Their Place Inside The Body Politic 1887 To 1895

Their Place Inside the Body-Politic is a phrase Susan B. Anthony used to express her aspiration for something women had not achieved, but it also describes the woman suffrage movement’s transformation into a political body between 1887 and 1895. This fifth volume opens in February 1887, just after the U.S. Senate had rejected woman suffrage, and closes in November 1895 with Stanton’s grand birthday party at the Metropolitan Opera House. At the beginning, Stanton and Anthony focus their attention on organizing the International Council of Women in 1888. Late in 1887, Lucy Stone’s American Woman Suffrage Association announced its desire to merge with the national association led by Stanton and Anthony. Two years of fractious negotiations preceded the 1890 merger, and years of sharp disagreements followed. Stanton made her last trip to Washington in 1892 to deliver her famous speech “Solitude of Self.” Two states enfranchised women—Wyoming in 1890 and Colorado in 1893—but failures were numerous. Anthony returned to grueling fieldwork in South Dakota in 1890 and Kansas and New York in 1894. From the campaigns of 1894, Stanton emerged as an advocate of educated suffrage and staunchly defended her new position.

Chronicles the history of the women’s rights and suffrage movements in New York State and examines the important role the state played in the national suffrage movement. The work for women’s suffrage started more than seventy years before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 when Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and one hundred supporters signed the Declaration of Sentiments asserting that “all men and women are created equal.” This convention served as a catalyst for debates and action on both the national and state level, and on November 6, 1917, New York State passed the referendum for women’s suffrage. Its passing in New York signaled that the national passage of suffrage would soon follow. On August 18, 1920, “Votes for Women” was constitutionally granted. Votes for Women, an exhibition catalog, celebrates the pivotal role the state played in the struggle for equal rights in the nineteenth century, the campaign for New York State suffrage, and the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. It highlights the nationally significant role of state leaders in regards to women’s rights and the feminist movement through the early twenty-first century and includes focused essays from historians on the various aspects of the suffrage and equal rights movements around New York, providing greater detail about local stories with statewide significance. The exhibition of the same name, on display at the New York State Museum beginning November 2017, features artifacts from the New York State Museum, Library, and Archives, as well as historical institutions and private collections across the state. “There is something intimate, inspiring, and strengthening about seeing words created by and names in the handwriting of women who fought the earlier stages of the struggle for equality and shared humanity that is so crucial today. I’m grateful for this exhibit and catalog that are just the kind of reminder we need to keep going.” — Gloria Steinem “The New York State Museum has put on an extraordinary exhibit to commemorate the women’s suffrage movement and the Nineteenth Amendment, and I hope it inspires a new generation of women and men to raise their voices about all the injustices in their lives.” — Kirsten Gillibrand, United States Senator for New York State “Congratulations to Jennifer Lemak and Ashley Hopkins-Benton for their wonderful book, Votes for Women.The book, and the exhibition upon which it is based, are great gifts from the authors to all New Yorkers who seek to learn more about the varied and vital role women have played in history. The stories and images included in the book bring the valiant women who came before us vividly to life and challenge us to continue their fight for full equality for women.” — Pam Elam, President of the Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony Statue Fund

Explores the College Equal Suffrage League’s work to advance the campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment The woman suffrage movement is often portrayed as having been led and organized by middle-aged women and mothers in stuffy, formal settings. This dominant account grossly neglects a significant demographic within the movement—college women. Between 1870 and 1910, the proportion of college women in the United States rose from 21 to 40 percent. By 1880, there were 155 private colleges in the Northeast and the South for female students and numerous coeducational institutions in the West. The widespread extension of academic training for women helped spur a well-organized campaign for female voting rights on college campuses, where suffragists found a new audience and stage to earn respect and support. Votes for College Women examines archives from the College Equal Suffrage League (CESL), established in 1900 as an affiliate of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, to illustrate the outsize and dynamic role that young women played in the woman suffrage movement. The book vividly illustrates how the CESL’s campaigns served a dual purpose: not only did they invigorate the Nineteenth Amendment campaign at a crucial moment, but they also brought about a profound transformation in the culture of women’s organizing and higher education. Furthermore, Kelly L. Marino argues that the CESL’s campaigns set trends in youth activism and helped lay the groundwork for later and more well-known college protests against gender inequality. Fascinating and timely, Votes for College Women shows how these brave women solidified the campus and the classroom as arenas for civic and social activism.

This contextual narrative of the 70-year history of the woman suffrage movement in the United States demonstrates how an important mass political and social movement coalesced into a political force despite class, racial, ethnic, religious, and regional barriers. Votes for Women! provides an updated consideration of the questions raised by the mass movement to gain equality and access to power in our democracy. It interprets the campaigns for woman suffrage from the 1830s until 1920, analyzes the impact of the Nineteenth Amendment, and presents primary documents to allow a glimpse into the minds of those who campaigned for and against woman suffrage. The book's examination of the 70-year woman suffrage campaign shows how the movement faced enormous barriers, was perceived as threatening the very core of accepted beliefs, and was a struggle that showcased the efforts of strong protagonists and brilliant organizers who were intellectually innovative and yet were reflective of the great divides of race, ethnicity, religion, economics, and region existing across the nation. Included within the narrative section are biographies of significant personalities in the movement, such as militant Alice Paul and anti-suffragist Ida Tarbell as well as more commonly known leaders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

In 1834, a Chinese woman named Afong Moy arrived in America as both a prized guest and an advertisement for a merchant firm--a promotional curiosity with bound feet and a celebrity used to peddle exotic wares from the East. This first biography of Afong Moy explores how she shaped Americans' impressions of China, while living as a stranger in a foreign land.

Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women's Suffrage Movement, 1848-1898

A timely and comprehensive history of female husbands in Anglo-America from the eighteenth through the turn of the twentieth century.