Women's Suffrage- Part Two
1869 - Women's Rights Movement Splits
Society at the time, was more willing to accept black men voting than allowing even white wealthy, educated women to vote. If all free men were created equal, then it stood to reason that freed male slaves should be able to vote. However, the established equality of men said nothing for the place of women in American society. When black men pushed to get their own vote, it was more popular with the public than a woman's right to vote. This caused a split within the women's right movement.
Some believed that voting rights shouldn't be partially given to anyone but should be given to every adult. Therefore, they refused to support black men getting the vote because it didn't also include voting rights for women. Some simply opposed black men getting the vote because it didn't also include women. However, some did oppose it for racist reasons. Some women, including the revered Susan B Anthony made offensive comments calling black men less intelligent. She argued that many women were better educated that many of the former slaves and therefore women deserved the vote more. This most likely true but not because black people are less capable but However, Frederick Douglass countered that with an argument of his own.
1870 - Black Men Gain the Vote
In 1870, Black men gained the vote with the passing of the Fifteenth Ammendment. Progressives promoting it now push for a woman's right to vote. However, the suffrage movement remains split.
1872- Susan B Anthony Votes
Who was Susan B Anthony? Book
Registered to vote, voted illegally and the men who registered her were put in jail for 5 days. Grant pardoned them.
Arrested, charged
Refused to pay the $100 fine. Hoped to take the case to the Supreme Court. The judge didn't take the bait and let her off.
"The person who is ahead of the times pays the penalty for being ‘radical’ until such ‘radicalism’ is accepted by the people as conservative.” - Julia B Nelson
The Women's Christian Temperance Movement (1874-1928)
The Women's Christian Temperance Movement was one of the first powerful womens groups in America. Many women were married to alcohol addicted men. These men wasted money, got fired from their jobs, had bad moods, mistreated their children and mistreated their wives but could not be divorced.
How the other half lives- 166 - pre-prohibition
Divorce in the Bible
Therefore, most women stayed in unhappy or abusive relationships. Instead they aimed their frustrations with alcohol itself. They believed that if it wasn't for alcohol, their husbands would be better men. These women stayed in abusive relationships, beaten and raped. They couldn't leave the relationship and therefore had to try and change the world.
The women organizationed and advocated for the Prohibition of alcohol in the United States. However, this was hard to do without being able to vote. Brewers turned against the suffrage movement and tried to stop them getting the vote. Not because they didn't think they deserved it but because they were afraid that they would put the Breweries out of business.
1872- Victoria Woodhull (1865-1877)
https://youtu.be/VrKbVKArhPs?si=zce3wxvKaCcJifo9
Victoria was born to spiritualist parents who took part in seances. They were followers of Franz Mesmer. Her father was a con-man, lawyer and snake-oil salesman. She was the 7th of 10 children, 4 of which died before adulthood. She became closest to her youngest sister named Tennessee.
Victoria went to school from the age 8 to 11. However, her father had taken out a large insurance policy on the family mill and had consequently burned it to the ground for the money. Victoria and her family had to flee the state so that her father didn't get arrested. They fled from Ohio to New York.
Once in Rochester, New York, Victoria was married at 15 years old to a local doctor. She soon found him to be an alcoholic and unfaithful. Victoria had two children, the first one when she was 16. She remained married to him for 12 years. After they moved to St. Louis, Victoria was working as a spiritual healer. It was at this time that she met former civil war union colonel, James Blood. The two fell in love, although he was already married. At age 27, she said enough is enough and put an end to the abusive marriage. James blood also divorced his wife and the two moved back to New York in 1865.
In New York, Victoria worked as a spiritual advisor, fortune teller, magnetic healer and gave investment advice. As her reputation grew, one of the people that came to her for guidance was Cornelius Vanderbilt. With his help they opened their own investment company in New York, the first owned by women. Some nicknamed them, "the queens of finance" but others were disgusted by women owning a company and insulted them.
With the money earned from their business Victoria and her sister, Tennessee opened a newspaper printing company. They wrote about controversial topics such as:
The right to divorce:
She believed that people should only be in a relationship with the person they wanted to.
Matthew 19- "4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate... 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
Consent
She believed that a woman's consent should be required for sex with her own husband.
1 Corinthians 7:4 - "The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife."
It would be another 130 years before it became illegal to rape your own wife in all 50 states in America.
As well as
Freedom of expression through clothing, vegetarianism, sex education and of course a women's right to vote. Victoria argued that the constitution already gave women the vote because they too were American citizens. She invoked the founding mantra of "No taxation without representation."
These were both radical at the time. She was heavily critized and people made fun of her.
Politics
However, after becoming famous for women's rights, she decided to take the next stride in women's rights herself. She announced her intent to run for president. Bare in mind that women couldn't vote for her. She suggested that Frederick Douglass could be her running mate. Only the same year that black men were given the vote. It was hugely controversial. A man subservient to a woman. A white woman teaming up with a black man when race mixing was disgusted by many. A woman running the country with a black man. It was all radical.
Presidential Run
During the presidential campaign, Victoria continued writing for her newspaper, promoting her ideas. She had received criticism for being a divorced woman. One of those critics was a famous abolitionist preacher. However, Victoria, being an abolitionist herself had friends who informed her of the preachers affairs. At the time there was a double standard where men were given leniency for having mistresses but women who had relationships outside of marriage were socially disgusted. Victoria Woodhull criticized this double standard and wrote publicly about the famous preacher and his hypocrisy. The newspapers were distributed and many people were horried by the open criticism of the well liked preacher. She was arrested based on the 1873 Comstock Laws, banning the distribution of "obscene material" and spent election day behind bars. It's not known how many votes she received but it's sure to be far less than Ulysses S Grant.
After being released from prison, she continued writing for her newspaper and eventually divorced her second husband 4 years later. Then following year she moved to England. While speaking in London, she met a man from Worcestershire and fell in love. She lived out the rest of her life on a farm in the English countryside.
Her first husband, James Blood died on a gold mining expedition in Ghana, Africa in 1885.
Sufferage
Some American women thought that it was unfair that men emigrating to the United States, knew very little English and had very little education but had the right to vote.
Many women opposed womens sufferage, believing it to endanger the family structure, married women were expected to vote in line with their husbands.
It's important to remember that women's rights was not and is not just about men vs women. Women's rights has always relying on the help of men. In addition, women's rights has also faced strong opposition from other women.
"Girls do not have to learn much! All a Jewish daughter needs to know is how to prepare fish, cut noodles, and give the man plenty of children."
Alice Paul (1907-1920)
Alice Paul was a quaker girl from New Jersey who attended suffrage protests with her mother. In 1907, at age 22, she went to England and studied at the University of Birmingham. While there she made friends with suffragist within the British movement. Some of the British suffragists were a lot more extreme than their American counterparts. Alice Paul joined them and was beaten and arrested multiple times.
https://youtu.be/yQL_CQdEfYk?si=rFlqdBYKdSZPd6E4
Alice Paul and another suffragist disguised themselves as cleaning women and entered the building with the normal staff at 9:00 am. Once in the building, the women hid until the event started that evening. Then they came out of hiding and "took their stand". When the Prime Minister stood to speak, they threw their shoes through a pane of stained glass, and both women yelled, "Votes for women!" Following this event, both women were arrested and sentenced to one-month hard labor after refusing to pay fines and damages for the window damage.
While imprisoned, Alice and the other suffragists went on a hunger strike. As a result, the prison guards force few them milk and raw eggs through a tube.
Emily Dickenson
https://youtu.be/0EIFDSb7tWc?si=Fj5ZmEmYxwVdmpqQ
What do you think she was trying to do?
Alice Paul Reurns to the US
Alice Paul moved back to the United States and promoted the same tactics that the suffragists in Great Britain were using. Her branch of the American Suffragists began taking more drastic measures. They protested outside the white house, which at the time was highly frowned upon and my criticized them for it. One day, police confronted them and arrested them for "obstruction foot traffic". This seemed like an unfair attack at first, however, public opinion was with them. Many were disgusted that women would be arrested for expressing freedom of speech in a public place. President Wilson got some of the blame, so he quickly had the women released.
Former President, Theodore Roosevelt aimed to take advantage of this growing public opinion and added women's suffrage to his political parties promises. His campaign was unsuccessful, however, in 1916 the first woman was elected to congress, representing the state of Montana.
1913- Women's Sufferage March in DC
https://youtu.be/Na9SeuOYS88?si=OvM72oHBPPERivze
https://youtu.be/_KhYRqozTDE?si=KNlQxuJfu9ptg9yX
Within a few months, WW1 would break out and the suffragists lowered the amount of trouble they caused in order to provide patriotism. Many men joined the army and women jumped at the opportunity to do jobs that had previously been off limits for females. President Wilson attempted to give women the vote, declaring it to be a war time measure.
After War
After the war Alice Paul and the more extreme suffragists went back to protesting. Alice got arrested in 1917 and was kept in awful conditions. In protest of the conditions at the District Jail, Paul began a hunger strike. This led to her being moved to the prison's psychiatric ward and being force-fed raw eggs through a feeding tube. "Seems almost unthinkable now, doesn't it?" Paul told an interviewer years later.
I was yet another national disgrace that won the suffragists support. President Woodrow Wilson would now announce a strong reccomenation for the US government to give women the vote.
1920- Passage of the 19th Ammendment
Many states had given women the right to vote, however, many had not and it wasn't a guaranteed right at a national level.
https://youtu.be/M-qTa1yPfzg?si=X75PAcZqFhMhbFeU
https://youtu.be/91ZWRf3GA6k?si=TiHTCB5obR80Y78q
Society at the time, was more willing to accept black men voting than allowing even white wealthy, educated women to vote. If all free men were created equal, then it stood to reason that freed male slaves should be able to vote. However, the established equality of men said nothing for the place of women in American society. When black men pushed to get their own vote, it was more popular with the public than a woman's right to vote. This caused a split within the women's right movement.
Some believed that voting rights shouldn't be partially given to anyone but should be given to every adult. Therefore, they refused to support black men getting the vote because it didn't also include voting rights for women. Some simply opposed black men getting the vote because it didn't also include women. However, some did oppose it for racist reasons. Some women, including the revered Susan B Anthony made offensive comments calling black men less intelligent. She argued that many women were better educated that many of the former slaves and therefore women deserved the vote more. This most likely true but not because black people are less capable but However, Frederick Douglass countered that with an argument of his own.
1870 - Black Men Gain the Vote
In 1870, Black men gained the vote with the passing of the Fifteenth Ammendment. Progressives promoting it now push for a woman's right to vote. However, the suffrage movement remains split.
1872- Susan B Anthony Votes
Who was Susan B Anthony? Book
Registered to vote, voted illegally and the men who registered her were put in jail for 5 days. Grant pardoned them.
Arrested, charged
Refused to pay the $100 fine. Hoped to take the case to the Supreme Court. The judge didn't take the bait and let her off.
"The person who is ahead of the times pays the penalty for being ‘radical’ until such ‘radicalism’ is accepted by the people as conservative.” - Julia B Nelson
The Women's Christian Temperance Movement (1874-1928)
The Women's Christian Temperance Movement was one of the first powerful womens groups in America. Many women were married to alcohol addicted men. These men wasted money, got fired from their jobs, had bad moods, mistreated their children and mistreated their wives but could not be divorced.
How the other half lives- 166 - pre-prohibition
Divorce in the Bible
Therefore, most women stayed in unhappy or abusive relationships. Instead they aimed their frustrations with alcohol itself. They believed that if it wasn't for alcohol, their husbands would be better men. These women stayed in abusive relationships, beaten and raped. They couldn't leave the relationship and therefore had to try and change the world.
The women organizationed and advocated for the Prohibition of alcohol in the United States. However, this was hard to do without being able to vote. Brewers turned against the suffrage movement and tried to stop them getting the vote. Not because they didn't think they deserved it but because they were afraid that they would put the Breweries out of business.
1872- Victoria Woodhull (1865-1877)
https://youtu.be/VrKbVKArhPs?si=zce3wxvKaCcJifo9
Victoria was born to spiritualist parents who took part in seances. They were followers of Franz Mesmer. Her father was a con-man, lawyer and snake-oil salesman. She was the 7th of 10 children, 4 of which died before adulthood. She became closest to her youngest sister named Tennessee.
Victoria went to school from the age 8 to 11. However, her father had taken out a large insurance policy on the family mill and had consequently burned it to the ground for the money. Victoria and her family had to flee the state so that her father didn't get arrested. They fled from Ohio to New York.
Once in Rochester, New York, Victoria was married at 15 years old to a local doctor. She soon found him to be an alcoholic and unfaithful. Victoria had two children, the first one when she was 16. She remained married to him for 12 years. After they moved to St. Louis, Victoria was working as a spiritual healer. It was at this time that she met former civil war union colonel, James Blood. The two fell in love, although he was already married. At age 27, she said enough is enough and put an end to the abusive marriage. James blood also divorced his wife and the two moved back to New York in 1865.
In New York, Victoria worked as a spiritual advisor, fortune teller, magnetic healer and gave investment advice. As her reputation grew, one of the people that came to her for guidance was Cornelius Vanderbilt. With his help they opened their own investment company in New York, the first owned by women. Some nicknamed them, "the queens of finance" but others were disgusted by women owning a company and insulted them.
With the money earned from their business Victoria and her sister, Tennessee opened a newspaper printing company. They wrote about controversial topics such as:
The right to divorce:
She believed that people should only be in a relationship with the person they wanted to.
Matthew 19- "4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate... 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
Consent
She believed that a woman's consent should be required for sex with her own husband.
1 Corinthians 7:4 - "The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife."
It would be another 130 years before it became illegal to rape your own wife in all 50 states in America.
As well as
Freedom of expression through clothing, vegetarianism, sex education and of course a women's right to vote. Victoria argued that the constitution already gave women the vote because they too were American citizens. She invoked the founding mantra of "No taxation without representation."
These were both radical at the time. She was heavily critized and people made fun of her.
Politics
However, after becoming famous for women's rights, she decided to take the next stride in women's rights herself. She announced her intent to run for president. Bare in mind that women couldn't vote for her. She suggested that Frederick Douglass could be her running mate. Only the same year that black men were given the vote. It was hugely controversial. A man subservient to a woman. A white woman teaming up with a black man when race mixing was disgusted by many. A woman running the country with a black man. It was all radical.
Presidential Run
During the presidential campaign, Victoria continued writing for her newspaper, promoting her ideas. She had received criticism for being a divorced woman. One of those critics was a famous abolitionist preacher. However, Victoria, being an abolitionist herself had friends who informed her of the preachers affairs. At the time there was a double standard where men were given leniency for having mistresses but women who had relationships outside of marriage were socially disgusted. Victoria Woodhull criticized this double standard and wrote publicly about the famous preacher and his hypocrisy. The newspapers were distributed and many people were horried by the open criticism of the well liked preacher. She was arrested based on the 1873 Comstock Laws, banning the distribution of "obscene material" and spent election day behind bars. It's not known how many votes she received but it's sure to be far less than Ulysses S Grant.
After being released from prison, she continued writing for her newspaper and eventually divorced her second husband 4 years later. Then following year she moved to England. While speaking in London, she met a man from Worcestershire and fell in love. She lived out the rest of her life on a farm in the English countryside.
Her first husband, James Blood died on a gold mining expedition in Ghana, Africa in 1885.
Sufferage
Some American women thought that it was unfair that men emigrating to the United States, knew very little English and had very little education but had the right to vote.
Many women opposed womens sufferage, believing it to endanger the family structure, married women were expected to vote in line with their husbands.
It's important to remember that women's rights was not and is not just about men vs women. Women's rights has always relying on the help of men. In addition, women's rights has also faced strong opposition from other women.
"Girls do not have to learn much! All a Jewish daughter needs to know is how to prepare fish, cut noodles, and give the man plenty of children."
Alice Paul (1907-1920)
Alice Paul was a quaker girl from New Jersey who attended suffrage protests with her mother. In 1907, at age 22, she went to England and studied at the University of Birmingham. While there she made friends with suffragist within the British movement. Some of the British suffragists were a lot more extreme than their American counterparts. Alice Paul joined them and was beaten and arrested multiple times.
https://youtu.be/yQL_CQdEfYk?si=rFlqdBYKdSZPd6E4
Alice Paul and another suffragist disguised themselves as cleaning women and entered the building with the normal staff at 9:00 am. Once in the building, the women hid until the event started that evening. Then they came out of hiding and "took their stand". When the Prime Minister stood to speak, they threw their shoes through a pane of stained glass, and both women yelled, "Votes for women!" Following this event, both women were arrested and sentenced to one-month hard labor after refusing to pay fines and damages for the window damage.
While imprisoned, Alice and the other suffragists went on a hunger strike. As a result, the prison guards force few them milk and raw eggs through a tube.
Emily Dickenson
https://youtu.be/0EIFDSb7tWc?si=Fj5ZmEmYxwVdmpqQ
What do you think she was trying to do?
Alice Paul Reurns to the US
Alice Paul moved back to the United States and promoted the same tactics that the suffragists in Great Britain were using. Her branch of the American Suffragists began taking more drastic measures. They protested outside the white house, which at the time was highly frowned upon and my criticized them for it. One day, police confronted them and arrested them for "obstruction foot traffic". This seemed like an unfair attack at first, however, public opinion was with them. Many were disgusted that women would be arrested for expressing freedom of speech in a public place. President Wilson got some of the blame, so he quickly had the women released.
Former President, Theodore Roosevelt aimed to take advantage of this growing public opinion and added women's suffrage to his political parties promises. His campaign was unsuccessful, however, in 1916 the first woman was elected to congress, representing the state of Montana.
1913- Women's Sufferage March in DC
https://youtu.be/Na9SeuOYS88?si=OvM72oHBPPERivze
https://youtu.be/_KhYRqozTDE?si=KNlQxuJfu9ptg9yX
Within a few months, WW1 would break out and the suffragists lowered the amount of trouble they caused in order to provide patriotism. Many men joined the army and women jumped at the opportunity to do jobs that had previously been off limits for females. President Wilson attempted to give women the vote, declaring it to be a war time measure.
After War
After the war Alice Paul and the more extreme suffragists went back to protesting. Alice got arrested in 1917 and was kept in awful conditions. In protest of the conditions at the District Jail, Paul began a hunger strike. This led to her being moved to the prison's psychiatric ward and being force-fed raw eggs through a feeding tube. "Seems almost unthinkable now, doesn't it?" Paul told an interviewer years later.
I was yet another national disgrace that won the suffragists support. President Woodrow Wilson would now announce a strong reccomenation for the US government to give women the vote.
1920- Passage of the 19th Ammendment
Many states had given women the right to vote, however, many had not and it wasn't a guaranteed right at a national level.
https://youtu.be/M-qTa1yPfzg?si=X75PAcZqFhMhbFeU
https://youtu.be/91ZWRf3GA6k?si=TiHTCB5obR80Y78q
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