Suffragism In Iron Jawed Angels

The film “Iron Jawed Angels,” is about women and their fight for women’s ability to vote. In 1910, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns first met with radical suffragettes Emmeline Pankhurst and Carrie Chapman Catt, to present their plan of pushing the women’s rights protest to Washington D.C. The plan was looked at as forceful by Catt, but allowed Paul and Burns to take over the National American of Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Paul and Burns organized a parade that took place on the same day as Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. In the film “Iron Jawed Angels,” I found it inspiring how women never gave up no matter what obstacle was faced.

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.

The film Iron Jawed Angels tells the viewer about the women?s suffrage movement in the 1920s. It also tells the viewer that the United States, mostly men, was strongly opposed to women?s suffrage. The disturbing violence geared towards the women suffragists also shows the discontent of American men towards the movement. Unfortunately the women suffragists were thrown in prison for blocking traffic (an excuse because they were protesting outside of the White House) and were forced to work. The hatred and animosity which suffragists faced during the 1920s is also an accurate depiction of United States life during this time period. Some questions which were left unanswered by the film Iron Jawed Angels are who started the women?s suffrage movement and where the movement started.

Some women chose to follow their husbands to war and participated in cooking, laundry, and nursing for wounded soldiers [1]. Female suffragists in the 1900’s began encouraging the spread of feminist ideas, all over the country which lead to campaigns by suffragists [3]. Alice Paul and Lucy Burns were suffragists who changed women’s role during the twentieth century by holding suffrage campaigns and forming organizations [5].

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 fight for women suffrage was one of the largest reform movements of the Progressive era. In the twentieth century, it was hard for American’s to understand why the right to vote was a big disagreement. Alan Brinkley, an American historian, wrote, “that woman

In A Woman’s Crusade, Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot, Mary Walton argues how important it is for women to actively know the history with their equality rights, and how Alice Paul and other women fought so hard for those rights throughout time. All through time women have fought for the right to vote, equal rights in the workplace, and rights for our own body, these fights have been so important for woman to move on in our society to been seen as equals and not the weaker sex. Moving back in time with Mary Walton’s book “A Woman’s Crusade,” in the early stages of women’s suffrage is an inspiring crusade of inspiration. Alice Paul started her early days as an eighth generation American Quaker, living a life as a Quaker Alice Paul

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

Ignorant women are not so ignorant after all. Women in the United States fought for over twenty years, from 1895 to 1915, for women’s suffrage. Women never gave up and showed their strength by overcoming any obstacle that tried to stop them from voting. Anna Howard Shaw was a one of the leaders of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. On June 21, 1915 Shaw was the voice of the American woman and gave a speech to the men of New York before Election Day in November. In “The Fundamental Principle of a Republic” the rhetorical principles of ethos, anecdote, and hypophora are utilized to persuade the men of New York that women have the right to vote.

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

During the progressive era a group of people rose to fight the injustice that women had to endure, those people were called suffragists. Suffragists fought for women’s right to vote which factory and liquor store owners did not agree with. These owners feared that women would ban the use of alcohol and poor working conditions if they gained the right to make their opinions count. Although people like Theodore Roosevelt agreed with the cause it was pushed to the side because it was not regarded as an important matter. To this the suffragists upped their efforts to gain the right to vote by forming militant programs that attracted young third generation suffragists. A stand out suffragist by the name of Rose Winslow demonstrates some of the best characteristics this group of progressives had. She was a selfless woman who led hunger strikes with Alice Paul-the founder of the National Woman’s party-and picketed the White House despite the disapproval of many. When the group was imprisoned they commenced hunger strikes to demonstrate their point. The authorities took to force feeding the women to ensure they would not die in prison, which would make them martyrs, a person who dies for their beliefs, which would shock and convince people that the cause was worth fighting for. In the last paragraph of her article, “Women Fighting for Liberty” Winslow shares why she is fighting for her cause. She closes off with, “God knows we don’t want other women ever have to do this over again”(Winslow, “Women Fighting for Liberty,” 2). Jones demonstrates her internal duty to better the lives of other women. She is not fighting only for the women of her time and herself, she is hoping that her efforts will last and benefit the future generations. By saying this she defines herself as an American by sacrificing her health and safety to perform her duty in order to improve her

This new generation of activists fought with this new agenda for almost 20 years until a few states in the West began to extend the vote to women. The Eastern and Southern states still refused to give in, but this didn’t stop the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In 1916, Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the NAWSA, worked vigorously to get women’s organizations from all over the country together and fight side by side. “One group of activists, led by Alice Paul and her National Woman’s Party, lobbied for full quality for women under the law” (Divine). She used mass marches and hunger strikes as strategies, but she was eventually forced to resign because of her insistence on the use of militant direct-action tactics (Grolier). Finally, during World War 1, women were given more opportunities to work, and were able to show that they were just as deserving as men when it came to the right to vote. On August 18th, 1920, the 19th amendment was ratified, allowing women to vote. This drawn-out and arduous battle opened a new window of opportunity for women all over the country. Significant changes in both social life and job availability began to create what is now referred to as the “new women.”

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.

The year was 1912 in London, England. Women lived at the mercy of their fathers, brothers, husbands and bosses; clearly a patriarchal society. Women’s lives consisted of keeping house and raising children and caring for their families. Those who worked outside of the home were limited to menial labor, earned significantly less than men, and surrendered their earnings to their husbands. Any inheritance of real estate or money a woman may have received was given to her husband and, most often, she had nothing to say about how it was managed or spent. A woman could not vote or run for office, and received little support, should she desire an education other than a ‘finishing school.’ (Clearly,