National Woman Suffrage Association

Last updated
National Woman Suffrage Association
AbbreviationNWSA
SuccessorNational American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
Formation1869
Dissolved1890
Key people
Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was formed on May 15, 1869, to work for women's suffrage in the United States. Its main leaders were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. It was created after the women's rights movement split over the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, which would in effect extend voting rights to black men. One wing of the movement supported the amendment while the other, the wing that formed the NWSA, opposed it, insisting that voting rights be extended to all women and all African Americans at the same time.

Contents

The NWSA worked primarily at the federal level in its campaign for women's right to vote. In the early 1870s, it encouraged women to attempt to vote and to file lawsuits if prevented, arguing that the constitution implicitly enfranchised women through its guarantees of equal protection for all citizens. Many women attempted to vote, notably Susan B. Anthony, who was arrested and found guilty in a widely publicized trial. After the Supreme Court ruled that the constitution did not implicitly enfranchise women, the NWSA worked for an amendment that would do so explicitly.

The NWSA and its leaders also worked on related projects, such as a history of the women's suffrage movement and the establishment of the International Council of Women, which is still active. The split in the suffrage movement was healed in 1890, when the NWSA merged with its rival, the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association under the leadership of Anthony and Stanton.

Background

Women's suffrage in the U.S. emerged as a significant issue in the mid-1800s. A key event was the first women's rights convention, the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, which was initiated by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. [1] Women's right to vote was endorsed at the convention only after a vigorous debate about an idea that was controversial even within the women's movement. Soon after the convention, however, it became a central tenet of the movement. [2]

In 1851, Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed a decades-long partnership that became important to the women's rights movement and to the future National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). For the next several years, they worked together for the abolition of slavery and for women's rights.

In 1866, Anthony and Stanton organized the Eleventh National Women's Rights Convention, the first since the Civil War began. [3] The convention voted to transform itself into the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), whose purpose was to campaign for the equal rights of all citizens, especially the right of suffrage. [4] Its members consisted mainly of activists in the women's rights and abolitionist movements, and its leadership included such prominent activists as Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone and Frederick Douglass.

Over time, the AERA members whose primary interest was women's suffrage began to divide into two wings. One wing, whose leading figure was Lucy Stone, was willing for black men to achieve suffrage first, as the abolitionist movement insisted, and wanted to maintain close ties with the Republican Party. The other, whose leading figures were Stanton and Anthony, wanted women and black men be enfranchised at the same time and worked toward a politically independent women's movement that would no longer be dependent on abolitionists for financial and other resources. [5] In 1868, Anthony and Stanton began publishing The Revolution , a weekly women's rights newspaper in New York City that became an important tool for supporting their wing of the movement.

The dispute became increasingly bitter after the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was introduced, which would in effect enfranchise black men by prohibiting the denial of suffrage because of race. Lucy Stone supported the amendment even though she argued that suffrage for women would be more beneficial to the country than suffrage for black men. [6] Stanton and Anthony opposed it, insisting that all women and all African Americans should be enfranchised at the same time. Stanton argued that by enfranchising almost all men while excluding all women, the amendment would give constitutional authority to the belief that men were superior to women, creating an "aristocracy of sex". [7]

During the debate, Stanton wrote articles for The Revolution with language that was sometimes elitist and racially condescending. [8] According to Cheris Kramarae and Lana Raknow, Stanton distinguished between " 'colorophobia' " and her own belief in the "evolutionary development of the human 'race.' Stanton, for example, sometimes referred to the 'lower orders of mankind', an indication of her belief that education and 'civilization' were needed to bring groups of people (particularly American Blacks and white working-class immigrants) out of barbarism and to the pinnacle of development...to admit Black men to enfranchisement was to admit them into 'manhood', making ever more difficult the task of redefining citizenship...for women." [9] She also presumed that all "lower orders" promoted "low ideas of womanhood." Stanton wrote, "American women of wealth, education, virtue and refinement, if you do not wish the lower orders of Chinese, Africans, Germans and Irish, with their low ideas of womanhood to make laws for you and your daughters, to be your rulers, judges, and jurors---to dictate not only the civil, but moral codes by which you shall be governed, awake to the dangers of your present position, and demand, too, that women too shall be represented in government!" [10]

These beliefs and contentions corresponded with her published comments from inaugural issues of The Revolution. In 1868, for instance, she argued that "there is only one safe, sure way to build a government, and that is on the equality of all its citizens, male and female, black and white...Just so if woman finds it hard to bear the oppressive laws of a few Saxon Fathers, of the best orders of manhood, what may she not be called to endure when all the lower orders, natives and foreigners, Dutch, Irish, Chinese and African, legislate for her and her daughters?" [11] Ellen DuBois referred to this particularly litany of "lower orders" as "betraying her underlying elitism", [12] whereas Sue Davis renounced her question as one in a series that "included racist and nativist comments." [13] Stanton added that U.S. Senators "degrade" women "in their political status, below unwashed and unlettered ditch-diggers, boot-blacks, hostlers, butchers, and barbers." Stanton then objected to laws being made for women by "Patrick and Sambo and Hans and Yung Tung who do not know the difference between a Monarchy and a Republic, and who never read the Declaration of Independence or Webster's spelling book." [14]

Formation of the National Woman Suffrage Association

The AERA essentially collapsed after an acrimonious convention in 1869, and two rival women's suffrage organizations were created in its wake. The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was created on May 15, 1869, two days after what turned out to be the AERA's last convention, with Anthony and Stanton as its primary leaders. [15] The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was formed in November 1869, with Lucy Stone as its primary leader. The AWSA was initially larger and better funded, [16] but Stanton and Anthony were more widely known as leaders of the women's suffrage movement and were more influential in setting its direction. [17]

Constitution and officers of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1876 Constitution and officers of the National Woman Suffrage Association-1876.jpg
Constitution and officers of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1876

Membership of the NWSA came partly from activists in organizations that Anthony and Stanton had created. One of those was the Women's Loyal National League, whose 5000 members had by 1864 completed a petition drive, the largest in the nation's history, in support of an amendment to abolish slavery. [18] [19] Another was the Working Women's Association, which began as an organization of wage-earning women but evolved into one consisting almost entirely of journalists, doctors and other middle-class working women. Its members formed the core of the New York City segment of the NWSA, where the NWSA was headquartered. [20]

Comparison to AWSA

Even after the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in 1870, some important differences remained between the two organizations, and others emerged over time.

The NWSA worked mostly at the federal level, focusing on a constitutional amendment to achieve women's suffrage, while the AWSA worked toward the same goal mostly at the state level. The NWSA's meetings were open to everyone, but the AWSA allowed only delegates from recognized state organizations to vote at its meetings, although any member could attend and speak. The NWSA initially dealt with several women's issues, such as divorce reform and equal pay for women, while the AWSA focused almost exclusively on suffrage. The AWSA's membership included both women and men, and its first president was a man, Henry Ward Beecher. [21] Stanton had originally proposed that the NWSA's membership be limited to women, but her proposal was not accepted. In practice, however, the overwhelming majority of the NWSA members and officers were women. [22] The NWSA held its conventions in Washington in accordance with its strategy of working primarily at the federal level, while the AWSA, working mainly at the state level, met in various cities across the country. [23]

The author of a study of African American women in the suffrage movement lists nine who participated in the AWSA during the 1870s and six who participated in the NWSA. [24] Stanton, a NWSA leader, "moved to sever the women's rights movement from its earlier moorings in the antislavery tradition." She periodically "appealed to racial and ethnic prejudices, arguing that native-born white women deserved the vote more than non-whites and immigrants." [25] Lee Boomer and New-York Historical Society educators noted that "while the NWSA did not prohibit Black women from joining at the national level, local [NWSA] organizations could reject their participation." [26]

Early years

Many suffragists were appalled by the split and insisted on reunification. Theodore Tilton, a newspaper editor and women's rights advocate, initiated a petition drive calling for an end to the split. In April 1870, he convened a meeting of members of both organizations in an attempt to merge the two groups. Anthony opposed the idea of merger, as did her rival Lucy Stone. The NWSA sent three official representatives to the meeting who reported that their organization would agree to a merger only if the new organization agreed to work toward a Sixteenth Amendment to enfranchise women. Lucy Stone and two other AWSA members who were present as unofficial representatives of their organization left the meeting at that point. Those remaining, including some non-affiliated activists, formed a new organization, the Union Woman Suffrage Association (UWSA) with Tilton as president and a Sixteenth Amendment as its central goal. Soon afterward, the executive committee of the moribund AERA met and voted, over Stone's objection, to merge into the UWSA. The next month, the NWSA itself merged into the UWSA, which essentially became the NWSA under a new name. [27]

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony about 1870 Napoleon Sarony - Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony - Google Art Project-cropped.jpg
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony about 1870

In May 1870, Anthony was forced to sell The Revolution because of mounting debts, thereby losing the NWSA's primary media voice. The NWSA afterwards depended on smaller periodicals, such as The National Citizen and Ballot Box, edited by Matilda Joslyn Gage, and The Woman's Tribune , edited by Clara Bewick Colby, to represent its viewpoint. [28]

The NWSA benefited from the extensive lecture tours that Stanton and Anthony undertook, which brought new recruits into the organization and strengthened it at the local, state and national levels. Their journeys during that period covered a distance that was unmatched by any other reformer or politician. [29] From 1869 to 1879, Stanton traveled eight months of the year on the lecture circuit, usually delivering one lecture per day, two on Sundays. [30] In one year alone, Anthony traveled 13,000 miles and gave at least 170 lectures. [31]

The NWSA did not have a national office, its mailing address being simply that of one of the officers. [32] Anthony and Stanton did not receive a salary from the organization, supporting themselves with the money they earned by lecturing. In Anthony's case, the money flowed the other way, with her lecture fees helping to fund the organization after she had paid The Revolution's debts. [33]

The fact that Anthony was unmarried gave her a legal advantage in building the organization. A married woman at that time had the legal status of feme covert, which, among other things, excluded her from signing contracts (she had to convince her husband to sign for her). As Anthony had no husband, she had the legal status of a feme sole, enabling her to sign contracts for convention halls and printed materials. [34]

New Departure

In 1869, Virginia Minor, a member of the NWSA, [35] and her husband Francis developed the idea that achieving women's suffrage did not require a Sixteenth Amendment. Their approach, which became known as the New Departure, was based on the belief that women were already implicitly enfranchised by the U.S. Constitution. [36] Their strategy relied heavily on the Fourteenth Amendment, which says, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States … nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Victoria Woodhull speaking before the House Judiciary Committee. Stanton, with white curls, is sitting directly behind her. Victoria Woodhull speaking before a congressional committee in 1871.jpg
Victoria Woodhull speaking before the House Judiciary Committee. Stanton, with white curls, is sitting directly behind her.

In January 1871, the UWSA delayed the opening session of its annual convention in Washington so its members could hear the historic address to the House Judiciary Committee by Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to speak before a Congressional body. A stockbroker with wealthy backers but little previous connection to the women's movement, she presented a modified version of the New Departure strategy. Instead of asking the courts to rule that the Constitution implicitly enfranchised women, she asked Congress to pass a declaratory act to accomplish the same goal. The committee did not accept her proposal. [37] Woodhull was invited to give the same speech to the UWSA's afternoon session and was greeted there with enthusiasm. [38]

Woodhull's reputation as a women's suffrage leader continued to rise afterwards. Both Stanton and Anthony eagerly supported her at first, although Anthony became increasingly wary of her. At the UWSA's 1872 convention, Woodhull attempted to commandeer the organization, urging its delegates to meet the next day in a different hall to form a new political party with herself as its candidate for president of the United States. In the chaotic situation that followed, Anthony shouted that the UWSA would meet the next day as usual and abruptly adjourned the session. The UWSA did meet the next day as planned, although with fewer participants because most of them had gone to the Woodhull event instead. The UWSA voted to transform itself at this meeting into a reconstituted NWSA with Anthony as president. [39]

Later that year, Woodhull published details of an affair between Elizabeth Tilton, wife of Theodore Tilton, a prominent NWSA ally, and Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, the first president of the AWSA, seriously damaging the reputation of the entire women's movement. [39] Woodhull did not play a significant role in the women's suffrage movement afterwards.

Anthony's diary for January 1, 1872, noting her arduous traveling and speaking schedule during the previous year and her new friendship with Senator-elect Aaron A. Sargent, who later introduced what would become the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and his wife Ellen Clark Sargent, who became treasurer of the NWSA. Susan B Anthony diary for Jan 1 1872.jpg
Anthony's diary for January 1, 1872, noting her arduous traveling and speaking schedule during the previous year and her new friendship with Senator-elect Aaron A. Sargent, who later introduced what would become the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and his wife Ellen Clark Sargent, who became treasurer of the NWSA.

In 1871 the NWSA officially adopted the New Departure strategy, encouraging women to attempt to vote and to file lawsuits if denied that right. Soon hundreds of women tried to vote in dozens of localities. [40]

Challenging the denial of voting rights

In 1872, Susan B. Anthony convinced some election officials to allow her to vote in that year's presidential elections, for which she was arrested and found guilty in a widely publicized trial. The judge at the trial was Justice Ward Hunt, who had recently been appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court and who conducted the trial as part of the federal circuit court system at that time. [41]

The trial, United States v. Susan B. Anthony , was closely followed by the national press. Following a rule of common law at that time which prevented criminal defendants in federal courts from testifying, Hunt refused to allow Anthony to speak until the verdict had been delivered. At the end of the trial, Justice Hunt delivered his opinion, which he had put in writing, and directed the jury to deliver a guilty verdict. [42] When he asked Anthony if she had anything to say, she responded with "the most famous speech in the history of the agitation for woman suffrage", according to Ann D. Gordon, a historian of the women's movement. [43] Repeatedly ignoring the judge's order to stop talking and sit down, she castigated him for denying her a trial by jury, but said that even if he had allowed the jury to discuss the case, she still would have been denied a trial by a jury of her peers because women were not allowed to be jurors. [44]

The Supreme Court ruled in 1875 in Minor v. Happersett that "the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon anyone". [45] The NWSA was obliged to return to the far more difficult strategy of achieving suffrage by constitutional amendment. In 1878, Senator Aaron A. Sargent, who was married to NWSA treasurer Ellen Clark Sargent, introduced into Congress the women's suffrage amendment that more than forty years later would become the Nineteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Its text is identical to that of the Fifteenth Amendment except that it prohibits the denial of suffrage because of sex rather than race. [46] [47]

Centennial of the Declaration of Independence

On July 4, 1876, The United States celebrated its 100th anniversary with a ceremony in Philadelphia at Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was approved on July 4, 1776. In preparation for the event, the NWSA established headquarters nearby and began drawing up "articles of impeachment" against the country's male "Political Sovereigns". NWSA officers asked permission to present a Declaration of Rights for Women at the official celebration, but they were refused. Despite the lack of permission, five women, headed by Anthony, walked onto the platform during the ceremony and handed their Declaration to Senator Thomas Ferry who was the acting Vice President of the United States, and the official in charge of the celebration. [48] As they left, they handed out copies to the crowd. Stepping onto an unoccupied bandstand outside the hall, Anthony read the Declaration to a large crowd and invited everyone to a NWSA convention at the nearby Unitarian church to hear Stanton, Lucretia Mott and other speakers. [49] [50]

Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States-NWSA-1876-I.jpg
Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States-NWSA-1876-IV.jpg
First and last page of the four-page "Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States", written in 1876 by the National Woman Suffrage Association for the centennial of U. S. Declaration of Independence

The Declaration was signed by Susan B. Anthony and these other leading members of the NWSA: Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Paulina Wright Davis, Ernestine L. Rose, Clarina I. H. Nichols, Mary Ann McClintock, Amy Post, Sarah Pugh, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Clemence Sophia Harned Lozier, Olympia Brown, Mathilde Franziska Anneke, Mathilde F. Wendt, Adelaide Thomson, Laura de Force Gordon, Ellen Clark Sargent, Virginia L. Minor, Sara Andrews Spencer, Lillie Devereux Blake, Phoebe Couzins, Jane Graham Jones, Abigail Scott Duniway, Belva A. Lockwood.

Lucretia Mott, former president of the AERA, was listed first among those who signed the Declaration and was a vice president of the NWSA. [51] According to Sally Gregory McMillen, a historian of the women's movement during this period, Lucretia Mott "avoided taking sides" in the split in the women's movement, providing support to both sides. [21]

History of Woman Suffrage

In 1876, Anthony and Stanton began working on the History of Woman Suffrage . Originally envisioned as a modest publication that could be produced quickly, the history evolved into a six-volume work of more than 5700 pages written over a period of 41 years, preserving a rich history that otherwise might have been lost. The first three volumes, which cover the movement up to 1885, were produced primarily by Anthony and Stanton. Anthony handled the production details while Stanton wrote most of the text. Matilda Joslyn Gage, another leading member of the NWSA, wrote three chapters of the first volume [52] but was forced to abandon the project afterwards because of the illness of her husband. [53] After Stanton's death, Anthony published Volume 4 with the help of Ida Husted Harper. After Anthony's death, Harper completed the last two volumes, bringing history up to 1920.

Stanton and Anthony had encouraged their rival Lucy Stone to assist with the work, or at least to send material that could be used by someone else to write the history of her wing of the movement, but she refused to cooperate in any way. Stanton's daughter Harriot Stanton Blatch, wrote the 120-page chapter on Stone and the AWSA, which appears in Volume 2. [54] Even so, the History of Woman Suffrage places Stanton, Anthony and the NWSA at the center of the movement's history and marginalizes the role of Stone and the AWSA. [55]

International Council of Women

Anthony traveled to Europe in 1883, linking up with Stanton, who had arrived a few months earlier to visit her daughter, whose husband was British. Over a period of nine months, they met with leaders of various European women's movements and began laying the foundation for an international women's organization. [56]

The NWSA agreed to host the founding congress of the organization that Stanton and Anthony were working toward. The first congress of the International Council of Women (ICW) met in Washington in 1888 with delegates from fifty-three women's organizations in nine countries. The delegates represented various organizations, including suffrage associations, professional groups, literary clubs, temperance unions, labor leagues and missionary societies. The AWSA participated in the congress. The ICW convention brought increased publicity and respectability to the women's movement, especially when President Grover Cleveland honored the delegates by inviting them to a reception at the White House. [57] Still active, ICW is associated with the United Nations. [58]

Reunification of the movement

Lucy Stone initiated the reunification of the rival suffrage organizations. She was seventy years old and in declining health, and the AWSA was losing strength. [59] [60] Anthony, by contrast, was by that point, "among the senior political figures in the United States", according to a prominent historian of women's history. [61] Stanton, a popular speaker and a prolific writer of articles for newspapers and magazines, was also well known.

The AWSA's annual meeting in November 1877 passed a resolution authorizing Stone to confer with Anthony about the possibility of a merger. The proposal did not generate significant controversy within the AWSA. [62] There was strong opposition within the NWSA, however. Ida Husted Harper, Anthony's co-worker and biographer, said the NWSA meetings that dealt with this issue "were the most stormy in the history of the association." [63] Matilda Joslyn Gage, an opponent of the merger, formed a competing organization called the Woman's National Liberal Union, but it did not attract a significant following, and plans for merger proceeded. [64]

The NWSA and the AWSA met in a joint convention in Washington and formed the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) on February 18, 1890. At Anthony's insistence, Stanton agreed to accept its presidency. This was largely a symbolic move; the day after she was elected president, Stanton sailed to her daughter's home in England, where she stayed for eighteen months, leaving Anthony effectively in charge. [65] Stone was elected chair of the executive committee. [66]

The NAWSA developed into the nation's largest voluntary organization, with two million members. [67] After women's suffrage was achieved in 1920 by the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the NAWSA transformed itself into the League of Women Voters, which is still active. [68]

Some leading members other than Anthony and Stanton

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan B. Anthony</span> American womens rights activist (1820–1906)

Susan B. Anthony was an American social reformer and women's rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women's suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to social equality, she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17. In 1856, she became the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Cady Stanton</span> American suffragist (1815–1902)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American writer and activist who was a leader of the women's rights movement in the U.S. during the mid- to late-19th century. She was the main force behind the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, the first convention to be called for the sole purpose of discussing women's rights, and was the primary author of its Declaration of Sentiments. Her demand for women's right to vote generated a controversy at the convention but quickly became a central tenet of the women's movement. She was also active in other social reform activities, especially abolitionism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucy Stone</span> American abolitionist and suffragist (1818–1893)

Lucy Stone was an American orator, abolitionist and suffragist who was a vocal advocate for and organizer promoting rights for women. In 1847, Stone became the first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree. She spoke out for women's rights and against slavery. Stone was known for using her birth name after marriage, contrary to the custom of women taking their husband's surname.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National American Woman Suffrage Association</span> US 19th century suffrage association

The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was an organization formed on February 18, 1890, to advocate in favor of women's suffrage in the United States. It was created by the merger of two existing organizations, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Its membership, which was about seven thousand at the time it was formed, eventually increased to two million, making it the largest voluntary organization in the nation. It played a pivotal role in the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which in 1920 guaranteed women's right to vote.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matilda Joslyn Gage</span> American abolitionist, author (1826–1898)

Matilda Joslyn Gage was an American writer and activist. She is mainly known for her contributions to women's suffrage in the United States but she also campaigned for Native American rights, abolitionism, and freethought. She is the eponym for the Matilda effect, which describes the tendency to deny women credit for scientific invention. She influenced her son-in-law L. Frank Baum, the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

The Revolution was a newspaper established by women's rights activists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in New York City. It was published weekly between January 8, 1868, and February 17, 1872. With a combative style that matched its name, it primarily focused on women's rights, especially prohibiting discrimination against women's suffrage in the United States, and women's suffrage in general. It also covered other topics, such as politics, the labor movement, and finance. Anthony managed the business aspects of the paper, while Stanton was co-editor along with Parker Pillsbury, an abolitionist and a supporter of women's rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's suffrage in the United States</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's Loyal National League</span> US anti-slavery campaigning group

The Women's Loyal National League, also known as the Woman's National Loyal League and other variations of that name, was formed on May 14, 1863, to campaign for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would abolish slavery. It was organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, its president, and Susan B. Anthony, its secretary. In the largest petition drive in the nation's history up to that time, the League collected nearly 400,000 signatures on petitions to abolish slavery and presented them to Congress. Its petition drive significantly assisted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery in the U.S. The League disbanded in August 1864 after it became clear that the amendment would be approved.

The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was a single-issue national organization formed in 1869 to work for women's suffrage in the United States. The AWSA lobbied state governments to enact laws granting or expanding women's right to vote in the United States. Lucy Stone, its most prominent leader, began publishing a newspaper in 1870 called the Woman's Journal. It was designed as the voice of the AWSA, and it eventually became a voice of the women's movement as a whole.

The National Women's Rights Convention was an annual series of meetings that increased the visibility of the early women's rights movement in the United States. First held in 1850 in Worcester, Massachusetts, the National Women's Rights Convention combined both female and male leadership and attracted a wide base of support including temperance advocates and abolitionists. Speeches were given on the subjects of equal wages, expanded education and career opportunities, women's property rights, marriage reform, and temperance. Chief among the concerns discussed at the convention was the passage of laws that would give women the right to vote.

Hannah Maria Conant Tracy Cutler was an American abolitionist as well as a leader of the temperance and women's suffrage movements in the United States. Cutler served as president of the Ohio Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Cutler helped to shape the merger of two feminist factions into the combined National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Equal Rights Association</span> US 19th-century suffrage organization

The American Equal Rights Association (AERA) was formed in 1866 in the United States. According to its constitution, its purpose was "to secure Equal Rights to all American citizens, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color or sex." Some of the more prominent reform activists of that time were members, including women and men, blacks and whites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New England Woman Suffrage Association</span>

The New England Woman Suffrage Association (NEWSA) was established in November 1868 to campaign for the right of women to vote in the U.S. Its principal leaders were Julia Ward Howe, its first president, and Lucy Stone, who later became president. It was active until 1920, when suffrage for women was secured by the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

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.

History of Woman Suffrage is a book that was produced by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Ida Husted Harper. Published in six volumes from 1881 to 1922, it is a history of the women's suffrage movement, primarily in the United States. Its more than 5700 pages are the major source for primary documentation about the women's suffrage movement from its beginnings through the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which enfranchised women in the U.S. in 1920. Written from the viewpoint of the wing of the movement led by Stanton and Anthony, its coverage of rival groups and individuals is limited.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's suffrage in states of the United States</span> Womens right to vote in individual states of the United States

Women's suffrage was established in the United States on a full or partial basis by various towns, counties, states and territories during the latter decades of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century. As women received the right to vote in some places, they began running for public office and gaining positions as school board members, county clerks, state legislators, judges, and, in the case of Jeannette Rankin, as a member of Congress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Burger Stearns</span> American suffragist (1836–1904)

Sarah Burger Stearns was a social reformer and a leader in the woman's suffrage movement in the U.S. state of Minnesota. She co-founded the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association and served as its first president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trial of Susan B. Anthony</span> Trial

United States v. Susan B. Anthony was the criminal trial of Susan B. Anthony in a U.S. federal court in 1873. The defendant was a leader of the women's suffrage movement who was arrested for voting in Rochester, New York in the 1872 elections in violation of state laws that allowed only men to vote. Anthony argued that she had the right to vote because of the recently adopted Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, part of which reads, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southern States Woman Suffrage Conference</span>

The Southern States Woman Suffrage Conference was a group dedicated to winning voting rights for white women. The group consisted mainly of highly educated, middle and upper class white women of prominent families. They were originally part of the larger National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), but broke off in 1906. Prominent leaders in the group included Laura Clay and Kate Gordon, who supported and focused on local and state reforms rather than a national amendment. The group applied tactics like the Lost Cause, the belief that the Confederate cause was moral and just, and the Southern strategy, which appealed to white voters by promoting racism.

References

  1. Women's Rights National Historical Park, National Park Service, "Elizabeth Cady Stanton"
  2. Buhle (1978), p. 90
  3. Stanton, Anthony, Gage (1887), Vol. 2, pp. 152–53
  4. Stanton, Anthony, Gage (1887), Vol. 2 pp. 171–72
  5. DuBois (1978), pp. 80–81
  6. Stanton, Anthony, Gage (1887), Vol. 2, p. 384.
  7. Rakow and Kramarae (2001), pp. 47–51
  8. DuBois (1978), pp. 175,177,178
  9. Rakow and Kramarae (2001), p. 48
  10. Stanton, Elizabeth Cady (29 April 1869). "The Revolution - April 29, 1869".
  11. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "Manhood Suffrage," The Revolution, December 24, 1868. Reproduced in Gordon (2000), p. 194
  12. DuBois, Ellen Carol (20 February 2020). "American Women Won the Right to Vote After the Suffrage Movement Became More Diverse. That's No Coincidence". Time.
  13. Davis, Sue (April 2008). The Political Thought of Elizabeth Cady Stanton: Women's Rights and the American Political Traditions. NYU Press. p. 147. ISBN   978-0-8147-1998-5.
  14. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, "Manhood Suffrage," The Revolution, December 24, 1868. Reproduced in Gordon (2000), p. 196
  15. Harper, Ida Husted, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (1898–1908), Vol. 1, pp. 326–327
  16. "I'm No Lady; I'm a Member of Congress". Historical Essays: Women Pioneers on Capitol Hill, 1917–1934. Washington, D.C.: Women in Congress. 1999. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  17. Dudden (2011), p. 12.
  18. Venet (1991), p. 148
  19. Barry (1988), p. 154
  20. DuBois (1978), p. 193
  21. 1 2 McMillen (2008), p. 177
  22. DuBois (1978), pp. 191–192. Henry Brown Blackwell, a member of the rival AWSA, said the NWSA's bylaws excluded men from membership, but Dubois says there is no evidence for that.
  23. Coolidge, Olivia E. (1966). Women's Rights: The Suffrage Movement in America, 1848–1920, pp. 124–125, New York: E.P. Dutton.
  24. Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn (1998). African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850-1920. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p.  42. ISBN   0-253-33378-4. OCLC   37693895.
  25. Foner, DuVal, McGirr (2022). Give Me Liberty!. W.W. Norton and Company. p. 592.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  26. Boomer, Lee. "Suffrage and the Fifteenth Amendment". Women & the American Story.
  27. Tetrault (2014), pp. 35–37
  28. McMillen (2008), pp. 171–172, 223
  29. Ward (1999), "Taking Possession of the Country" by Ann D. Gordon, p. 163
  30. Griffith (1985), pp. 161–162
  31. Barry (1988), p. 242
  32. Flexner (1959), p. 241
  33. Sherr (1995), pp. 226–27
  34. Barry (1988), pp. 57–58, 259
  35. "Virginia Louisa Minor". www.britannica.com. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Aug 10, 2020. Retrieved September 17, 2020.
  36. DuBois (1998), pp. 98–99, 117
  37. DuBois (1998), pp. 100, 122
  38. Tetrault (2014), p. 59
  39. 1 2 Tetrault (2014), pp. 61–65
  40. DuBois (1998), pp. 100, 119
  41. Gordon (2005), pp. 9–10
  42. Gordon (2005), pp. 5–6, 13
  43. Gordon (2005), p. 7
  44. Gordon (2005), p. 46
  45. Gordon (2005), pp. 18–19. This article points out (p. 20) that Supreme Court rulings did not establish the connection between citizenship and voting rights until the mid-twentieth century.
  46. Flexner (1959), pp. 165
  47. Stanton, Anthony, Gage, Vol. 3, (1886), pp. 19, 757
  48. "Susan B. Anthony, Biography, Woman Suffrage". American History Central. Retrieved 2021-05-07.
  49. Flexner (1959), pp. 163–164
  50. Bacon, Margaret Hope, Mothers of Feminism (1986), Harper and Row, New York, pp. 132–133
  51. Flyer with the list of officers of the NWSA accompanying a letter from Susan B. Anthony to Thomas C. Powell, Oct 22, 1876, located in the Vassar College Library.
  52. Griffith (1985), p. 178
  53. McMillen (2008), p. 212
  54. McMillen (2008), pp. 211–213
  55. Tetrault (2014), p.  137.
  56. Griffith (1985), pp. 180–82, 192–93
  57. Barry (1988), pp. 283–287
  58. "History". International Council of Women. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  59. McMillen (2008), pp.  224–225.
  60. Gordon (2009), p.  xxv.
  61. Gordon, Ann D., "Knowing Susan B. Anthony: The Stories We Tell of a Life", in Ridarsky, Christine L. and Huth, Mary M., editors (2012). Susan B. Anthony and the Struggle for Equal Rights. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. pp. 202, 204; ISBN   978-1-58046-425-3
  62. Gordon (2009), pp.  52–55.
  63. Harper, Ida Husted, The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, (1898–1908), Vol. 2, p. 632
  64. Barry (1988), p. 299.
  65. Griffith (1985), pp. 200, 204
  66. Anthony, Harper, Vol. 4, (1902), p. 174
  67. Scott & Scott (1982), p. 39.
  68. Kay J. Maxwell (April 2007). "The League of Women Voters Through the Decades! - Founding and Early History". League of Women Voters. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  69. Stanton, Anthony, Gage (1887), Vol. 2, p. 401.
  70. Stanton, Anthony, Gage (1887), Vol. 2, p. 585
  71. McMIllen, p. 106

Bibliography