Suffrage

With the growth of population the number of employed women steadily increased, as
did their percentage of the labor force and of the total female population. The greatest
leaps forward came in the decades of the 1880’s and 1900’s, both of which were also
peak decades of immigration, a collation which can be explained by the immigrants
need for income. Through all those years domestic work remained the largest category
of employment for women; teaching and nursing also remained among the leading
fields. (Tindall, 1984, pp. 853-854)

The largest single reform movement of the progressive era, indeed one of the largest in
American history was the fight for woman suffrage. It represented the culmination of
many decades of struggle by women to obtain basic politic rights. The suffrage
movement began to overcome this opposition in the first years of the twentieth century,
in part because suffragist were becoming more organized and more politically
sophisticated than their opponents. In 1920 finally suffragists won ratification of the
Nineteenth Amendment, which guaranteed political to women troughout the nation.
(Brinkley, 2004, pp. 563-564)

But the movement also gained strength because many of its leaders began to justify
suffrage in less threatening ways. Some supporters began to argue that if women were
given the right to vote they will bring their different point of view on the politics because
they have experienced distinctive life style as mothers and wives and through their
maternal instincts and their caring, peaceful nature will help restrain the natural
belligerence of men.

On Election Day in 1920, millions of American women exercised their right to vote for
the first time. It took activists and reformers nearly 100 years to win that right, and the
campaign was not easy: Disagreements over strategy threatened to cripple the
movement more than once. But on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the
Constitution was finally ratified, enfranchising all American women and declaring for the
first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

In the 20th century leadership of the suffrage movement passed to two organizations.
The first, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), under the
leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt, was a moderate organization. The NAWSA
undertook campaigns to enfranchise women in individual states, and simultaneously
lobbied President Wilson and Congress to pass a woman suffrage Constitutional
Amendment. In the 1910s, NAWSA’s membership numbered in the millions.

The second group, the National Woman’s Party (NWP), under the leadership of Alice
Paul, was a more militant organization. The NWP undertook radical actions, including
picketing the White House, in order to convince Wilson and Congress to pass a woman
suffrage amendment.

In 1920, due to the combined efforts of the NAWSA and the NWP, the 19th
Amendment, enfranchising women, was finally ratified. This victory is considered the
most significant achievement of women in the Progressive Era. It was the single largest
extension of democratic voting rights in our nation’s history, and it was achieved
peacefully, through democratic processes. (Wages, "Women in the Progressive Era")

Carrie Chapman Catt

Born on January 9, 1859, in Wisconsin, Carrie Chapman Catt worked as a teacher to

pay her own way through Iowa State College. She worked in the school system and for
newspapers before joining suffrage movement in 1887. She took over the National
American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) in 1900 and came up with the
“Winning Plan” that helped pass the 19th Amendment in 1920. (Biography.com, "Carrie
Chapman Catt Biography")

Catt was an experienced suffrage campaigner by the time she was elected president of
NAWSA. As president, Catt was a careful planner and an imaginative leader. She
raised funds, opened new NAWSA branches, and was powerful speaker. But she
resigned from the office in 1904 when her husband, George Catt, become ill, following
with the deaths of Susan B. Anthony, her mother and brother. In 1915, she was re-
elected as president of NAWSA, which desperately was in need of her energy and
leadership. . In 1916, Catt proposed her “Winning Plan” which focused on two fronts:
getting state legislatures to give women the right to vote, and using the voting power in
these states to pressure Congress to pass a federal amendment. Even during World
War I, Catt kept up with the suffrage momentum. She had founded the Woman’s Peace
Party with Jane Addams in 1915. Even with the entrance of US in the war in 1917, she
encouraged women to be part of war effort at home. Catt herself served on the
Woman’s Committee of the Council of National Defense. Still, she never gave up on her
purpose to give women the right to vote. Finally on August 26, 1920 the amendment
passed giving women the right to vote. (Keenan, 1996, pp. 67-68)

Alice Paul

Few individuals have had as much impact on American history as has Alice Paul. Her
life symbolizes the long struggle for justice in the United States and around the world.
Her vision was the ordinary notion that women and men should be equal partners in
society.

She was born in Moorestown, New Jersey and raised in Quaker. Paul graduated from
Swarthmore in 1905 and then attended the New York School of Philanthropy (later
Columbia University School of Social Work), the University of Pennsylvania, and a
training school for Quakers in Woodbridge, England. She remained in England from
1907 to 1910.

In England she had taken part in more radical protests for woman suffrage with the
founder of the British suffrage movement, Emmeline Pankhurst, and her daughters,
participating in hunger strikes Paul, who understood the importance of street theatre in
communicating a political position, brought back this sense of militancy, and in the
United States she organized protests and rallies that led to her imprisonment three
times. (Ford, 2008, pp. 356-357)

Paul’s focuse on the federal amendment increasingly drove wedge between her and the
larger national group. However, unhappy with Carrie Chapman Catt and the NAWSA,
whom she viewed as too conservative, Paul soon broke away to form a more radical
group, the National Women's Party (NWP). This organization decided to focus its efforts
on President Wilson, who in 1917 still did not support a women's suffrage amendment.
The Congressional Union, formed by her committee in 1913, become a separate
organization in 1915 and changed its name into Women’s party. This group copied the
British suffragists in holding the democrats responsible for not acting on a suffrage
amendment. NWP lobbied against electing Democratic candidates everywhere. (Tindall,
1984, pp. 1042-1043)

Alice knew how to get publicity so she Paul organized the "Silent Sentinels," a group of
women who protested in front of the White House, holding banners which proclaimed,
"Mr. President -- What will you do for woman suffrage?" The picketing continued even
as America readied for war. Deliberately causing arrests, after which they went on
hunger strike in prison. Force-fed through tubes and threatened with commitment to an
insane asylum, Paul remained steadfast. Wilson was offended by Paul's tactics, but he
was also keenly aware of the suffrage movement's growing political strength. By the end
of 1917, Wilson finally announced his support for the suffrage amendment. The
Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote passed in 1920. (….)

After the 1920 victory for the Nineteenth Amendment, Paul became involved in the
struggle to introduce and pass an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which would
eliminate any remaining legal distinctions between sexes. Paul was also active in the
peace movement, stating at the outbreak of World War II that if women had helped to
end World War I. Paul died on July 9, 1977, in Moorestown, while the heated battle of
ERA was still raging. (Ford, 2008, pp. 356-357)
 World War I slowed the suffragists’ campaign but helped them advance their
argument nonetheless: Women’s work on behalf of the war effort, activists
pointed out, proved that they were just as patriotic and deserving of citizenship
as men, and on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was
finally ratified.