Minnie Bronson | |
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 Photograph of Minnie Bronson in the catalogue of the Jamestown Exhibition 1907 | |
| Born | |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation(s) | Educator, labor investigator, exposition organizer |
| Known for | Anti-suffrage activism |
Minnie Bronson (September 12, 1863, New York - October 28, 1927 Cattaraugus County, New York) was an American anti-suffragist activist who was general secretary of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. [1] [2]
Minnie Bronson was from Fayette, Iowa. [3] Her father, Harvey S. Brunson, came from Ohio and worked as a minister, a hotel operator, and a director of Upper Iowa University. Her mother, Jane McCool, was originally from Illinois. Bronson was the youngest of five siblings. [4]
Bronson graduated from Upper Iowa University with an A.B. and M.A. [5] During her time in university she participated in several oratorical contests; one of her competitions was attended by social reformer Jane Addams, who would comment on the performance in her autobiography. [6] [7]
Bronson worked as a high school mathematics teacher in St. Paul, Minnesota from 1889 to 1899. Beginning in 1900, she led the design of educational exhibits at world's fair expositions including Paris (1900), the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo (1901), St. Louis (1904), Liège (1905), Jamestown, Virginia (1907), and Seattle (1909). [5] She also held a number of short-term assignments working for the U.S. government, including as a Special Agent for the Bureau of Labor investigating labor conditions for women and children from 1907 to 1909 and Special Agent reporting on the New York shirtwaist strike in 1910. [5]
During World War I, Bronson was a member of the American Committee for Devastated France and traveled throughout France. She presented about the organization's work to the Iowa Bankers Association convention in 1919. [8] [9]
Bronson served as General Secretary for the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS), the United States' leading anti-suffrage organization based in New York City. [10] She edited their weekly periodical, the Woman Patriot, that distributed anti-suffrage opinion across the country. [11] In December 1913, Bronson addressed the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Woman Suffrage representing the "anti" perspective, alongside speeches given by prominent suffragists Anna Howard Shaw, Helen H. Gardener, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Ida H. Harper. [12]
A skilled orator and organizer, Bronson was active in speaking tours and debates in New York and other states throughout the U.S., together with Josephine Jewell Dodge, the president of NAOWS. Her campaigning took her across the country including California, Nevada, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Washington D.C., and Virginia. [2] [13] She also organized training classes to teach others how to dissect pro-suffrage arguments. [14] With her background as a wage-earning woman - in contrast to many prominent anti-suffragists of the period, who came from wealthy families - Bronson was able to promote her connection with the working class in her public speaking and writing. [15] Her events were often well-attended, though sometimes attracted significant attention and criticism from her pro-suffrage opponents. During a visit to Nevada in 1914, Bronson was escorted from the theatre where she had been speaking and, according to local news reports, "agitators" set the building on fire. [16]
In her speeches and reports, Bronson maintained that granting the vote to women would not have a positive impact on improving women's social and economic circumstances. [17] A frequently-referenced line of argument held that opening up the vote to all women would dilute the influence of educated and reform-minded women who were better positioned to affect the political change she desired. Before an audience of 150 women in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Bronson was reported to have said: "In attaining the ballot, we believe that the best women would throw away the advantage which is now in their hands. In shaping public opinion, the intelligent and good woman now counts immeasurably, while the ignorant and vicious woman counts scarely at nil. But at the ballot box, both would be equal." [18]
Bronson, together with Massachusetts anti-suffragist Alice George, created a recording of the song "The Anti-Suffrage Rose" featured at the New York State Fair. [19]
Carrie Chapman Catt was an American women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave U.S. women the right to vote in 1920. Catt served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1900 to 1904 and 1915 to 1920. She founded the League of Women Voters in 1920 and the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in 1904, which was later named International Alliance of Women. She "led an army of voteless women in 1919 to pressure Congress to pass the constitutional amendment giving them the right to vote and convinced state legislatures to ratify it in 1920". She "was one of the best-known women in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century and was on all lists of famous American women."
Women's suffrage, or the right to vote, was established in the United States over the course of more than half a century, first in various states and localities, sometimes on a limited basis, and then nationally in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Anti-suffragism was a political movement composed of both men and women that began in the late 19th century in order to campaign against women's suffrage in countries such as Australia, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States. To some extent, Anti-suffragism was a Classical Conservative movement that sought to keep the status quo for women. More American women organized against their own right to vote than in favor of it, until 1916. Anti-suffragism was associated with "domestic feminism," the belief that women had the right to complete freedom within the home. In the United States, these activists were often referred to as "remonstrants" or "antis."
Caroline Maria Seymour Severance (1820–1914) was an American abolitionist, suffragist, and founder of women's clubs.
This timeline highlights milestones in women's suffrage in the United States, particularly the right of women to vote in elections at federal and state levels.
Ida Sedgwick Proper was an American suffragist, writer and artist. She was an art editor for The Woman Voter. Proper has work in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian, and the Des Moines Art Center.
The National Association Opposed to Women Suffrage (NAOWS) was founded in the United States by women opposed to the suffrage movement in 1911. It was the most popular anti-suffrage organization in northeastern cities. NAOWS had influential local chapters in many states, including Texas and Virginia.
Women's suffrage was granted in Virginia in 1920, with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The General Assembly, Virginia's governing legislative body, did not ratify the Nineteenth Amendment until 1952. The argument for women's suffrage in Virginia began in 1870, but it did not gain traction until 1909 with the founding of the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia. Between 1912 and 1916, Virginia's suffragists would bring the issue of women's voting rights to the floor of the General Assembly three times, petitioning for an amendment to the state constitution giving women the right to vote; they were defeated each time. During this period, the Equal Suffrage League of Virginia and its fellow Virginia suffragists fought against a strong anti-suffragist movement that tapped into conservative, post-Civil War values on the role of women, as well as racial fears. After achieving suffrage in August 1920, over 13,000 women registered within one month to vote for the first time in the 1920 United States presidential election.
The women's suffrage movement began in California in the 19th century and was successful with the passage of Proposition 4 on October 10, 1911. Many of the women and men involved in this movement remained politically active in the national suffrage movement with organizations such as the National American Women's Suffrage Association and the National Woman's Party.
Women's suffrage efforts in Texas began in 1868 at the first Texas Constitutional Convention. In both Constitutional Conventions and subsequent legislative sessions, efforts to provide women the right to vote were introduced, only to be defeated. Early Texas suffragists such as Martha Goodwin Tunstall and Mariana Thompson Folsom worked with national suffrage groups in the 1870s and 1880s. It wasn't until 1893 and the creation of the Texas Equal Rights Association (TERA) by Rebecca Henry Hayes of Galveston that Texas had a statewide women's suffrage organization. Members of TERA lobbied politicians and political party conventions on women's suffrage. Due to an eventual lack of interest and funding, TERA was inactive by 1898. In 1903, women's suffrage organizing was revived by Annette Finnigan and her sisters. These women created the Texas Equal Suffrage Association (TESA) in Houston in 1903. TESA sponsored women's suffrage speakers and testified on women's suffrage in front of the Texas Legislature. In 1908 and 1912, speaking tours by Anna Howard Shaw helped further renew interest in women's suffrage in Texas. TESA grew in size and suffragists organized more public events, including Suffrage Day at the Texas State Fair. By 1915, more and more women in Texas were supporting women's suffrage. The Texas Federation of Women's Clubs officially supported women's suffrage in 1915. Also that year, anti-suffrage opponents started to speak out against women's suffrage and in 1916, organized the Texas Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (TAOWS). TESA, under the political leadership of Minnie Fisher Cunningham and with the support of Governor William P. Hobby, suffragists began to make further gains in achieving their goals. In 1918, women achieved the right to vote in Texas primary elections. During the registration drive, 386,000 Texas women signed up during a 17-day period. An attempt to modify the Texas Constitution by voter referendum failed in May 1919, but in June 1919, the United States Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment. Texas became the ninth state and the first Southern state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment on June 28, 1919. This allowed white women to vote, but African American women still had trouble voting, with many turned away, depending on their communities. In 1923, Texas created white primaries, excluding all Black people from voting in the primary elections. The white primaries were overturned in 1944 and in 1964, Texas's poll tax was abolished. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed, promising that all people in Texas had the right to vote, regardless of race or gender.
Mary Hutcheson Page was an American Suffragist from Brookline, Massachusetts. She was a member and leader of suffrage organizations at both the state and national levels, wrote on the subject of suffrage for a variety of publications. She worked with other American suffragists Carrie Chapman Catt and Susan B. Anthony.
The Men's League, made up of groups known variously as the Men's Equal Suffrage League, Men's League for Woman Suffrage, or National Men's League for Woman Suffrage, was an American men's women's suffrage organization formed by several suffragists in New York. The group was based on the idea of the British Men's League for Woman Suffrage. In the early 1900s, Oswald Garrison Villard and Anna Howard Shaw were in contact with one another regarding the creation of a group of prominent men to support women's suffrage efforts. Villard recruited Max Eastman and Stephen S. Wise to help with the project. Later, James Lees Laidlaw became the president and helped spread the concept of the group around the United States. Some colleges, like Harvard University and Swarthmore College, also had their own Men's League groups.
The first women's suffrage group in Georgia, the Georgia Woman Suffrage Association (GWSA), was formed in 1892 by Helen Augusta Howard. Over time, the group, which focused on "taxation without representation" grew and earned the support of both men and women. Howard convinced the National American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA) to hold their first convention outside of Washington, D.C., in 1895. The convention, held in Atlanta, was the first large women's rights gathering in the Southern United States. GWSA continued to hold conventions and raise awareness over the next years. Suffragists in Georgia agitated for suffrage amendments, for political parties to support white women's suffrage and for municipal suffrage. In the 1910s, more organizations were formed in Georgia and the number of suffragists grew. In addition, the Georgia Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage also formed an organized anti-suffrage campaign. Suffragists participated in parades, supported bills in the legislature and helped in the war effort during World War I. In 1917 and 1919, women earned the right to vote in primary elections in Waycross, Georgia and in Atlanta respectively. In 1919, after the Nineteenth Amendment went out to the states for ratification, Georgia became the first state to reject the amendment. When the Nineteenth Amendment became the law of the land, women still had to wait to vote because of rules regarding voter registration. White Georgia women would vote statewide in 1922. Native American women and African-American women had to wait longer to vote. Black women were actively excluded from the women's suffrage movement in the state and had their own organizations. Despite their work to vote, Black women faced discrimination at the polls in many different forms. Georgia finally ratified the Nineteenth Amendment on February 20, 1970.
This is a timeline of women's suffrage in Pennsylvania. Activists in the state began working towards women's rights in the early 1850s, when two women's rights conventions discussed women's suffrage. A statewide group, the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association (PWSA), was formed in 1869. Other regional groups were formed throughout the state over the years. Suffragists in Pittsburgh created the "Pittsburgh Plan" in 1911. In 1915, a campaign to influence voters to support women's suffrage on the November 2 referendum took place. Despite these efforts, the referendum failed. On June 24, 1919, Pennsylvania became the seventh state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment. Pennsylvania women voted for the first time on November 2, 1920.
The women's suffrage movement in Pennsylvania was an outgrowth of the abolitionist movement in the state. Early women's suffrage advocates in Pennsylvania wanted equal suffrage not only for white women but for all African Americans. The first women's rights convention in the state was organized by Quakers and held in Chester County in 1852. Philadelphia would host the fifth National Women's Rights Convention in 1854. Later years saw suffragists forming a statewide group, the Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association (PWSA), and other smaller groups throughout the state. Early efforts moved slowly, but steadily, with suffragists raising awareness and winning endorsements from labor unions.
Women's suffrage started in South Dakota when it was part of Dakota Territory. Prior to 1889, it had a shared history of women's suffrage with North Dakota. While South Dakota was part of the territory, women earned the right to vote on school related issues. They retained this right after it became a separate state. The state constitution specified that there would be a women's suffrage amendment referendum in 1890. Despite a large campaign that included Susan B. Anthony and a state suffrage group, the South Dakota Equal Suffrage Association (SDESA), the referendum failed. The state legislature passed additional suffrage referendums over the years, but each was voted down until 1918. South Dakota was an early ratifier of the Nineteenth Amendment, which was approved during a special midnight legislative session on December 4, 1919.
This is a timeline of women's suffrage in South Dakota. The early history of women's suffrage in the state is shared with North Dakota. When South Dakota became a state, it held a voter referendum in 1890 on an equal suffrage amendment. This effort failed, but suffragists continued to organize and lobby the legislature to pass voter referendums. None passed until 1918. South Dakota ratified the Nineteenth Amendment on December 4, 1919.
Suffrage was available to most women and African Americans in New Jersey immediately upon the formation of the state. The first New Jersey state constitution allowed any person who owned a certain value of property to become a voter. In 1790, the state constitution was changed to specify that voters were "he or she". Politicians seeking office deliberately courted women voters who often decided narrow elections. This was so the democratic-republican party had an advantage in the presidential election of 1808.
Mary Kilbreth was an American anti-suffragist and an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She became president of the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) in 1919.
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