Women's Suffrage In Canada Research Paper

“We may yet live to see that day when women will no longer be news. And it cannot come too soon. I want to be a peaceful, happy, normal human being, pursuing my unimpeded way through life, never having to explain, defend, or apologize for my sex” (Nellie McClung, 1929). Throughout most of history, men have had greater rights than women. In present days, the equality between men and women have improved, despite the fact that some countries are still striving to establish those same rights for both genders. What impact did Nellie McClung make on Canadian society? She is a perfect example of a Canadian social activist who advocated for the rights of women throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In this essay, I will examine the depictions of the fight for suffrage and the stand for electoral office, in addition to the contribution of the Famous 5 and the type of feminism she represented in order to demonstrate the impact and influence she had as a Canadian woman.

Women’s rights were not always a part of society as it may seem in today’s world. Suffrage can date all the way back to 1776. Women had to fight for their rights and privileges, hard and for many years. In the late 1800’s women were seen as much less than a male and had no voice. Women were arrested, prosecuted and put down for wanting more freedom and power for their gender. As you see in many suffrage ads, women were desperate and wanted so badly the same equality as men. A few women in particular stood up for what they believed was right and fought hard. Although it took far too long and over 100 years, in 1920 women were finally given the opportunity to share the same voting rights as men. History had been made.

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

Back in the 1900s there were limits on what women were able to do. The life of a wife and a mother back then was to clean, cook, and tend to the every need of the husband and/or children. There was very little say in the matter of what women could do especially in the government or community. At this point in the United States Women Suffrage was knocking on the door of Washington D.C by Susan B. Anthony in 1871 but little was really accomplished on paper until later in the 1900s around 1915 or so, (Stevenson).

“Beginning in the 1800s, women organized petitioned and pocketed to won three right to vote but it took them decades to accomplish their purpose”(archive.com). The organized movement started at Seneca Falls, NY with a meeting called by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. The most influential leaders during the movements were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The Suffragists and Suffragettes were trying to prove to the public that women could be doing other things apart from looking after the children and taking care of the homes. The Seneca Falls convention was organized by a group of women who had been active in the antislavery movement. The Seneca Falls Declaration called for an increase in women’s rights in these areas, as well as in education for women and the jobs available to

Who were the main people involved? Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott initiated the first Women's Suffrage Movement, July 19, 1848 at Seneca Falls Convention, New York. At this convention Elizabeth Cady Stanton echoed the preamble of the Declaration Of Independence. “ We hold these truths to be self- evident: that all men and women are created equally.” Proving that when we declared our independence it was for everyone not just men. In 1866, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed an American Equal Rights Association. The Association was dedicated to the suffrage goals regardless of race or gender. Lucy Stone fought about the 15th Amendment, Ratified in 1870, and that the Amendment states that, “ The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.Many of the women involved in suffrage began political work in the antislavery

The Women 's Suffrage Movement impacted the United States by giving women the right to have a voice and to finally be able to vote. Achieving the right to vote was the culminating event of the Women 's Suffrage Movement. The Women 's Suffrage Movement was also known as Women 's Suffrage. The movement was the struggle for women to be able to vote and run for president. It was also closely linked to the women 's right movement. In the mid 19th century women in several different countries, mostly the United States and Britain began forming organizations to fight for suffrage.

Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone created one of the first organizations in New York, 1848. (Lewis B.R. Women at War: the women of World War 2; at home, at work, on the Front Line) The goal of this movement was to bring attention to the public about restrictions against women and to address the issues regarding equality between men and women. However, the main goal was to earn themselves the right to vote. These women promoted their ideas and concerns by speaking in girl schools and in public as well as participating in the hostings of parades around the White House. All of the women’s information was beginning to influence others, therefore, they received support from people outside of the movement. Finally, after all of the fighting women did to gain liberation, the government passed the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 which granted women a right to vote. (https://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/progressiveera/home.html) Thus, after all the protesting, marches, parades and organizations, women’s voices were finally heard and they now felt more equal to men because their long term goal was achieved.

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

In the 1920’s women suffrage was a substantial impact because that year women gained the right to vote and run for office. It took activists and reformers nearly 100 years to win that right (“The Fight” par. 1). Before the Election Day in 1920, women didn’t have the right to vote or basically do anything a man could do. Women fought against the court and formed multiple groups until they made a change in the law, to let women vote. Many American women were tired of being known as an unimportant role in their generation. They were beginning to become annoyed with what historians referred them as which was “a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family” (“The Fight” par. 2). “All of these contributed to a new way of thinking about what it meant to be a women and a citizen in the United States”(“The Fight” par. 2). “The suffrage movement in the United States gained prominence with the first women’s rights convention in the world”(“Women’s Suffrage” par. 5). Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the convention in 1848. “American

In the years of 1848 to 1920 all that was important in the U.S. was giving women the right to vote. Right to voting was very important to women because it was thought to a beginning of a world of equality between men and women. The idea of equality helped create Women's suffrage (also known as woman's right to vote). In 1848, a group of abolitionist activists mostly women, but also some men gathered in Seneca Falls, New York to discuss the problem of women's rights to voting. Furthermore during the 1800’s and 1900’s “Women and Women’s Organizations” worked for broad based economic and political equality for women. Women didn’t gain the right to vote until the passage of the 19th amendment in 1919 which also helped empower some women to create the “National League of Women Voters” in 1920 to educate women about their rights and additionally it sponsored Women’s Equality Day which is held on the 26th of August to celebrate the anniversary of the 19th Amendment. Right to

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.

The women suffrage movement officially started in the late 1840’s and officially got ratified in the 1920’s. The movement was founded by three women which included Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone. The first recorded event for the movement was a convention that was coordinated together Elizabeth and Lucretia during July of 1848 (Dorr 43). The goal of this convention was for women to have equal rights as men and “declare war on the whole status of women” (Dorr 39). Kraditor makes a statement that in 1869 the women suffrage movement split into two separate groups known as the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association (4). During the 1890, the two groups came together to form the

The suffrage movement roots go back to the anti-slavery movement before the eruption of the Civil War (19). American women recruited their efforts through political activism to bring slavery to an end. Consequently, joining the antislavery movements was used as a platform where the feminists articulated their claims about women’s rights. Moreover, they gave them the needed experience and self-confidence to launch their own movement. By the end of the Civil War, feminists realized that they need an independent political groundwork to base their movement on since America was going through radical social changes after the end of slavery (19).