Iron Jawed Angels: Summary and Analysis

First and foremost, the fight for women’s rights is something that has occurred throughout time not only in the United States, but in every part of the world. When it comes to the United States, one cannot deny that it was an important historical event. “The struggle for women’s suffrage in the United States had occupied better part of a century” (Source 1). Truly a struggle, for it was not acknowledged by men in the past, primarily white man who had full rights in the nation. Susan B. Anthony was an important leading figure of the Suffrage Movement and contributed to the Suffrage Movement.

Generations of women fought courageously for equality for decades. The ratification of the Nineteenth amendment was vindication for so many women across the country. After having spent so many years oppressed and unable to make way for themselves, women everywhere were growing tired of being unable to own property, keep their wages and the independence that an academic education gave them. The decades that ensued brought with them various female activists, men that supported them and a division of its own within the movement. The women’s suffrage movement lasted 71 years and cam with great discourse to the lives of many women who fought for the cause.

3. Urban industrialism dislocated women’s lives no less than men’s. Like men, women sought political change and organized to promote issues central to their lives, campaigning for temperance and woman suffrage., Susan B. Anthony, launched the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869, demanding the vote for women suffrage, though not yet generally supported, was no longer considered a crackpot idea. Thanks to the WCTU’s support of the “home protection” ballot, suffrage had become accepted as a means to an end even when it was not embraced as a woman’s natural right.

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

The film Iron Jawed Angels is mostly accurate. The film goes in chronological order of what happened in history. The filmmakers did a great job of portraying the historic events. From the parade, to the White House Picketing, to the women's imprisonment, the historical timeline of the movie was pretty accurate with some small deviations here and there.  The costumes were pretty close to being accurate. Alice Paul's and Lucy Burn's outfits were pretty identical to what the women suffragists wore back in the day.  Long, draping skirts, coats, and big flamboyant hats.  For example, Inez Milholland is portrayed on the white horse, looking powerful and majestic while opening the suffrage parade. The costuming is very similar to the pictures we have of her.  The other women's outfits in the parade was extremely accurate as well.  They asked women with a college degree to wear their gowns, and in the movie, you see women like Alice Paul wear a graduation gown. The White House Picketing and the Imprisonment were also scenes in the movie that were depicted quite well.  In history, the women picketed for close to a year, and the movie does a good job of letting the audience know the changing of seasons.  The movie does a fine job of depicting the women picketing in silence.  Although the scene when Alice Paul is outraged while in front of the White House is fictional, for the most part, the movie depicts the women as silent and peaceful which is extremely accurate to history.  Alice

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

The suffragists were people who fought to get the right to vote. In this case, they were fighting for women’s right to vote. Susan B. Anthony was an important leader in the American Women Suffrage Movement. Her accomplishments eventually earned her a place on a silver dollar coin (Learn). Raised in a Quaker household, Anthony fought for the things she believed in (Learn). Quakers believe that women and men are equal in the eyes of God (Lutz). She was a temperance worker, an abolitionist, a suffragist, and a fighter for other rights, such as equal rights for every body and better pay for women teachers (Learn). Anthony traveled around lecturing people and trying to win women the right to vote (Learn). At the age of 80, Anthony managed to convince the University of Rochester to

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

“On May 1913, in an unseasonable hot Washington spring, a determined young women was building a woman suffrage organization, whose sole pressure congress to pass a federal amendment giving woman to vote” (azlibrary.com). “In 1920, while showing how Paul had became a suffragist and the battles that defined a generation of fractious feminist activism, the book leaves the rest of her long life” (azlibrary.com). Alice had ended that the 23 year old National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) never was effective because this wasn’t enough at the federal level. (Source 3 page 1 and

Iron Jawed Angels is the story of Alice Paul and Lucy Burns and their part in the fight to get women the right to vote. They originally began their fight as part of the NAWSA (the National American Women Suffrage Association) which was founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Paul and Burns meet with Carrie Chapman Catt and Anna Howard Shaw in 1912 after returning from London together. During their meeting, Burns and Paul try to take Catt and Shaw into pushing President Wilson for a constitutional amendment for women to have the right to vote, Catt and Shaw refuse.

To begin with, the American suffragists of the 1900s worked very hard with a variety of strategies to bring attention to their cause. In document 2, a New York Times article from April 29, 1917, described that a publishing company run by suffragists issued fliers, leaflets, posters, and books detailing why women should be able to vote. This article also stated that the publishing company manufactured many common objects, (such as calendars, stationery, and postcards), with the phrase, “Votes for Women” printed on them. Furthermore, in documents 3a and 3b, photographs from the time depict women marching in a parade and picketing outside of buildings with large signs that displayed messages promoting voting rights for women. The propaganda and marches run by women fighting for suffrage were methods used to promote suffrage. Suffragists brought their cause to the forefront of the minds of

In June of 1915, the United States is fighting World War One in Europe, while women, including Anna Howard Shaw, continue to fight for suffrage rights at home. As the war rages on, women commit to their suffrage movements by giving speeches and marching in parades. On June 21, Shaw persuasively speaks to the people of New York at an equal suffrage campaign as they prepare to vote on a law concerning women’s suffrage rights. She intends to give evidence to her listeners and persuade them to support the women of New York and eventually all of the women in America, to vote. Shaw uses “The Fundamental Principles of a Republic” to prove the true purpose of the women 's suffrage movement, expose the illogical arguments of her opposition, and to convince all of her listeners (the male voters of New York) to vote for women’s right to vote through logical and rational arguments.

The Iron Jawed Angels brought forth a part of history I knew hardly anything about. From the posh leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), men in office, female workers, to the civilians on the sidelines of the National Woman's Party (NWP) protests. The ones who struck me the most were definitely Alice Paul, with her strong and serious committment toward all of her work with the NWP, and Emily Leighton, whose position as a senator's wife had made it hard to do what she felt was right. Some of the more powerful scenes that I favored also dealt with them. The first being the prison scene where some of the NWP members were being force fed during their hunger strike and the second being the scene between Emily and her husband over their children, in an attempt to persuade her to cease her involvement with the NWP.

In this source, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS), or suffragists, appeal for women to be given the vote. From this source, some of the aims of the NUWSS and their methods for gathering support are evident, and something can be inferred of the type of opposition being faced by the suffragists in their fight for suffrage.

Two of the sources used in the essay, The Women’s Suffrage: a short history of a great Movement by Millicent Garrett Fawcett, and The cause: a short history of the women's movement