Comparing and Contrasting the Methods of Sufragettes and Suffragists

Thesis: The women’s suffrage movement effect many areas around America, including: social expectations, economic roles, and political positions.

Economically and socially the movement gained women more rights and privileges. The Women's Rights Movement granted women more political rights like property rights. It changed how both genders saw one another and themselves. But did it really give women and men equality? Did it really make everything better?

It was not until 1902 that things really turned around. Unions formed to fight for workers and child laborers.

The battle for suffrage was a long and slow process. Many women tried to initiate the fight for suffrage, like Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. “These were the New Suffragists: women who were better educated, more career-oriented, younger, less apt to be married and more cosmopolitan than their previous generation.” (pg 17) Eventually, in 1920, the 19th amendment was ratified; allowing women to vote, but it was not any one person or event that achieved this great feat. It was the confluence of certain necessary factors, the picketing and parades led by Alice Paul, militaristic suffrage parties and the influence of the media that caused the suffrage amendment to be passed and ratified in 1920. But most importantly, they successfully moved both

With Seneca Falls, 1848, the movement began in earnest. Early suffragists often had ties to the abolitionist movement. (Lecture 18) With the Civil War era, suffragists split over voting rights for black men. There was a need for regrouping and rethinking in the face of a reconstructed nation because there was a push for black men to get the right to vote. There were Women’s Rights conventions every year up until the Civil War, and in 1851, a resolution that “resolved, the proper sphere, for all human beings is the largest and highest for which they are able to obtain”. (Lecture 24) This captures the true essence of both the Women’s Suffrage Movement and the Abolitionist Movement. Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were Abolitionists and a majority of suffragettes were as well as well as involvement with the temperance movement. (Ibid) The question was raised, should women keep advocating for women’s rights or do they need to support the war? This resulted in the pause between 1861-1865 when there was not a women’s convention for the first time. Women were deeply involved with the Union cause and were vital to upholding society and keeping stores in business by serving as “deputy husbands”. (Ibid) Women also had a direct role serving in the war, some served as nurses in addition to some fighting for the cause. Sarah Edmunds Seelye was one of the few who fought under a man’s name, she served under Franklin Thompson for the 2nd Michigan Infantry until she deserted due to

This article talked about the general things of the National Labor Union back in the 1800’s. It mostly talked about the negative effects of the NLU such as exclusion of women, racial prejudice, and failing to enforce the eight-hour labor law. The article did mention about groups of skilled, unskilled, and farmers were unable to share and participate in united political views unless they were intensely focused on labor union. After William Sylvis death in 1869, the NLU suffered politically and dealt with the Depression of 1873, where the NLU finally collapsed.

This section on women's history will show the events that led to the suffrage movement and what the outcome was after the movement, plus how those events are involved in today's society. The women of the post suffrage era would not have the ability to the wide variety of professions were it not for their successes in the political arena for that time. In the early 1900’s when women were barred from most professions and limited in the amount of money they could earn, a group of suffragists led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton started to develop the women into an influential and powerful leaders of this country. The original women who started the suffrage movement had nothing to

The majority power, Union, was taking control

The Framers of the Constitution purposely left the power to set suffrage qualifications to each State. Suffrage means the right to vote. Franchise is synonym for the right to vote. The electorate is all of the people entitled to vote in given election. The right to vote was limited to white males that owned property in America in 1789 when Constitution can into effect. Today, the size of the American electorate is greater than 230 million people. Nearly all citizens at least 18 years of age can qualify to vote. The history of American suffrage since 1789 has been marked by two long term trends. The first growing federal control over suffrage and second the elimination of voting restrictions.

In regards to U.S. history, Lerner recognizes how American women transitioned from enjoying certain freedoms in the colonial period to having to fight for equal rights between the sexes in the 1800s. Beginning with the colonial period, she observed that there was a shortage of women in the colonies who were encouraged to work in maintaining the community. Single women and widows were required to be self-supporting while married women had to help out their husbands in their occupations. Although they can only depend on men to partake in their place in society and were excluded from politics and education, colonial women managed to participate in occupations that would rarely be [or not at all} available to them in nineteenth-century.

During the late 19th century, women were in a society where man was dominant. Women not having natural born rights, such as the right to vote, to speak in public, access to equal education, and so forth, did not stop them to fight for their rights. Women's lives soon changed when Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony played a prominent role to help bring about change.

For decades, women struggled to gain their suffrage, or right to vote. The women’s suffrage movement started in the decades before the Civil War, and eventually accomplished its goal in the year of 1920 when the 19th Amendment was ratified into the U.S. Constitution. After the U.S. Civil War, the women’s suffrage movement gained popularity and challenged traditional values and sexism in the country; the increase of progressive social values benefited the women suffragists by allowing them to succeed in passing the 19th Amendment which changed the role of women in society, guaranteed them a voice in politics, and encouraged future generations to struggle for women’s equal rights.

Furthermore, journalists known as Muckrakers played a big part in spreading progressivism socially and politically. These journalists set out to investigate and reveal the negativities in American society. Their goal was to expose problems and influence American society to fix social, economic and political problems. Muckrakers exposed corruption in business and government scandals. In addition, the journalists also portrayed bad working conditions. Theodore Roosevelt, president of the United States, nicknamed these investigative journalists muckrakers. John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress influenced TR to name the journalists muckrakers. Pilgrim’s Progress stated that a rake was used to dig up filth and muck. One of the most famous progressive reformers was also a muckraker, Ida Tarbell. Tarbell exposed the corrupt

These groups also do a lot of good, the suffragette and suffragist movements arguably won the right to vote for women, but conversely this sends a bad message. The suffragettes used radical methods to achieve their aims and did eventually achieve them, which teaches others with radical political aims that violence is an acceptable way to achieve change. Governments often avoid negotiating with terrorists for this very reason, it enfranchises the terrorist. This weakens democracy because it undermines it’s most basic principles of fairness and collective decision by resigning decision making to a group without democratic

California women and men worked tirelessly to strengthen the women’s suffrage campaign from 1893, when the state legislature passed an amendment permitting women to vote in state elections, through the final passage of the amendment in 1911. The strength of the movements themselves, passionate support overcoming harsh opposition, pushed by the people and the organizations championing for the women’s vote were the main contributing factors which accumulated in the eventual passage of Amendment 8. Since California women have begun to vote, there have been many advancements and setbacks in the other women’s rights movements, including the Nineteenth Amendment and the Equal Rights Amendment.