As is being widely publicized this month, women in the U.S. were given the universal right to vote 100 years ago this week, on August 18, 1920, when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
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| June posing as a 1920 suffragist |
Women’s
Voting Rights before 1920
Women
in most of the U.S. states did not have the right to vote in presidential
elections before 1920.
For
example, my paternal grandmother was born in 1881, so she turned 21, the voting
age for men back then, in 1902. In the presidential election of 1904, though,
she could not go to the polls with her husband George, whom she had married
earlier that year.
Grandma
Laura Seat was also unable to vote in the elections of 1908, 1912, or 1916. In
the Declaration of Independence, the words “all men are created equal” still
meant men instead of people 140 years later.
At
the July 1848 Seneca
Falls Convention,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton adopted the motto, “All men and women are created equal,”
and they demanded the right to vote. That still hadn’t happened 68 years later
when Grandma Laura was not legally permitted to vote in 1916.
But
the situation changed in August 1920.
The
Suffs and the Antis in 1920
The
U.S. Congress passed the 19th Amendment on June 4, 1919—but it had
to be ratified by 36 of the 48 states in order to become part of the
Constitution. The battle for and against ratification in Tennessee, the 36th
state, was fiercely fought in August 1920.
That
battle between the “Suffs” (those for women’s suffrage) and the “Antis” (those
opposing suffrage, which included many women) is engagingly told in Elaine
Weiss’s 2018 book The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote. And
what a battle it was!
The
strong women Antis emphasized several dangers the 19th Amendment
posed, including the dismantling of “white supremacy, states’ rights, and
cherished southern traditions” (Weiss, p. 44).
Somehow,
I had not previously realized how so much of the opposition to women’s suffrage
was by southerners, still indignant over the outcome and effects of the Civil
War and adamantly opposed to Black women gaining voting rights.
The
Antis also included many women who were part of the conservative Christian evangelicalism
of the South and linked with the fundamentalism that was growing in strength
throughout the 1910s.
Among
many other things, the Antis attacked the Suffs because of Elizabeth Cady
Stanton’s Woman’s Bible (1895, 1898).
On
the other hand, the Suffs were single-minded in their advocacy for women’s
suffrage—and, regrettably, because of that single-mindedness they compromised on
other matters of social justice, especially with regard to the rights of African
Americans.
But,
could the 19th Amendment have been ratified otherwise? Perhaps not. Thankfully,
it was ratified by Tennessee on August 18 and took effect on August 26, 1920.
Surprisingly, though, most women didn’t vote in the November election that year.
What
About 2016 & 2020?
It
is reported that in the 2016 presidential election, 63.3% of eligible women
voters went to the polls but only 59.3% of eligible men voters did.
Given
the 72-year struggle (from 1848 to 1920) for voting rights, though, why would
nearly 37% of women not vote in the last presidential election? Perhaps some of
them still agreed with the Antis of 1920, although surely almost all women
today think they should have the right to vote.
If
just a small percentage of those women who didn’t go to the polls had done so, the
2016 election would likely have turned out differently, for of those women who did
vote, 54% of them voted for Clinton whereas 53% of men voted for Trump.
In
this centennial year of women’s suffrage, many of us are hoping that a far
greater number of women will vote on November 3. “Votes for women” didn’t elect
a woman president in 2016, but voting women can (and probably will!) make Senator
Kamala Harris the first female vice president in U.S. history.
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How did the suffs compromise with regard to African Americans?
ReplyDeleteAnton, this matter is mentioned repeatedly in Weiss's fine book. In a nutshell, the white suffragists thought attention given to equality for African Americans would hurt the suffrage cause, so they were not willing to allow Black women to be an active part in the main activities of the White suffragists. The rejection of Ida B. Wells (whom I plan to write about next March 25 on the 90th anniversary of her death in 1931) is one of the best known examples. Here is the link to an article about one aspect of that, which was published by NPR on Ms. Wells's 80th birthday anniversary: https://www.npr.org/2011/03/25/134849480/the-root-how-racism-tainted-womens-suffrage .
DeleteLeroy, I appreciated this shout-out to the women who worked so hard to get the vote. I read the book you mentioned, and am now reading "A Friendship that Changed the World: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony." Especially after reading about a tour in Kansas that Elizabeth went on when she woke up with mice running across her face, and found a nest of mice in her bed, and other experiences, I thought "After all these women went through (and that was one of the minor experiences when one remembers the arrests and force-feeding), how can any woman in the U. S. not feel an obligation to vote?!" I believe, though, many, many women will vote in 2020 just to get this impostor president out of the White House.
ReplyDeleteHere are comments from local Thinking Friend Temp Sparkman:
ReplyDelete"Morning. I, too, hadn’t known about how Jim Crow attitudes and actions kept black women from voting, and, until you told me, that evangelicals also refused to honor the passing of the 19th amendment. Sadly, these dynamics are still in force."
Yes, opposition to women's equality has been opposed by evangelicals for a long time until the present. In 1923, Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman wrote the first version of the Equal Rights Amendment, realizing that just having the right to vote was not enough, but it was largely conservative Christian evangelicals, as well as conservative Catholics such as Phyllis Schlafly, that kept that Amendment from being ratified before the deadline.
DeleteThinking Friend Virginia Belk sent the following comments from New Mexico:
ReplyDelete"I thought Kamala's speech was the best! Eloquent, Incisive, On Target. I sincerely hope women (and men) exercise the right and civic responsibility to vote in this coming election.
"Fortunately, NM is sending applications for absentee ballots to every registered voter. When we receive ours, Fred and I will fill them out and send the in by return mail; when we receive the ballots, we'll vote and return those promptly. We've been doing this regularly since it became possible to vote absentee even if we were at home. Saves time, gasoline, standing in a long slow line, and is much easier to contemplate each item on the ballot!"
Thanks for your comments, Virginia. I wish all the states would do like New Mexico is doing--and I wish all the states could have responded to covid-19 as well as NM.
DeleteHere are comments with additional information about the 19th Amendment from Thinking Friend Eric Dollard in Chicago:
ReplyDelete"Thanks, Leroy, for celebrating 100 years of women's suffrage. It was a great, hard fought victory for women, but more needs to be done to insure women's rights.
Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan were the first three states to ratify the amendment, doing so on June 10, 1919. Kansas was the fourth state, on June 16, 1919, and Missouri, the eleventh, on July 3, 1919. The twelve states, which had not ratified the amendment before Tennessee were Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia. Eleven of these remaining states ratified the amendment within three years, although it was a moot point by that time. Mississippi got around to ratifying the amendment on March 22, 1984."
Thanks for adding this information, Eric. When I saw this earlier, I was proud of Kansas and Missouri for ratifying so early. I still don't understand, though, why Conn., Delaware, and Vermont had not ratified by Aug. 1920.
DeleteI didn't check Eric's information, but he did and emailed me this corrected info.:
Delete"Actually, I was incorrect about some of the late states. Connecticut ratified in September 1920, Vermont in February 1921, and Delaware in March 1923, after initially rejecting it. For the others, Maryland did not ratify until 1941, Virginia in 1952, Alabama in 1953, Florida and South Carolina in 1969, Georgia and Louisiana in 1970, and North Carolina in 1971. As I noted in my original e-mail, Mississippi did not ratify until 1984. Connecticut and Vermont may have been tardy because of their legislative cycles."
This afternoon I was happy to receive these brief comments from local Thinking Friend Carole Zahnd:
ReplyDelete"My mother was born in 1899 and did vote in that first election. All my life she emphasized how important it was to vote. We kids passed that on to our children."
Carole, it was so good to hear from you again; thank you for writing and sharing this about your mother. That was most interesting to hear that your mother voted in 1920 when she was 21 years old.
DeleteThinking Friend Les Hill in Kentucky shares this:
ReplyDelete"In the little reading I've run across I found how close Tennessee came to opposing women's right to vote. One determined 'Antis' received a letter from his mother telling him to approve it. Moved by his mother's letter he changed his potential 'nay' to 'yes.' And if I recall correctly the vote won by a single 'yes' that the young man made possible. So it helps for all to vote carefully on so many matters."
Yes, Les, that was quite a touching story about Harry T. Burn, the Tennessee legislator, and the letter he received from his mother. That story is told, among other places, in the Aug. 10 issue of The Washington Post in an article titled "Battle for the Ballot: A mother’s letter, a son’s choice and the incredible moment women won the vote." (Here is the link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/local/history/tennessee-19-amendment-letter-harry-burn-mother-febb/)
DeleteA favorite and great story to remember!
DeleteAfter posting a link to this article on Facebook, my FB friend Cody McMahan in Texas wrote,
ReplyDelete"Thank you for sharing. It was informative and sad in it's recognition of the persistent trends against liberty in the evangelical movement. One semantic point. I have recently heard many women both on the national stage and in private conversation reject the phrase 'given the right...' Rather they won it and earned it."
Cody, your point is well taken. Certainly, the women deserved the right to vote, but they didn't and couldn't obtain that right by force. It had to be voted on in legislatures that (unfairly) contained no women. Not a single women voted to ratify the 19th Amendment on August 18, 1920, in Tennessee. So, since it had to be, and was, passed by a majority vote of the male legislators, the right to vote became theirs. The vote could easily have gone the other way--and until the end it seemed as though it might go against the women. If it had, in spite of all the women suffragists' hard work they would have not have won or earned anything.
DeleteRights can be "won" and "earned" without the use of literal force. America recently experienced the last crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge by Congressman John Lewis. The procession paused at the point where his skull was once broken as his blood was spilled on that bridge. Washington did not "give" the Voting Rights Act as one would "give" a Christmas present. Belarus is even today trying to "win" a democracy it "lost" in a vote. Voting is a stylized substitute for revolution. Nonviolent protest is a creative substitute for revolution. Going on strike is an economic substitute for revolution. Revolution is what happens when the social contract is destroyed and the people are reduced to total despair. Revolutions frequently are disastrous for both old elites and downtrodden people, but opportunistic new elites at least give a glimmer of hope.
ReplyDeleteIf Tennessee had failed in its chance to be the final ratification, I suspect women and their allies would have persisted until another state took the place of honor. I find it appropriate that the final vote for ratification was won by a no-doubt stern letter from a mother to her wayward son. Look today at how many people cannot believe COVID-19 is anything but a hoax until it strikes a beloved family member, or even themselves. As the old hymn reminds us, "I was blind, but now I see!"
Craig, I was in no way talking about giving a legal right as one would give a Christmas present. I was writing about legislation that was enacted for the purpose of giving/granting or bestowing a certain right, which in the case at hand was the right for women to vote. According to Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, the second meaning of "give" is "to grant or bestow by formal action" and the example given for that usage is "the law gives citizens the right to vote." The Constitution had given white male landowners the right to vote from the beginning. Later, the law gave men who were not landowners that right (in 1826, I think it was). Then the 15th Amendment gave Black men the right to vote. It is in the same vein that it can be said that women were given (or granted) the right to vote--and it is a great shame that it took so long for U.S. citizens to give that right to women.
DeleteI don't know if the 19th Amendment would have been ratified later if Tennessee hadn't done it on August 1920. The Equal Right Amendment was not ratified before the set deadline in spite of all the women who earnestly sought to win or earn the right to be considered legally equal to men.
Without women voters election results would be very different—for the worst in my opinion. The last Democratic presidential candidate who won the majority of the white male vote was 56 years ago in 1964 for Lyndon Johnson. Jimmy Carter got 50% of the total male vote.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/28/a-closer-look-at-the-gender-gap-in-presidential-voting/