No Votes For Women

No Votes for Women explores the complicated history of the suffrage movement in New York State by delving into the stories of women who opposed the expansion of voting rights to women. Susan Goodier finds that conservative women who fought against suffrage encouraged women to retain their distinctive feminine identities as protectors of their homes and families, a role they felt was threatened by the imposition of masculine political responsibilities. She details the victories and defeats on both sides of the movement from its start in the 1890s to its end in the 1930s, acknowledging the powerful activism of this often overlooked and misunderstood political force in the history of women's equality.

From 1865, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton led campaigns for equal rights for all but were ultimately defeated by a Congress and reformers intent on applying suffrage established with constitutional amendments and legislation to men only. Ignoring all women, black and white, advocates argued that enfranchising black men would solve race problems, masking the effect on women. This book weaves Anthony's and Stanton's campaigns together with national and congressional events, in the process uncovering relationships among these events and revealing the devastating impact on the women and their campaign for civil rights for all citizens.

Examines how and why American women voted since the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920.

In 1869, more than twenty years after Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony made their declaration of the rights of woman at Seneca Falls, New York, the men of the Wyoming Territorial Legislature granted women over the age of 21 the right to vote in general elections. And on September 6, 1870, a grandmother named Louisa Ann Swain stepped up to a ballot box in Laramie, Wyoming, and became the first woman in the United States to exercise that right, ushering in the era of Western states’ early foray into suffrage equality. Wyoming Territory’s motives for extending the vote to women might have had more to do with publicity and attracting female settlers than with any desire to establish a more egalitarian society. However, individual men’s interests in the idea of women’s rights had their roots in diverse ideologies, and the women who agitated for those rights were equally diverse in their attitudes. No Place for a Woman explores the history of the fight for women’s rights in the West, examining the conditions that prevailed during the vast migration of pioneers looking for free land and opportunity on the frontier, the politics of the emerging Western territories at the end of the Civil War, and the changing social and economic conditions of the country recovering from war and on the brink of the Gilded Age. The stories of the women who helped settle the West and who ushered in voting rights decades ahead of the 19th Amendment and the stories of the country they were forging in the West will be of great interest to readers as the 100th anniversary of national woman suffrage approaches and is relevant in our current political climate. Through the individual stories of women like Esther Hobart Morris, Martha Cannon, and Jeannette Rankin, this book fills a hole in the story of the West, revealing the real story of how the hard work and individual lobbying of a few heroines, plus a little bit of publicity-seeking and opportunism by promoters of the Wyoming Territory, ushered in a new era for the expansion of women’s rights.

A collection of scholarly essays and primary documents which consider both sides of the woman suffrage question, particularly as it was debated in the South and in Tennessee, which in 1920 became the pivotal thirty-sixth state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment.

"Marking the centenary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, Votes for Women celebrates past efforts while looking toward what actions we might take in the future to further support women's equality"--Introduction.

A comprehensive history of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States, from 1776 to 1965 Most suffrage histories begin in 1848, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton first publicly demanded the right to vote at the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. And they end in 1920, when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, removing sexual barriers to the vote. And Yet They Persisted traces agitation for the vote over two centuries, from the revolutionary era to the civil rights era, excavating one of the greatest struggles for social change in this country and restoring African American women and other women of color to its telling. In this sweeping history, author Johanna Neuman demonstrates that American women defeated the male patriarchy only after they convinced men that it was in their interests to share political power. Reintegrating the long struggle for the women’s suffrage into the metanarrative of U.S. history, Dr. Neuman sheds new light on such questions as: Why it took so long to achieve equal voting rights for women How victories in state suffrage campaigns pressured Congress to act Why African American women had to fight again for their rights in 1965 How the struggle by eight generations of female activists finally succeeded And Yet They Persisted: How American Women Won the Right to Vote his is the ideal text for college courses in women’s studies and history covering the women’s suffrage movement, as well as courses on American History, Political History, Progressive Era reforms, or reform movements in general. Click here to read Johanna Neuman's two-part blog post about the hidden history of Women's Suffrage as we celebrate the centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment.

For nearly 150 years, American women did not have the right to vote. On August 18, 1920, they won that right, when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified at last. To achieve that victory, some of the fiercest, most passionate women in history marched, protested, and sometimes even broke the law—for more than eight decades. From Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who founded the suffrage movement at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, to Sojourner Truth and her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech, to Alice Paul, arrested and force-fed in prison, this is the story of the American women’s suffrage movement and the private lives that fueled its leaders’ dedication. Votes for Women! explores suffragists’ often powerful, sometimes difficult relationship with the intersecting temperance and abolition campaigns, and includes an unflinching look at some of the uglier moments in women’s fight for the vote. By turns illuminating, harrowing, and empowering, Votes for Women! paints a vibrant picture of the women whose tireless battle still inspires political, human rights, and social justice activism.