Voting Rights for Women: Pro- and Anti-Suffrage

NCSS.D1.2.9-12. Explain points of agreement and disagreement experts have about interpretations and applications of disciplinary concepts and ideas associated with a compelling question.

NCSS.D2.His.1.9-12. Evaluate how historical events and developments were shaped by unique circumstances of time and place as well as broader historical contexts.

NCSS.D2.His.2.9-12. Analyze change and continuity in historical eras.

NCSS.D2.His.3.9-12. Use questions generated about individuals and groups to assess how the significance of their actions changes over time and is shaped by the historical context.

NCSS.D2.His.4.9-12. Analyze complex and interacting factors that influenced the perspectives of people during different historical eras.

NCSS.D2.His.5.9-12. Analyze how historical contexts shaped and continue to shape people’s perspectives.

NCSS.D2.His.12.9-12. Use questions generated about multiple historical sources to pursue further inquiry and investigate additional sources.

NCSS.D2.His.14.9-12. Analyze multiple and complex causes and effects of events in the past.

NCSS.D2.His.15.9-12. Distinguish between long-term causes and triggering events in developing a historical argument.

NCSS.D2.His.16.9-12. Integrate evidence from multiple relevant historical sources and interpretations into a reasoned argument about the past.

• Review the lesson plan. Locate and bookmark suggested materials and other useful websites. Download and print out documents you will use and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing.
• Download the Pro- and Anti-Suffrage Worksheet, available here as a PDF. Print out and make an appropriate number of copies of any handouts you plan to use in class.
• Because of the importance and scope of the Women's Rights Movement, EDSITEment offers three companion lessons designed to supplement your classroom curriculum through organized access to archival materials:
  • Who Were the Foremothers of Women's Equality?: Students encounter major figures in the woman's rights movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries in important documents and other primary and secondary materials. The first activity in particular familiarizes students with the formative goals of the movement as voiced in Elizabeth Cady Stanton's 1848 "Declaration of Sentiments."
  • Women's Equality: Changing Attitudes and Beliefs: Students analyze archival cartoons, posters, magazine humor, newspaper articles and poems that reflect the deeply entrenched attitudes and beliefs the early crusaders for women's rights had to overcome.
  • Women's Suffrage: Why the West First?: Students compile information to examine hypotheses explaining why the first nine states to grant full voting rights for women were located in the West.
• Depending on your students' level of preparation, you may wish to discuss how the movement for Women's Suffrage fits into the larger nineteenth-century struggle for Women's Rights. It may surprise your students to know, for example, that only a slim majority of those attending the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention approved the suffrage initiative and then only after Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass insisted it was essential. Demanding the vote was regarded by many as too extreme. Why did Stanton consider suffrage central to the advancement of women? To understand that Stanton felt suffrage should have a major place in the overall movement for women's rights, share with your students the first four grievances recorded in her 1848 Declaration of Sentiments, the formative document of the Women's Rights Movement, available via a link from the EDSITEment resource New Perspectives on the West. (Like The Declaration of Independence, which it mirrors, Stanton's text lists a "history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman):

1. He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.
2. He has compelled her to submit to law in the formation of which she had no voice.
3. He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men, both natives and foreigners.
4. Having deprived her of this first right as a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.

• All four initial grievances relate to the exclusion of women from the voting process, the overt subject of the first grievance. The second grievance echoes a familiar cry from the American Revolution, "No taxation without representation." The third grievance is a precursor to the argument used in the courts starting in the 1870s, that if women are citizens, they cannot be deprived of rights accorded to other citizens (and even, in some instances, non-citizens). The fourth grievance explains why the early proponents of the Women's Rights Movement chose suffrage as their central goal. Depriving women "of the elective franchise" made "oppressions… on all sides" possible. Stanton continues by listing many such oppressions.
• (NOTE: A more in-depth discussion of the grievances may be found in the first activity of the EDSITEment lesson Who Were the Foremothers of Women's Equality? For more on the deeply engrained beliefs the early movement was working against, consult the EDSITEment lesson Women's Equality: Changing Attitudes and Beliefs.)
• For further background on the suffrage and anti-suffrage movements, consult Not For Ourselves Alone, a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website New Perspectives on the West.
• The Currier and Ives lithograph The Age of Brass/or the Triumphs of Women's Rights (from the Library of Congress), used in Activity 1, is from 1869. According to Roland Marchand, it is a picture of various types of dangerous feminists. It includes the following words and phrases: "Vote for the Celebrated Man Tamer / Susan Sharp Tongue"; "Rights for Women … for Sheriff Miss Hang Man …" It also features two women smoking cigars and, to the side, a man with a baby.
• For further reading, consult the Recommended Reading List provided here as a PDF.

Activity 1. The Triumph of Women's Rights?

To establish an anticipatory set, begin by sharing with students the Currier and Ives lithograph The Age of Brass/or the Triumphs of Women's Rights, available from the Library of Congress. Before giving any background or guidance, encourage students to report what they notice in the lithograph. Then, in a whole-class setting, use this Cartoon Analysis Worksheet (offered by the Educator Resources section of National Archives) to analyze the illustration. Tell students they will be much better equipped to do such analyses when they have completed the other activities in this lesson.

Activity 2. The Constitutional/Legal Argument

Share with students the first paragraph of the Introduction, above. Was the legislator correct when he said that all-male voting was "designed by our forefathers?" As a class, read the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (ratified 1920), available in a Transcript of Amendments 11-27 from the National Archives. What does the amendment say? Now have students scan the text of the Constitution. (A Transcription of the U.S. Constitution is also available from the National Archives.) Are women expressly forbidden from voting? Why was the 19th Amendment necessary? Women did vote in some states in the early days of our republic.

Share with students the document 1797, An Act to regulate the election of members of the legislative council and general assembly, sheriffs and coroners, in this State, available courtesy of Rutgers University Libraries via New Jersey Women's History. What does the document indicate about voting in the state of New Jersey? (Women did vote.) Nevertheless, later acts rescinded the right of suffrage for women in every state—share with students the document Who Shall Not Vote 1807, also available courtesy of Rutgers University Libraries via New Jersey Women's History.

What about the post-Civil War Constitutional amendments? Didn't they grant universal suffrage? Read the 14th and 15th Amendments. (Note that the 14th Amendment specifically uses the word "male." The 15th does not, leaving open the possibility for a state to grant women the right to vote.)

Though passed in hopes of enforcing the rights of freed slaves to vote, a less well-known act of Congress—the Enforcement Act of 1870—was used to convict Elizabeth Cady Stanton of voting illegally. Download, copy and distribute to students the "Enforcement Act of 1870" on page 1 of the Pro-and Anti-Suffrage Worksheet, available here as a PDF. Can students find the clause that was used against Stanton?

The Founding Fathers never specifically banned women from voting, but the states did have that power and used it. What we might call a technicality in the Federal law was also used to enforce the ban.

If desired, students can now fill in the first section of the chart "Pro- and Anti-Suffrage Arguments" on page 2 of the PDF.

Activity 3. Suffrage and Anti-Suffrage Arguments

Share with the class the document A Petition for Universal Suffrage (circa 1865), an early plea to Congress, available from the National Archives. What are some of the issues Stanton, Anthony, Blackwell, Stone, and others included in the petition?

If you have not already done so, pass out the chart "Pro- and Anti-Suffrage Arguments," on page 2 of the PDF (see Preparing to Teach This Lesson), for students to use during the following activity.

Divide the class into eight groups. The archival documents listed below will allow the groups to explore specific issues. The selected documents have a common theme or themes, but are not necessarily limited to any particular theme. If possible, create overheads or multiple copies of documents as requested by groups.

• Group 1: The African-American Perspective
  • From the EDSITEment-reviewed website Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
    • WEB DuBois on Woman Suffrage
    • Letter from Booker T. Washington to Charles Monroe Lincoln, Tuskegee, Alabama, December 14, 1908 with enclosed "The Woman Suffrage Movement" which appeared in the New York Times on December 20, 1908
• Group 2: Woman's Work Outside the Home
  • Votes for women! The woman's reason from the Library of Congress
  • The Truth about Wage-Earning Women, from Jane McCallum and the Suffrage Movement via the Austin Public Library
• Group 3: Pro and Anti: Women versus the Brewers
  • From the EDSITEment-reviewed website Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
    • Anti-Woman Suffrage (In Colorado)
    • To the Women of Colorado
• Group 4: The Rights of Women/The Rights of States
  • Memorial of Alice Wadsworth of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, via the National Archives (NOTE: A memorial is a written statement of facts accompanying a petition presented to someone in authority.)
  • Petition from Minnie Fisher Cunningham of the Texas Woman Suffrage Association for Passage of the "Susan B. Anthony Amendment," via the National Archives
• Group 5: Are Women Already Represented?
  • Some reasons why we oppose votes for women ... National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, New York City, 1894 (Full Text Version / Broadside Image), via the Library of Congress
  • Some common questions answered by Sarah Platt Decker ... New York City National American Woman Suffrage Association (Full Text Version / Broadside Image), via the Library of Congress
• Group 6: Do Women Even Want the Vote?
  • Do Women Want the Vote? via the EDSITEment-reviewed website American Memory at the Library of Congress
  • Objections to Woman Suffrage Answered, via the National Archives
• Group 7: Will Suffrage Ruin Marriage, the Family, and the Nation?
  • Thoughts on female suffrage and in vindication of woman's true rights / by Mrs. Madeline Vinton Dahlgren.. Washington, D.C.: Blanchard and Mohun, 1871 (NOTE: From the end of line four, beginning with the words, "The good old idea …" to the sentence ending with "pottage," about halfway down the page.)
  • "The Nonsense of It," a printed pamphlet arguing for woman suffrage, via the National Archives
  • The Risk of Woman Suffrage from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst 
• Group 8: Woman's Work in the Home
  • Housework in Late 19th Century America on Digital History
  • The Sphere of Woman on The Susan B. Anthony Center
  • The Suffrage Family on the Maine Memory Network

Following their research, student groups should present their documents in a point/counterpoint fashion, having at least two speakers—each of whom represents a position as expressed in a particular document—speak in turn when possible.

Activity 4. Cartoons: A Check for Understanding

Once again, show students The Age of Brass/or the Triumphs of Women's Rights (from the Library of Congress). Would students analyze it differently now than they did when this lesson began?

Students can use the Cartoon Analysis Worksheet, available via the Educator Resources section of the National Archives website, for guidance.

Meeting of the Minds Seminar

Students assume the role of proponents and opponents of expanding suffrage rights to women based on resources included above and independent research. Students interpret these sources from the perspective of the person they are portraying, and participate in a discussion to persuade others and defend their positions. At the conclusion of the "Meeting of the Minds" discussion, students reflect on the research process, the discussion, and what they learned by arguing from someone else's perspective. This can be modified to small group discussions that each include the same competing perspectives/representatives rather than a whole group seminar. 

Questions to investigate, organize research around, and discuss during the Meeting of the Minds seminar can include:

• Is universal suffrage a Constitutional right?
• Why did some women have the right to vote prior to passage of the 19th Amendment?
• Were the abolitionist and suffrage movements mutually beneficial?
• Why were women effective in promoting their position on voting rights?
• Why was the road to voting rights so long?
• Did the 19th Amendment provide universal suffrage?
• Why does the suffrage movement remain important to voting and political participation today?

Abolition and the Early Women’s Rights Movement

Many of the early activists for women's rights became politicized through their interest in abolition. In an 1837 letter to Catherine E. Beecher, Angelina Emily Grimke, an early leader in the movement, explained how her interests expanded from antislavery to women's rights.

From the abolition movement grew the women's movement. For an online documentary movie about the formative years of the movement with an emphasis on Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (based on Ken Burns' television documentary), click on the image on the left-hand side of the home page of PBS's Not For Ourselves Alone (a link from the EDSITEment-reviewed website New Perspectives on the West) to access audio and video. Note the connections the documentary makes between the Women's Rights Movement and temperance and abolition movements. The first 12 online episodes are especially relevant for providing background on the formative years of the movement. (NOTE: Each episode is a brief loop; click on the next number to continue.)

When Did Women Overcome?

If desired, you can bring the discussion of the issues in Part 3 and Part 4, above, into more contemporary times. Share with the class the speech by Shirley Chisholm: "Equal Rights for Women" (available on the EDSITEment-reviewed website African-American Women: Online Archival Collection), presented in the House of Representatives on May 21, 1969. Which issues from the previous discussion did she raise? What new issues did she raise?

Share the first four pages of the illustrated satirical poem from the 1960s "There Was a Young Woman Who Swallowed a Lie" by Meridith Tax, also available on the EDSITEment resource African-American Women: Online Archival Collection.

Which issues from the previous discussion did she raise? What new issues did she raise?

Both of these documents were from the 1960s. Are any of the issues from the early suffrage movement still issues today? Students could create a poll to try to gauge the answer. If students in the class disagree, a debate could be conducted. (The topic of women's rights is still contentious: monitor the debate closely.)