Women's Failure to Gain the Vote Between 1900-1914 Essay

During the 1900s, many women were beginning to stand up for themselves and no longer wanted to be inferior to men. Prior to 1918, women were disrespected and under - valued in society. There was a change in attitudes towards women as the image of the "New Women" began to arise. They were becoming involved in various different jobs, having the ability to be better educated and get involved in politics. However, this view that the "New Women" was the only factor that contributed to women getting the vote is untrue. Women began their own campaigns in order to get the vote. This included

Before the Suffragettes, women were not able to vote and the move for women to have the right to vote really started in 1897 when Millicent Fawcett founded the National Union of Women’s Suffrage. Fawcett strongly believed that women should have the right to vote but also believed in peaceful protests, patience and logical arguments. She felt that if any violence occurred then men would believe that women could not be trusted and therefore should not have the right to vote. She also made the argument that if women were made responsible for sitting on school boards and paying taxes that they should be part of the process to make the laws and should have the same rights as men. A main argument of hers was that even though some women who were wealthy mistresses of large manors and estates employed gardeners, workmen and labourers who were able to vote but women still could not, regardless of their wealth and social class. However, the progress of Fawcett was very slow and although she converted some of the members of the Labour Representation Committee (The Labour Party) but the majority of men felt that women would not understand how parliament functioned and therefore should not take part in the electoral

The journey of women’s suffrage beings with an aspired women named Alice Paul, who revolutionize the rights for women everywhere. Walton refers, how the inspiration all had flipped-the switch in Alice Paul when she heard speech on the “Votes for Women,” from a women named, Christabel Pankhurst, which was interrupted abruptly due to Christabel spitting in a police offers face, and being taken to jail. Walton refers to the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) as being seldom out of the news during the winter of 1907,

Women's Suffrage was one of the many well knows Progressive reform movements. Women became involved in political issues like the Temperance Movement through the WCTU (women’s Christian Temperance Union). Document H, shows that many women were feeling angry and were being cheated out of their right to vote and to be involved in the government. The message of the poster is that the U.S., especially President Wilson, needs to stop worrying about other countries and start worrying about the 20,000,000 women that don’t have the right to vote. Herbert Croly also thought that the President needed to do more at home. He accuses the president of deluding, “ himself into believing the extravagant claims which he makes on behalf of the Democratic Legislative achievement.”(Document F)

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

Before 1918, women were considered to be very much within their own sphere of influence separate from men. Throughout the 19th century women had slowly been gaining voting privileges, but only in areas considered to be within their spheres such as the vote for school boards, the vote for poor law boards and the vote for county councils. Traditionally many historians have argued that the main reason for the enfranchisement of women in 1918 was their work during world war one. This view is being disputed on multiple levels; some argue that the war itself called for a rearrangement of the whole electoral system. Alternatively other historians argue that the work of the women's suffrage workers such as the suffragist's and the suffragettes,

Women's Failure to Gain the Right to Vote between 1900 and 1914 In the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, women's suffrage was never far from the headlines due to the constant bombardment of publicity stunts pulled by Emmeline Pankhurst and her Suffragettes. Using all within their power to gain attention, the Suffragettes believed in using direct persuasion, and if necessary, violent protest to remain in the public eye, pulling stunts from chaining themselves to the railings of the houses of specific members of Parliament to smashing the shop windows on Oxford Street. At the other end of the spectrum were the Suffragists, who based their campaign entirely on their

The timeline of women’s suffrage is a one that spans from 1848 to 1920. The women’s rights movement in the United States started in the year 1848 with the first women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York. During this convention the ‘Declaration of sentiments’ was signed by 68 women who agreed that women deserved their own political identities. This document set forward the agenda for the women’s rights movement. In the year 1869, Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Women’s suffrage Association which demanded that the 15th amendment be changed to include women right to vote. In the year 1890, The National Women Suffrage Association and the American Women Suffrage Association merged to form National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Colorado was the first state to grant women the right to vote in the year 1893, followed by Utah, Idaho, Washington, California, Oregon, Kansas, Arizona, Alaska, Illinois, Montana, Nevada, New York, Michigan, South Dakota and Oklahoma. The National Association of Colored Women was formed in the year 1896 to promote the civil rights of colored women. The National Women’s Trade Union League was established in the year 1903 in order to improve the working condition for women and also to bring their wages in par with that of men.

Up until the 1920s, women’s struggle for their right to vote seemed to be a futile one. They had been fighting for their suffrage for a long time, starting numerous women's rights movements and abolitionist activists groups to achieve their goal. “The campaign for women’s suffrage began in earnest in the decades before the Civil War. During the 1820s and 30s, most states had enfranchised almost all white males (“The Fight for Women's Suffrage” ). This sparked women to play a more emphatic role in society. They began to participate in anti-slavery organizations, religious movements, and even meetings where they discussed that when the Constitution states "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain

In 1910 the Conciliation Bill was proclaimed by the government to give the women suffrage, but however this was abandoned in November so the WSPU

In 1903, Emmeline created a women’s social and political union(WSPU) that helped to inspire individuals in fighting for women’s rights. Their slogan “deeds not words” and name of this union was designed in order to emphasize it’s democracy (“The Women’s Social and Political Union”). This WSPU was composed of women from all different races, social classes and ethnicities from working to royal rank females. These women were willing to take part in drastic actions to fight for the fair rights they believed in. These members of this union worked together by disrupting parliament speeches as well as resorting to militant tactics to further their cause. Women from the WSPU resisted the government which accepted them to have courage and bravery as they were working against their body of nation. These women demanded political equal rights and equal responsibilities with men in society towards the government. To increase people’s awareness, they held street meetings and distributed suffrage literature (Rume, 1). These awareness movements, helped make the WSPU became the first and largest militant group that helped challenge the government. The WSPU tactics and ideas on the suffrage movement helped challenge women’s social inequality which opened eyes for females to see how unfair the life they were living (Steven 194-198).

The main request of this source, and of the NUWSS, was for votes to be given to women. The way that the NUWSS made their appeal in this source gives an idea of the opposition being faced. Their desire for voting rights here is encompassed in the language of the private sphere. Often, anti-suffrage arguments centred around fears that women's involvement in politics would lead to the neglect of their female

Campaigns for Women Suffrage and their Effectiveness Throughout the nineteenth century, the suffragists and the suffragettes worked hard campaigning for women suffrage. Finally, in 1918, the vote was given to women, but only women over thirty. But suffrage campaigns, although important, were not the only reason that the franchise was granted. Some other reasons include, a fear of the return of suffragette activity, the government following an international trend, the government making changes to the voting system anyway, and the Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, being more sympathetic to the cause that the previous Prime Minister was.

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.

The main issue is one that affected most of Society in the early 20th century.The main issue stemmed from outcry at The Great Reform Act 1832 which was introduced to amend the representation of the people in England and Wales. Before the 1832 Reform Act most men and all women did not have the vote. This act created a wider franchise but used the term ‘male person’, specifically excluding women. Alternative acts helped to enfranchise new sections of society and gave most men the vote, leaving sex the principal ground for disqualification. As a result, debates about ‘fitness’ for citizenship and the vote, which had previously centred around wealth, property ownership and education, now revolved around questions of gender. It was that women, did not have the right to vote for the men that were in power creating laws and such which they had to follow. The laws and aspects of society which they were made to follow without any say in the creation of them were things such as taxes. Women were denied the vote for many reasons, most being justified by men. Most men and some women at the time, against women gaining the vote believed in Conservatism, they thought that the way the laws were, had been the same for many years, and they saw no need to change something that ‘worked’ for ‘the benefit’ of ‘all’ those in society at the time. it was also a widespread belief that women should remain in the home and take care of their ‘natural duties’, such as cleaning, cooking, etc. Women at