19th Amendment Turns 100

Right: A National Association Opposed to Woman Suff rage circular containing “Household Hints” along with anti-suff rage propaganda. Photo courtesy of State Archives of North Carolina

Left: Gertrude Weil is on the left in this photo taken inside the Equal Suff rage Association headquarters offi ce in Raleigh in 1920. Photo courtesy of State Archives of North Carolina

Above left: The Jan. 26, 1939, issue of Watauga Democrat published a photo of suff rage leader Carrie Chapman Catt on the occasion of her 80th birthday. Above right: A portrait of Sojourner Truth is taken in Detroit in 1864. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress

The Work of Their Hands, Hearts and Minds

100 Years Ago, American Women Won the Right to Vote

The road to Nashville, Tennessee that they have immediate admission gether ought to be able to turn it back, — where the “Susan B. Anthony to all the rights and privileges which and get it right side up again! And now Amendment” cleared its fi nal belong to them as citizens of the United they is asking to do it, the men better hurdle on Aug. 18, 1920 — began in States.” let them,” she is quoted as saying. Seneca Falls, New York, seven decades National women’s rights convenThe movement was halted tempoearlier. At the Seneca Falls women’s tions followed in 1850 and were held rarily by the Civil War. A setback came rights convention in 1848, Elizabeth annually through 1860, and leaders like in 1868, when the states ratifi ed the 14th Cady Stanton’s Declaration of SentiStanton were initially allied with the abAmendment, which defi ned “citizens” ments was signed by 68 women and 32 olitionist movement. Sojourner Truth, a and “voters” exclusively as male. men, concluding, “Now, in view of this former slave, spoke to a women’s rights In 1869 Stanton and Susan B. Anthoentire disfranchisement of one-half the convention in Akron, Ohio, delivering a ny formed the New York-based National people of this country … and because speech known as “Ain’t I a Woman?” Woman Suff rage Association to secure women do feel themselves aggrieved, “If the fi rst woman God ever made a nationwide right to vote via a Constioppressed and fraudulently deprived was strong enough to turn the world tutional amendment. In the same year, of their most sacred rights, we insist upside down all alone, these women toLucy Stone and other “more conserva-

tive activists,” according to the National Women’s History Museum, established the American Woman Suff rage Association to achieve the vote via individual state constitutions. The two associations would merge in 1890.

More women’s organizations were formed in the following decades, with many supporting the suff rage cause. The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, which is still active today, formed in 1874 to oppose alcohol and its infl uence on families and society, and with Frances Willard at the helm, women’s suff rage was added to the group’s platform. This led to opposition to the women’s suff rage movement by liquor and brewery interests.

A women’s suff rage amendment was introduced in Congress for the fi rst time in 1878 and brought to a vote in 1887, when it was defeated 16-34 by the Republican-controlled Senate.

New Century, New Tactics

Organized eff orts emerged to deter women’s suff rage, including the National Association Opposed to Woman Suff rage, established in 1911. 1913 ushered in an era of greater visibility for the suff rage movement, due in large part to the eff orts of Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party, who employed tactics such as parades

and picketing outside of the White House to attract national publicity to the cause. In 1915, 40,000 people marched in a New York City suff rage parade, with many women dressed in white and carrying signs indicating the states they represented. Described by some as militant or radical, the group’s eff orts at times resulted in women being arrested and thrown in jail. In 1917, Paul was placed in solitary confi nement in the mental ward of a prison, according to the National Women’s History Museum, and picketers sentenced to jail for obstructing sidewalk traffi c went on hunger strike, ultimately resulting in their release due to a public outcry.

Jeannette Rankin of Montana, a Republican, became the fi rst woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1916, and that year, President Woodrow Wilson announced that the Democratic Party platform would support suff rage. By that time, Europe had been entrenched in World War I for several years, and the U.S. would enter the war in 1917. In contrast to the Civil War, however, the women’s movement did not go on hiatus. Instead, suff ragists were active in organizing and fundraising for the war eff ort — and they made their eff orts known to the public, which ultimately aided their cause.

An article by Mrs. James Lee Laidlaw, of the New York State Woman Suffrage Party, was published in the June

A photo of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, seated, and Susan B. Anthony, standing, taken sometime between 1880 and 1902. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress 13, 1918, Watauga Democrat under the headline “Suff ragists in War Work.”

“The New York State Woman Suff rage Party, since it fi nished its great task of carrying New York state for woman suff rage, Nov. 6, 1917, has devoted itself exclusively to war work and various forms of civic and patriotic service. We have recently sent the fi rst woman’s hospital unit abroad from the United States. Every person in it, even to the plumbers and mechanics, are women, and they volunteered for dangerous service.” She appealed directly to rural women, encouraging anyone interested in the party’s work to write to the organization.

On Jan. 10, 1918, Rankin opened debate on a suff rage amendment in the House.

“As never before the nation needs its women — needs the work of their hands and their hearts and their minds,” Rankin said on the House fl oor. “How shall we answer their challenge, gentlemen; how shall we explain to them the meaning of democracy if the same Congress that voted for war to make the world safe for democracy refuses to give this small measure of democracy to the women of our country?”

The amendment would go on to pass in the House by a 274-136 vote. In a Sept. 30, 1918, speech to the Senate, President Wilson said, “We have made partners of the women in this war … shall we admit them only to a partnership of suff ering and sacrifi ce and toil

Left: A leading suff ragist and abolitionist, Lucy Stone was the fi rst Massachusetts woman to earn a college degree and defi ed gender norms when she famously wrote marriage vows to refl ect her egalitarian beliefs and refused to take her husband’s last name. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress

Below: Alice Paul, founder of the National Woman’s Party, is pictured sewing a star on a suff rage fl ag. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress

A circular listing 12 reasons why women should be able to vote is published by the Equal Suff rage Association of North Carolina. Photo courtesy of State Archives of North Carolina

and not to a partnership of privilege and right?”

But the amendment failed to win the required two-thirds majority in the Democratic-led Senate that year, and it would be the following year, 1919, when both the Republican-controlled House and Senate passed the bill that would send the amendment to the states for ratifi cation. The suff ragists’ eff orts moved to securing the 36 states needed to approve a Constitutional amendment, and on Aug. 18, 1920, Tennessee became the fi nal state needed to ratify the 19th Amendment, which states: “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.”

Suff ragists and AntiSuff ragists in NC

The women’s suff rage movement in North Carolina has roots in the mountains. The North Carolina Equal Suff rage Association was established by

45 women and men in Asheville in 1894, according to an article by Caroline Pruden in the Encyclopedia of North Carolina. State Sen. James L. Hyatt of Yancey County introduced a bill for a state suff rage amendment in 1897, but, the article stated, “refl ecting the sentiment of his colleagues,” it was referred to the Committee on Insane Asylums, where it died.

As it did across the nation, the movement picked up steam in North Carolina in 1913. That year, Gertrude Weil founded the North Carolina Equal Suff rage League in Charlotte, which lobbied legislators and spread the word through pamphlets and speeches. The article describes Weil, the daughter of a German Jewish immigrant, as “one of the South’s ‘new women’ who had acquired some postsecondary education, participated in a range of club activities and enjoyed paid working experiences as the region began to modernize.”

Records show that the movement was being discussed and debated in Watauga County as well. In the Oct. 23, 1913, issue of The Watauga Democrat, a weekly column called “At the Training School” (referring to the Appalachian Training School for Teachers, the predecessor of Appalachian State University), reported on the school’s annual October outing. “The usual debate was given at 11:30 on Saturday, the subject being ‘Resolved that woman suff rage should be adopted by an amendment to the Constitution of North Carolina,’” the newspaper stated. “The debate was very interesting.”

A Nov. 17, 1913, diary entry by Andrew Jackson Greene, an instructor at the Training School, indicated that he was not won over by the movement at the time. “We have given the woman suff rage movement some thought tonight,” Greene wrote. “We think that it is better for the women not to have it for three reasons. 1. It would thrust a burdensome responsibility upon the women. 2. It would impair the family relations. 3. It would injure the state.”

“Prior to 1920,” an article in the Oct. 24, 1935, Watauga Democrat explained, “women had been granted the right to vote in 22 states, beginning with Wyoming.” But in North Carolina, legislative defeats continued through 1919, and during the year of ratifi cation, opposition intensifi ed. Anti-suff ragists, led by representatives from agricultural counties, “feared that allowing women to

vote would increase pressure to reverse laws that prevented African Americans from voting,” Pruden wrote.

A branch of the Southern Rejection League formed in Raleigh, assisted by the National Association Opposed to Women’s Suff rage. Raleigh men organized the States’ Rights Defense League.

“The state’s anti-suff rage movement derived its strongest support from politicians eager to retain the control they had obtained after Reconstruction,” Pruden’s article stated. “The textile mill industry, which feared the impact of women’s votes on child labor issues, and railroad offi cials, who worried that women would target them in the progressive attack on corruption in big business.”

When it came down to one state left to ratify, special sessions were called in the North Carolina and Tennessee legislatures to take up the issue.

“President Wilson sent (N.C. Gov. Thomas) Bickett a telegram urging ratifi cation, but the governor responded with the hope that Tennessee, then also meeting in a special convention, would relieve the pressure on North Carolina by being the 36th and fi nal state to vote for ratifi cation,” Pruden recounted.

A day after Tennessee voted to ratify, “the (N.C.) General Assembly still rejected the measure by a vote of 71 to 41, arguing that women suff rage would threaten the sanctity of the family, state rights and white supremacy,” Pruden wrote.

‘It Has Just Begun’

After ratifi cation, suff ragist organizations were converted into Leagues of Women Voters, focusing on voter registration, voter education and political organizing. An article from the Raleigh News & Observer reprinted in the Dec. 4, 1924, Watauga Democrat, titled “Miss Henderson Says Women Are Becoming Party Factors,” suggested that women in North Carolina quickly found new roles in politics.

“Women have not had much direct infl uence on politics yet, because they haven’t had time, but with every election they are becoming more informed and intelligent, and if the men expect

It is incredible to me that any woman should consider the fi ght for full equality won. It has just begun.

- Alice Paul, 1920

to hold the woman’s vote they have got to begin to realize that she is an active factor in the politics of the state,” Mary Henderson, state Democratic vice chair, was quoted as saying.

“As for women holding offi ce in general,” Henderson said, “the men need not be afraid that they are going to grab for all the offi ces. But they do expect a share in the policy shaping.”

“In 1920 and 1922 the men were terrifi ed,” Henderson continued. “Fully half of them felt that the women were going to want every offi ce in the county, and we had some diffi culty in 1922, getting women to head up the work in the counties, because the men were appointing them, and the men were afraid of them. I received letters from the chairmen in some counties where I knew there were several good women who could do the work, saying that they just couldn’t fi nd women who could do the work.”

“This time it has been much easier, for the men have softened a great deal, and have realized what the woman’s vote is meaning. This year there have been good organizations of women in 80 counties, in 15 there have been women at work without county organization, and in only fi ve counties, to my knowledge, have the women done nothing.”

“We found that the women got into the work easily because of the war work that they had done with the Red Cross, the Liberty Loan drives, and the Canteen and relief works. In many counties war committees were still in existence and could go right to work.

“I had been told that it would be impossible to get the rural women interested in politics,” Henderson said, “but that was a mistake.” Henderson recalled riding through a remote part of Rowan County and seeing an old woman digging potatoes. She stopped to ask the woman if she had registered.

“Heavens child, I was reading Francis Willard’s temperance stuff before you were born, and I’ve been a suff ragette for a mighty long time,” the woman reportedly replied. “I have surely registered and have gotten a lot more of the women around here to register too.”

Henderson noted that women’s clubs, although non-partisan, had put on “get out the vote” campaigns, “which have helped the women’s side of both parties wonderfully.”

A July 21, 1960, issue of the Watauga Democrat announced the organization of a League of Women Voters chapter in Boone.

“Any woman who has gone to the polls to exercise her right and her duty to vote and then felt baffl ed by a long ballot containing many unfamiliar names and offi ces has felt the need of this organization,” the front-page article stated. “While the League is nonpartisan and does not support or oppose specifi c candidates or parties, it does take action in support of or in opposition to selected governmental issues, and on election day there’s usually one thing that the Republican and Democratic parties can agree on: millions of people will be better informed voters because of the League of Women Voters.”

On May 6, 1971 — over 50 years since women had been granted the right to vote — North Carolina’s General Assembly voted to ratify the 19th Amendment as a symbolic gesture. The only state to wait longer to ratify the amendment, according to a U.S. News & World Report article, was Mississippi, which made it offi cial in 1984.

Anna Oakes

Editor, All About Women