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Women's Suffrage Broadsides
In early twentieth century fliers and broadsides, a group
of suffragists declared, “Women are, by nature and training,
housekeepers. Let them have a hand in the city’s housekeeping”
(GLC 08964). This statement showcases
one of the propaganda tactics used during the long and complex
history of the woman suffrage movement. For roughly seventy
years, the suffrage movement in America had stalled, transformed,
and flourished through various manifestations. Early twentieth
century suffragists believed that appealing to traditional
ideas of female domesticity offered their best chance to obtain
the vote [1]. Instead of arguing that politics could transform
the housewife, suffragists promised that women’s votes
could create positive change in policy. They suggested that
the neighborhood, state, and nation needed a thorough housecleaning.
With a broom in one hand and ballot in the other, women were
poised for the job.
These broadsides indicate that women’s suffrage had
a concrete basis in nineteenth century ideas regarding domesticity.
Periodicals and literature intended for middle-class women
(Godey’s Lady’s Book, the Ladies
Magazine, Mother’s Book, Harper’s
Magazine) conveyed notions of the traditionally male
public and traditionally female private domains [2]. Moreover,
these publications emphasized women’s duty to maintain
the home’s purity. Suffragists stressed similar ideals
in order to illustrate that with the vote, women could exercise
their unique abilities to eradicate the ills of urban society:
- [A mother] can clean her own rooms, BUT if the neighbors
are allowed to live in filth, she cannot keep her rooms
from being filled with bad air and smells, or from being
infested with vermin.
- She can cook her food well, BUT if dealers are permitted
to sell poor food, unclean milk or stale eggs, she cannot
make the food wholesome for her children.
- She can take every care to avoid fire, BUT if the house
has been badly built, if the fire-escapes are insufficient...
she cannot guard her children from the horrors of being
maimed or killed by fire.
- She can open her windows to give her children the air
that we are told is so necessary, BUT if the air is laden
with infection, with tuberculosis and other contagious diseases,
she cannot protect her children from this danger.
- MEN are responsible for the conditions under which the
children live, but we hold WOMEN responsible for the results
of those conditions. (GLC 08964)
By using such powerful expressions, suffragists highlighted
the importance that society put on the health and well-being
of one’s family. With a multitude of threats facing
society and the family, women’s ‘natural’
abilities would be indispensable at the polls. Suffragists
also promoted the nineteenth century notion that women had
"a firmer grip on religion and morals … [and a]
stronger claim to piety and purity, and a sense of moral superiority"[3].
Directed at voting men, some of these fliers suggest that
women’s moral purity could transform public behavior:
- Think what happens when there are not enough schools or
playgrounds. Your children go without education
and play in the crowded streets.
- Think what happens when dance halls and theaters are
not decent, and when unlawful sale of ‘dope’
is carried on. Your boys and girls are in danger
of going wrong.
- Your wife's complaints to the City departments that control
them do no good because she hasn't got the vote.
(GLC 08962)
- [Women] should vote equally with men. BECAUSE
over 8,000,000 women in the United States are wage workers
and their health and that of our future citizens are often
endangered by evil working conditions that can only be remedied
by legislation. (GLC 08963)
Additionally, suffragists used broadsides to address longstanding
arguments against women obtaining the vote. To confront these
arguments, they complied with the notion that the wife was,
essentially, an extension of her husband. They attempted to
dispel the apprehension that wives would, given the chance,
vote against husbands. Husbands and wives voting
in discordance implied unrest within the home, the basic building
block of smooth functioning society. The New Jersey Woman
Suffrage Association Broadside (GLC 08962) adroitly dealt
with this fear: “And don’t forget
there are more working people in this State than any other
kind. When you let the women vote, you will double your power
for getting what you want.” With such statements, suffragists
presented each female vote as an augmentation of the male
vote.
While suffrage propaganda attempted to assure men of the
many ways women’s votes could be utilized, it also sought
to persuade society of the benefits these votes offered the
state and nation. Women had been active in abolition, moral
reform, and temperance movements during the latter half of
the 1800s [4]. When the Woman Suffrage Party of the City of
New York declared “Women Ought to GIVE Their Help. Men
Ought to HAVE Their Help. The State Ought to USE Their Help”
(GLC 08963), they invited men and women to reflect on a century
of women’s participation in the betterment of society.
Suffragists reasoned that the women who had administered medicine
and sanitation during the Civil War, initiated social programs
for the poor (such as Jane Addam’s Hull House), and
organized prison reform, would also provide positive influence
at the polls. Conversely, they argued that if women were not
allowed to vote, their “higher sense of social and civic
responsibility” would deteriorate (GLC 08963).
A host of events at the turn of the century contributed to
the success of women’s suffrage. Spearheaded by the
National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), the
national organization that led multiple local associations,
the movement steadily expanded in the early 1900s. At the
urging of President Woodrow Wilson, the Senate approved a
women’s suffrage amendment in 1919 and sent it to the
states for approval. That approval came in 1920 and the Nineteenth
Amendment became law in time for women to vote in the November
1920 presidential election. After decades of combating opposition
from without and apathy from within, the movement had finally
achieved its goal. The broadsides below suggest that some
of the traditional perceptions of women and their domestic
roles helped pave women’s path to the polls.
Alyson Barrett
Manuscript Librarian
Gilder Lehrman Collection
[1] Woloch, Nancy. Women and the American Experience.
Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000. p. 333.
[2] Many historians argue that as the industrial era progressed,
an increasing number of men left home for work, while women
remained at home. The home transformed into a female domain
and a physical and moral haven from temptation, filth, and
other ills of modern society.
[3] Woloch, 125.
[4] Woloch, 342. At the turn of the century, there was overlapping
leadership between women’s reform and suffrage movements.
Click on each image to enlarge
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GLC 08961
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GLC
08962 |
GLC
08963 |
GLC
08964 |
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History Now, the Gilder Lehrman
Institute's online journal, covers the topic of women's suffrage:
www.historynow.org
For a thorough and concise history of American women, refer
to: Woloch, Nancy. Women and the American Experience.
Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000.
For a primary source collection, see: Norton, Mary Beth and
Ruth M. Alexander. Major Problems in American Women’s
History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003.
For images and primary sources regarding traditions of domesticity
in America, refer to: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA02/rodriguez/GildedAge/gilded
%20age%20Home%20page.html
For history in women’s letters, refer to: Grunwald,
Lisa and Stephen J. Adler, eds. Women’s Letters:
America from the Revolutionary War to the Present. New
York: The Dial Press, 2005. (Includes letters from many suffragists).
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. Eighty years and more (1815-1897);
reminiscences of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. New York: European
Publishing Company, 1898. (GLC05171)
For an assessment of suffragist’s campaign tactics,
see: McGerr, Michael. “Political Style and Women’s
Power,” Journal of American History, 77 (December
1990) 864-885.
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