at work to compose a program and policy for it. In the McClintock parlor, around a small table now in the Smithsonian Institution, they discussed women's wrongs and how to lay them before the world in orderly fashion, until finally they hit upon the happy idea of framing their grievances against the nation in imitation of the Declaration of Independence. Finding as many grievances against the government of men as the Colonists had against the government of King George, they promptly drew up the Declaration of Women's Rights. Fortified by this document and four speeches, for each of the four had prepared one, they were on hand at the appointed hour.

Although the hurried and timid call had not been heard far away, the small Chapel was filled. At first the women were disconcerted to find that men had not taken their exclusion seriously and were present in considerable numbers, but when they reflected that no woman had ever presided over a convention they welcomed the men cordially and elected one of them, James Mott, chairman. The Declaration was adopted. It named as the first of the grievances, “the denial of the elective franchise,” and it was signed by one hundred men and women. So inadequate did the two days prove for the discussion of a subject so extensive that the convention adjourned to meet in Rochester two weeks later. There the Declaration was again adopted and signed by large numbers of influential men and women.

These two conventions had in no sense been national in scope but newspapers throughout the country regarded them as an innovation worthy of comment and full press accounts were carried far and wide. Preceding events had prepared the country for controversy centered upon the subject of woman's rights apart from the anti-slavery and temperance causes, and a widespread discussion for and against the long list of liberties claimed was inaugurated by the two conventions.

Never in all history did so small a beginning produce so great an effect in so short a time.

Emily P. Collins immediately formed a local suffrage society at South Bristol, New York, the first in the world, and the baby club, wasting no time, sent a woman suffrage petition to the New York Legislature in January, 1849, with sixty-two signatures. Encouraged by the knowledge that other women were rising, organized groups sprang into being in all parts of the country with no other incentive than the ripeness of the time, and no other connection with the original movers than the announcements of the press.

Meantime year by year, and State by State, the legal disabilities of women had been seriously debated. Between 1844 and 1848 the Legislatures of Maine, Mississippi, New York and Pennsylvania, in the order named, granted property rights to women. The right to make a will had been granted in some States.

In the educational realm the graduation of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell from the Geneva Medical College made a tremendous sign-post for the year 1848. Public hostility to her course may be measured by the fact that the women at her boarding house refused to speak to her during her three years of study; on the streets they drew aside their skirts if they chanced to meet her, lest they be contaminated by contact. The controversy created by the events of the year was excited and widespread. Clergymen were alarmed and very generally denounced the “masculine, strong-minded women” who we