1. The American Woman Suffrage Movement 1848-1920
Reading Like a Historian
Why did people oppose woman suffrage? Did anti-suffragists think men were superior to women?

2. Women and Reform Movements
In early 1800s, women involved in many different reform movements including suffrage, abolition (no slavery), and temperance (no alcohol)
Right to vote:
Suffrage = Enfranchisement =Franchise

3. Seneca Falls Convention 1848
July 1848, -Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and other organized the first women’s right convention in Seneca Falls, New York.
The convention, attended by women and men, issued a Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions modeled on the Declaration of Independence.
Susan B Anthony built the women’s movement into a national organization

4. A Declaration of Sentiments
The most controversial issue concerned suffrage
Elizabeth Stanton insisted that they include a demand for woman suffrage, but the idea of women voting was too radical.

5. Anti-Suffragists:
Those who opposed suffrage
(many “Anti’s”
were women)

6. Arguments of Anti-Suffragists:
Women were high-strung, irrational, emotional
Women were not smart or educated enough
Women should stay at home
Women were too physically frail; they would get tired just walking to the polling station
Women would become masculine if they voted

7. The Seneca Falls Convention &
The Declaration of Sentiments

8. Comparing Two Declarations
The Declaration of Independence
and
The Declaration of Sentiments

9. The Five Parts of The Declaration of Independence
Preamble
“When in the Course of Human events…”
The Rights of the People
“…We hold these truths to be self evident…”
List of Grievances
“…He has refused his assent to laws…for the public good…”
Efforts to avoid separation
“…We have petitioned for a redress of grievances in the most humblest terms…”
Independence Declared
“…These united colonies are, of right ought to be free and independent states…”
Have students open books to Declaration of Independence (pgs ). Remind them of the 5 parts of the Declaration. Then give them Declaration of Sentiments. Read it together.

10. Declaration of Sentiments
Read the “Declaration of Sentiments” handout together with your partner.
Fill in the Grievance/Explanation Chart and be ready to discuss.

11. Comparing Two Declarations Turn to pg. 166-169 of your textbook
Declaration of Independence
Declaration of Sentiments
Show students Venn Diagram. In pairs, they should use a Venn Diagram to compare the part of the two declarations. After students are done, use MOBI and have a student write the responses class argrees to on PPT. Discuss the similarities and differences.

12. Discussion questions
Which complaints would you consider the most serious?
Which complaints most resemble complaints of colonists prior to the Revolutionary War?
Do any of the grievances relate more to entrenched attitudes about women than they do to legal obstacles to equality?

14. 19th Amendment, 1920
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
(Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify and it passed by only 1 vote)