1. Suffrage as a part of 19th century reform
First Wave Feminists
Suffrage as a part of 19th century reform

2. Rights of Women in Early America
The legal role of women in Early America was largely determined by English law. English Law is based on precedent and the bulk of modern Law is at least in part based on the work of Sir William Blackstone and his commentaries on years of English law.
On women’s rights he says “In marriage husband and wife are one person, and that person is the husband...”  [Source: William Blackstone--Blackstone Commentaries on English Law, 1765]

3. Blackwell on Women
“By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband; under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing; and is therefore called in our law-French a feme-covert, foemina viro co- operta; is said to be covert-baron, or under the protection and influence of her husband, her baron, or lord; and her condition during her marriage is called her coverture.”

4. Massachusetts Bay Colony Women’s Legal Position:
“The Courts of Plymouth Colony and Massachusetts Bay Colony generally followed English common law. This was a body of law developed from customs and traditions. Common law said that as long as a woman was single or widowed she had the same legal position as a man. Once she married, however, her position changed. A married woman’s legal position was as follows:
Property and possessions she owned before marriage became her husband’s and property she inherited after her marriage passed directly to her husband.
Wages she earned were his.
In the event of a divorce, he had custody of their children.
She could not sign a business contract.
She could not sue anyone.
She could not be sued by anyone.
Her husband had to pay all her debts.
On the other hand, if she committed a crime, she was punished for it.

5. Things start to change…
Married Women’s Property Acts, New York  1848: The real and personal property of any female [now married and] who may hereafter marry, and which she shall own at the time of marriage, and the rests issues and profits thereof shall not be subject to the disposal of her husband, nor be liable for his debts, and shall continue her sole and separate property, as if she were a single female...
It shall be lawful for any married female to receive, by gift, grant, devise or bequest, from any person other than her husband and held to her sole and separate use, as if she were a single female, real and personal property, and the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and the same shall not be subject to the disposal of her husband, nor be liable for his debts...

6. Things start to change…
1860: [The provisions of the law of 1848 were retained, and others were added:] A married woman may bargain, sell, assign, and transfer her separate personal property, and carry on any trade or business, and perform any labor or services on her sole and separate account, and the earnings of any married woman from her trade...shall be her sole and separate property, and may be used or invested by her in her own name...
Any married woman may, while married, sue and be sued in all matters having relation to her...sole and separate property...in the same manner as if she were sold. And any married woman may bring and maintain an action in her own name, for damages, against any person or body corporate, for any injury to her person or character, the same as if she were sole; and the money received upon the settlement...shall be her sole and separate property.
No bargain or contract made by any married woman, in respect to her sole and separate property...shall be binding upon her husband, or render him or his property in any way liable therefore.
Every married woman is hereby constituted and declared to be the joint guardian or her children, with her husband, with equal powers, rights, and duties in regard to them, with the husband...
[Source: Linda K. Kerber and Jane Sherron De Hart, Editors, Women’s America: Refocusing the Past. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995]

7. Seneca Falls, New York 1848
In the early 1800s, many women were involved in the abolition (anti-slavery) and temperance (no alcohol) movements
A group of women and men gathered at a conference in Seneca Falls, NY in 1848
This conference was led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott
Conference attendees wrote the Declaration of Sentiments

8. Fifteenth Amendment, 1871
Granted African-American men the right to vote
Disappointed many women who thought African-American men and women would be enfranchised together
African Americans were split over whether men should get vote before women

9. Frederick Douglass, 1869
“When women, because they are women are dragged from their houses and hung upon lamp posts; when their children are torn from their arms, and their brains dashed upon the pavement Then they will have an urgency to obtain the ballot equal to our own.”
But was this not true for black women?
“Yes, yes, yes. It is true for the black woman but not because she is a woman but because she is black!”

10. Sojourner Truth, 1869
“There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women … And if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before.”
Sojourner Truth, 1864

11. Before 1910 National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA)
Big leaders: Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Two big strategies:
Try to win suffrage state by state
Try to pass a Constitutional Amendment (but this would need to be ratified by 36 states – or three-fourths)

12. Susan B. Anthony
In the late 1800s, Susan B. Anthony tried several times to introduce an Amendment bill for women’s suffrage, but it was always killed in the Senate.
Susan B. Anthony

13. Anti-suffragists
Those who opposed extending the right to vote to women were called anti-suffragists. Many anti’s were women.
Political cartoon mocking anti’s: “O Save Us, Senators, from Ourselves!”

14. Beliefs of Anti-Suffragists
Women were high-strung, irrational, and 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

15. Map of Women’s Suffrage Before 1920

16. The Next Generation Elizabeth Cady Stanton died in 1902
Susan B. Anthony died in 1906
But in the early 1900s many young, middle-class women were going to college and joining the suffrage movement
Many working-class women also joined the cause, hoping the right to vote would help improve working conditions