Type | Weekly newspaper |
---|---|
Format | Broadsheet |
Owner(s) | Leslie Woman Suffrage Commission (1917–1931) |
Founder(s) | Lucy Stone Henry Browne Blackwell |
Founded | January 8, 1870 (Boston, Massachusetts) |
Ceased publication | June 1931 |
Circulation | 27,634 (1915) |
Woman's Journal was an American women's rights periodical published from 1870 to 1931. It was founded in 1870 in Boston, Massachusetts, by Lucy Stone and her husband Henry Browne Blackwell as a weekly newspaper. In 1917 it was purchased by Carrie Chapman Catt's Leslie Woman Suffrage Commission and merged with The Woman Voter and National Suffrage News to become known as The Woman Citizen. It served as the official organ of the National American Woman Suffrage Association until 1920, when the organization was reformed as the League of Women Voters, and the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed granting women the right to vote. Publication of Woman Citizen slowed from weekly, to bi-weekly, to monthly. In 1927, it was renamed The Woman's Journal. It ceased publication in June 1931.
Woman's Journal was founded in 1870 in Boston, Massachusetts, by Lucy Stone and her husband Henry Browne Blackwell as a weekly newspaper. The new paper incorporated Mary A. Livermore's The Agitator, as well as a lesser known periodical called the Woman's Advocate.
The works of Ohioan comedy writer Rosella Rice, whose poems mythologized the figure of Johnny Appleseed, were published in Woman's Journal. [1] [2]
The first issue was published on January 8, on the scond anniversary of the first issue of Susan B. Anthony's The Revolution . Stone and Blackwell served as editors, with assistance from Livermore. Julia Ward Howe edited from 1872 to 1879. Alice Stone Blackwell, daughter of Stone and Blackwell, began editing in 1883 and took over as sole editor after her father's death in 1909, continuing until 1917. Contributors included Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Mary Johnston, Stephen S. Wise, Zona Gale, Florence Kelley, Witter Bynner, Ben B. Lindsey, Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Clisby and Caroline Bartlett Crane. William Lloyd Garrison was a frequent contributor. Around 1887, headquarters were located in Boston on Park Street. [3]
Woman's Journal refused to carry advertisements for tobacco, liquor, or drugs.
In 1910, Woman's Journal absorbed Progress, the official organ of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Until 1912, it served in that capacity, at which point it was renamed Woman's Journal and Suffrage News. By 1915, circulation had reached 27,634, up from 2,328 in 1909.
In 1917, Woman's Journal was purchased by Carrie Chapman Catt's Leslie Woman Suffrage Commission for $50,000, [4] and merged with The Woman Voter , the official journal of the Woman Suffrage Party of New York City, and NAWSA's National Suffrage News to become known as The Woman Citizen. It served as NAWSA's official organ until 1920, [5] when NAWSA was reformed as the League of Women Voters, and the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed ensuring women's right to vote.
The editor-in-chief of The Woman Citizen was Rose Emmet Young; Alice Stone Blackwell was a contributing editor. Every U.S. Congress member was given a free subscription to the journal. It covered issues such as child labor in addition to women's suffrage. After women won the right to vote, the journal's focus shifted to political education for women. [6] One of the aims of the League of Women Voters was to demonstrate its continued political power, now in the form of large numbers of newly enfranchised voters, and to soften its image in the eyes of women who were wary of radical politics. To that end, the journal courted middle-class female readers. It editorialized in support of the Maternity and Infancy Act of 1921, which was the first major legislation to be passed after the full enfranchisement of women. Readers were urged to support the Act by writing to their representatives and talking to their neighbors about it; one article included step-by-step instructions for finding out the names and addresses of their legislators. [7]
Publication of Woman Citizen slowed from weekly, to bi-weekly, to monthly. In 1927, it was renamed The Woman's Journal. It ceased publication in June 1931.
Lucy Stone was an American orator, abolitionist and suffragist who was a vocal advocate for and organizer of 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.
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.
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.
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."
Alice Stone Blackwell was an American feminist, suffragist, journalist, radical socialist, and human rights advocate.
Women's suffrage, or the right of women to vote, was established in the United States over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, first in various states and localities, then nationally in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
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.
Laura Clay, co-founder and first president of the Kentucky Equal Rights Association, was a leader of the American women's suffrage movement. She was one of the most important suffragists in the South, favoring the states' rights approach to suffrage. A powerful orator, she was active in the Democratic Party and had important leadership roles in local, state and national politics. In 1920 at the Democratic National Convention, she was one of two women, alongside Cora Wilson Stewart, to be the first women to have their names placed into nomination for the presidency at the convention of a major political party.
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.
The Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association (MWSA) was an American organization devoted to women's suffrage in Massachusetts. It was active from 1870 to 1919.
The Leslie Woman Suffrage Commission was an American woman's suffrage organization formed by Carrie Chapman Catt in March 1917 in New York City, based on funds willed for the purpose by publisher Miriam Leslie. The organization helped promote the cause of suffrage through increasing awareness of the issue and through education.
Gertrude Foster Brown was a concert pianist, teacher, and suffragist. Following the passage of women suffrage in New York State in 1917, and pending passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Brown wrote Your Vote and How to Use It, published in 1918. She was Director-General of the Women's Overseas Hospitals in France, founded by suffragists, in 1918. In addition to her work in the New York suffrage movement, she helped to found the National League of Women Voters. She was the Managing Director of the Woman's Journal from 1921-1931.
Rose Emmet Young was an American fiction and editorial writer, and an advocate for the suffrage movement.
Women's suffrage began in Illinois began in the mid-1850s. The first women's suffrage group was formed in Earlville, Illinois, by the cousin of Susan B. Anthony, Susan Hoxie Richardson. After the Civil War, former abolitionist Mary Livermore organized the Illinois Woman Suffrage Association (IWSA), which would later be renamed the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association (IESA). Frances Willard and other suffragists in the IESA worked to lobby various government entities for women's suffrage. In the 1870s, women were allowed to serve on school boards and were elected to that office. The first women to vote in Illinois were 15 women in Lombard, Illinois, led by Ellen A. Martin, who found a loophole in the law in 1891. Women were eventually allowed to vote for school offices in the 1890s. Women in Chicago and throughout Illinois fought for the right to vote based on the idea of no taxation without representation. They also continued to expand their efforts throughout the state. In 1913, women in Illinois were successful in gaining partial suffrage. They became the first women east of the Mississippi River to have the right to vote in presidential elections. Suffragists then worked to register women to vote. Both African-American and white suffragists registered women in huge numbers. In Chicago alone 200,000 women were registered to vote. After gaining partial suffrage, women in Illinois kept working towards full suffrage. The state became the first to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment, passing the ratification on June 10, 1919. The League of Women Voters (LWV) was announced in Chicago on February 14, 1920.
This is a timeline of women's suffrage in Maine. Suffragists began campaigning in Maine in the mid 1850s. A lecture series was started by Ann F. Jarvis Greely and other women in Ellsworth, Maine in 1857. The first women's suffrage petition to the Maine Legislature was sent that same year. Women continue to fight for equal suffrage throughout the 1860s and 1870s. The Maine Woman Suffrage Association (MWSA) is established in 1873 and the next year, the first Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) chapter was started. In 1887, the Maine Legislature votes on a women's suffrage amendment to the state constitution, but it does not receive the necessary two-thirds vote. Additional attempts to pass women's suffrage legislation receives similar treatment throughout the rest of the century. In the twentieth century, suffragists continue to organize and meet. Several suffrage groups form, including the Maine chapter of the College Equal Suffrage League in 1914 and the Men's Equal Suffrage League of Maine in 1914. In 1917, a voter referendum on women's suffrage is scheduled for September 10, but fails at the polls. On November 5, 1919 Maine ratifies the Nineteenth Amendment. On September 13, 1920, most women in Maine are able to vote. Native Americans in Maine are barred from voting for many years. In 1924, Native Americans became American citizens. In 1954, a voter referendum for Native American voting rights passes. The next year, Lucy Nicolar Poolaw (Penobscot), is the Native American living on an Indian reservation to cast a vote.
In 1893, Colorado became the second state in the United States to grant women's suffrage and the first to do so through a voter referendum. Even while Colorado was a territory, lawmakers and other leaders tried to include women's suffrage in laws and later in the state constitution. The constitution did give women the right to vote in school board elections. The first voter referendum campaign was held in 1877. The Woman Suffrage Association of Colorado worked to encourage people to vote yes. Nationally-known suffragists, such as Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone spoke alongside Colorado's own Alida Avery around the state. Despite the efforts to influence voters, the referendum failed. Suffragists continued to grow support for women's right to vote. They exercised their right to vote in school board elections and ran for office. In 1893, another campaign for women's suffrage took place. Both Black and white suffragists worked to influence voters, gave speeches, and turned out on election day in a last-minute push. The effort was successful and women earned equal suffrage. In 1894, Colorado again made history by electing three women to the Colorado house of representatives. After gaining the right to vote, Colorado women continued to fight for suffrage in other states. Some women became members of the Congressional Union (CU) and pushed for a federal suffrage amendment. Colorado women also used their right to vote to pass reforms in the state and to support women candidates.
Marjorie Shuler was an American publicist and author for the woman suffragists from New York. She wrote for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) major publication, The Woman Citizen and was the author of several books about suffrage and voting, including The Woman Voter's Manual (1918) and one of the very few novels about suffrage, For Rent -- One Pedestal (1917). She was the daughter of Antoinette Nettie Rogers Shuler, a well known suffragist and one of the founders of NAWSA. Additionally, Shuler wrote a memoir of her flying trip around the world, the first ever by a woman, titled A Passenger to Adventure.
The National Council of Women Voters, founded in 1911, was a nonpartisan organization intended to educate women voters and support the suffrage movement. The council was founded by Emma Smith DeVoe. At the 1909 conference of the National American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA), DeVoe proposed the formation of a national organization for women in states where they had voting rights. She envisioned this being an organization not only to advocate for women who could vote at the state level, but to eventually succeed NAWSA once suffrage was settled law. The motion was voted down, so DeVoe formed her own coalition. In 1919, a national convention of NCWV and NAWSA voted to merge the two organizations. The merger was made official in early 1920, resulting in the formation of the League of Women Voters.