The Impact of Women's Suffrage on the U.S. The right to vote is perhaps the most coveted of American liberties. Without the right to vote, populations of people in the United States would cease to have key representation in this representative democratic government. But with the enormous societal emphasis that America puts on voting and elections in the modern status quo, little focus is placed on the incredibly surprising fact that, for much of American history, the right to vote was not one bestowed to all citizens. Instead, hundreds of years persisted in the United States in which the majority of the population did not have any say in the inner workings of their government—at least so far …show more content…
Australia and Great Britain), and that these movements could in fact be linked to the United States movement in political ideology, the focus here is on the United States movement and its impact in the US. And at the time in the United States, the concept of women being included in the political process was a crazy idea. Due to the genius female minds pioneering the movement, however, the women’s suffrage movement was met with begrudging success on the part of the establishment. Even more shocking is that the movement happened entirely without violence. Cooney elaborates on the nonviolent nature of the movement, saying that women involved “didn’t take a single life,” despite facing “dead ends, discouragements, and immobility.” (Cooney) Cooney attributes much of this nonviolent success to the brilliant minds behind the movement, who were unsurprisingly all women. (Cooney) Names like Susan B. Anthony, Frances Willard, Jane Addams, Lucy stone, and Alice Paul stand the test of time as some of the brightest political leaders—and they did it as women in a time when women weren’t even allowed to cast a ballot. Eventually, several forms of protest worked in unison to guarantee the protesters …show more content…
Apathy of the general political population is often the biggest enemy of a social movement. If any movement, regardless of how powerful the subject matter may be, fails to gain the attention of the masses, it is likely to fail. In fact, the woman’s suffrage movement was particularly susceptible to failure for a whole host of reasons. One of these reasons was the growing number of women who stood in vocal opposition of the right to vote. In 1915, a New York protest for suffrage yielded 100,000 supporters of a woman’s right to vote. In opposition of suffrage, organizers pulled together 200,000 women who protested the movement. (Miller) These numbers continued to grow, too, reaching a peak of 500,000 protesters in 1919. (Miller) However, there is a significant jump in protester involvement in favor of suffrage from 1915 to 1917: the numbers climb from 100,000 to 2,000,000 women. (Miller) These statistics are no coincidence; the jump in numbers coincides perfectly with the year that the NAWSA unveiled the winning plan, and the year that the National Women’s Party amped up its “more militant” efforts. (History.com) This unique combination of social methods of
(1500)A Primary Source Analysis of the Growing Power of the National American Woman Suffrage Movement Association (NASMA) in the Early 20th Century This primary source analysis will define the growing power of the National American Woman Suffrage Movement Association (NASMA) through the increasing organizational leadership of women leaders in the early 20th century. In the article, “The Call for the Fortieth Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Movement” of 1908, Ann H. Shaw’s leadership of the NASMA defines the major change in public opinion on the subject of women’s suffrage, which was increasingly overcoming the patriarchal barriers to equality for women in the United States. During the late 1900s and into the 1910s,
As both the United States and the world rapidly developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, society evolved at a pace previously unimaginable. Electricity illuminated modern urban areas, cars began to dominate the streets, and families began to travel to movie theaters for a unique motion-picture experience. Yet, while the world was changing by the minute, some components of society were not reflective of societal revolution. Specifically, it was during the late 19th century that the conversation for women’s suffrage was even addressed for the first time, following the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. It would be an extensive and arduous 72 years until women were ultimately given the right to vote, officially delineating women
During the suffrage movement after 1890, women activists from various backgrounds, started to tackling with various social problems dealing with industrialization and other important topics during that time era. Women wanted to focus on topics that appealed to them as women, and mothers. The campaign to get women’s suffrage took over twenty years to get women the right to vote just like the men around them. In these two decades, women had over 480 campaigns in legislatures, over 200 campaigns in state party conventions and almost 20 campaigns in congress before the women got the same right as men. Women's work in the abolitionist movement played a particularly important role in the creation of an organized women's rights movement.
Beginning at the Seneca Falls convention in 1848, American women mobilized to advocate for their civil rights. Following a lull during the civil war, the women’s rights campaign began again in earnest at the turn of the century. An organization called the National American Woman Suffrage Association (henceforth NAWSA) proved successful in gaining grassroots support in their hopes to earn women’s suffrage. However, after years of unsuccessful agitation, a radical movement was needed; with no revolution, there can be no real change. Alice Paul, a young Quaker from New Jersey, proved herself to lead this radical revolution.
The Women's Suffrage movement was a very successful movement that contributed to the development of women’s rights during the 19th century. During the movements, many strategies were used to further enhance the success chances of the movement. Strategies such as public stunts, organized protests, and cartoons are examples of important strategies that helped the movement more successfully. In my opinion, I think that cartoons were the most important strategy because they made political messages more accessible to people. Furthermore, cartoons are more appealing to children.
Women used many different methods to earn the right to vote in the Women’s Suffrage Movement. One method women used to earn support is that they organized a parade in Washington, D.C., the same day the president was coming into town so that there was large crowds. Many of the people in the crowd were men who, along with drinking also disagreed with the right for women to vote. They began to yell then even throw objects at the women walking in the parade. Eventually, the police walked away giving the men the opportunity to attack.
Why did it take so long for America to allow women’s suffrage during the Progressive Era? Progressives in America did analyze and attempt to solve the unjust and unfair problems that emerged with the increasing number of immigrants, unregulated businesses, urban cities, and economic disparity. There was exploitation of people by the rich and powerful. Even though women contributed behind the scenes during wars and started to represent in work forces, there was still opposition towards their right to vote. At that time, men of the country probably had the notion that women were still not educated enough to be involved in politics.
Another way the women got people’s attention was telling people not to vote for president Wilson because he was not supportive of the movement. They also went to lots of congressmen and begged for support on the subject. The hunger strike was another way to try to win votes. While the girls were in prison they participated in a hunger strike led by Alice Paul at lunch, although all of the girls
Women also banded together and began signing petitions which was almost unheard of during this time
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, American society began to focus on the welfare of minority groups. Women’s suffrage and abolition were rooted as deeply as the history of America, but asylum and prison reform sprouted with the Second Great Awakening, a movement that occurred in the early 1800s. The Second Great Awakening was led by religious leaders who advocated for changes in American society through the unity of the American people (Doc. Due to the Second Great Awakening, reform movements were established between 1825 and 1850 in order to represent the changes the people sought for in the issues of slavery, suffrage, and asylum and prison reform. The social aspect of the abolition movement led to the visible democratic changes in society and politics.
Women Suffrage movement began more active after 1894. For example, “In New York City, Josephine Shaw Lowell and Mary Putnam Jacobi formed the Woman Municipal League." (Dubois, 189) This organization was primary focusing on the corruption of public. “By the early 1900s, moreover, the spirit of political reform in New York City spread beyond the elite.”
Throughout human history, activists have organized social movements to attain one goal; that is to change and improve the society that they live in. The tactics that are used in social movements, however, seem to have changed over time becoming more organized, mobilized, and non-violent due to the growth of media and social networking. We can see how, throughout the years, the tactics have changed after the 1970's compared to how they were before that time in history. For instance, if we go all the way back to the Women’s Suffrage movement, in 1920, we can see how tactics have changed over time. The Women's Suffrage was a social movement led by women who believed they deserved the right to vote just like men did.
Even though the message included gaining the support of the people to achieve a common cause of women getting the right to vote, Florence Kelley developed her argument through the community’s status dealing with child labor. The use of rhetorical strategies persuaded the audience -the Association accompanied by men and women across the country- to act in order to discontinue the practice of child labor. Additionally it conveniences the audience of the importance of the women’s point of view in the government. Other women in the National American Woman Suffrage Association exhaustingly fought in order to make their voice heard.
Although Mill was very keen on women being giving the rights to vote he was not taken by the idea of women become independent from their husbands. It is well known that the suffragettes contributed a great deal in which women were given the rights to vote worldwide. The suffragette movement didn’t begin to take place up until 1890. There were seventeen individual groups who came together all supporting the women’s suffrage. This included the London Society for Women’s Suffrage, Manchester Society for Women’s Suffrage and the Central Committee for Women’s Suffrage.
Suffrages chose to take a more militant style approach to capture the attention of the government in a way that could not be ignored. They became a public nuisance in terms of publically demonstrating their frustration through actions rather than words. In “Freedom or Death,” Pankhurst speaks on behalf of the suffrage women, “we were called militant, and were quite willing to accept the name. We were determined to press this question of the enfranchisement of women to the point where we were no longer ignored by the politicians” (Pankhurst, 2). Though militant had a negative association, the suffragists prided their actions fighting for an honourable peace.