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Topic H- First wave feminism during Progressive EraRole Possibilities:SupportersOpponentsWhite working class member of the WTULAfrican American member of the National Association of Colored Women White middle class member of the National American Women’s Suffrage AssociationWhite middle class member of the Women’s National Anti-Suffrage LeagueFactory Owners(Male) Mayor or PoliticianAssignment: U5 #6Content Reading: Women’s MovementsReform opened new possibilities for women’s activism in American public life and gave new impetus to the long campaign for women’s suffrage. Much energy for women’s work came from female “clubs,” social organizations devoted to various purposes. Some focused on intellectual development, others emphasized philanthropic activities. Increasingly, these organizations looked outwards, to their communities, and to the place of women in the larger political sphere.Women’s clubs flourished in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. In 1890s women formed national women’s club federations. Particularly significant in campaigns for suffrage and women’s rights were the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (formed in New York City in 1890) and the National Association of Colored Women (organized in Washington, D.C., in 1896), both of which were dominated by upper-middle-class, educated, northern women. Few of these organizations were bi-racial, a legacy of the sometimes uneasy mid-nineteenth-century relationship between socially active African Americans and white women. Rising American prejudice led many white female activists to ban inclusion of their African American sisters. The segregation of black women into distinct clubs nonetheless still produced vibrant organizations that could promise racial uplift and civil rights for all blacks, as well as equal rights for women.It would be suffrage (right to vote), ultimately, that would mark the full emergence of women in American public life. Generations of women—and, occasionally, men—had pushed for women’s suffrage. Suffragists’ hard work resulted in slow but encouraging steps forward during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Notable victories were won in the West, where suffragists mobilized large numbers of women and male politicians were open to experimental forms of governance. By 1911, six western states had passed suffrage amendments to their constitutions.Women’s suffrage was typically entwined with a wide range of reform efforts. Many suffragists argued that women’s votes were necessary to clean up politics and combat social evils. By the 1890s, for example, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, then the largest women’s organization in America, endorsed suffrage. Working-class women organized the Women’s Trade Union League (WTUL) in 1905 and campaigned for the vote alongside the National American Suffrage Association, a leading suffrage organization comprised largely of middle and upper-class women. WTUL members viewed the vote as a way to further their economic interests and to foster a new sense of respect for working-class women. “What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist,” said Ruth Schneiderman, a WTUL leader, during a 1912 speech. “The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too.”17Many suffragists adopted a much crueler message. Some, even outside of the South, argued that white women’s votes were necessary to maintain white supremacy. Many American women found it advantageous to base their arguments for the vote on the necessity of maintaining white supremacy by enfranchising white, upper and middle class women. These arguments even stretched into international politics. But whatever the message, the suffrage campaign was winning.By 1890, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and others, united to form the National American Women’s Suffrage Association.They formed a 3-part strategy:Convince state legislatures to grant women the right to vote. They achieved their first victory in 1869 when the territory of Wyoming granted women the right to vote. Utah, Colorado, and Idaho followed, but after 1896, efforts in other states failed.Pursue court cases to test the 14th Amendment, which declared that states denying their male citizens the right to vote would lose congressional representation. They argued that women were citizens, too. Push for a national constitutional amendment that would grant women the right to vote. In 1878, Susan B. Anthony persuaded Senator Aaron Sargent of California to introduce and amendment that became the 19th Amendment. It was not ratified until after WWI.Example of a Political Cartoon:Argument Against Women's Suffrage, 1911 Prepared by J. B. Sanford, Chairmen of Democratic Caucus ARGUMENT AGAINST SENATE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT NO. 8 “Suffrage is not a right. It is a privilege that may or may not be granted. Politics is no place for a woman consequently the privilege should not be granted to her. The mother's influence is needed in the home. She can do little good by gadding the streets and neglecting her children. Let her teach her daughters that modesty, patience, and gentleness are the charms of a women. Let her teach her sons that an honest conscience is every man's first political law; that no splendor can rob him nor no force justify the surrender of the simplest right of a free and independent citizen. The mothers of this country can shape the destinies of the nation by keeping in their places and attending to those duties that God Almighty intended for them. The kindly, gentle influence of the mother in the home and the dignified influence of the teacher in the school will far outweigh all the influence of all the mannish female politicians on earth.”Against Women Suffrage- Grace Saxon Mills wrote in opposition to women’s suffrage before 1914?Because?women already have the municipal vote, and are eligible for membership of most local authorities.???These bodies deal with questions of housing, education, care of children, workhouses and so forth, all of which are peculiarly within a woman's sphere.???Parliament, however, has to deal mainly with the administration of a vast Empire, the maintenance of the Army and Navy, and with questions of peace and war, which lie outside the legitimate sphere of woman's influence.??Because?all government rests ultimately on force, to which women,?owing to physical, moral and social reasons, are not capable of contributing.??Because?women are not capable of full citizenship, for the simple reason that they are not available for purposes of national and Imperial defence.???All government rests ultimately on force, to which women, owing to physical, moral and social reasons, are not capable of contributing.??Because?there is little doubt that the vast majority of women have no desire for the vote.??Because?the acquirement of the Parliamentary vote would logically involve admission to Parliament itself, and to all Government offices.???It is scarcely possible to imagine a woman being Minister for War, and yet the principles of the Suffragettes involve that and many similar absurdities.??Because?the?United Kingdom?is not an isolated state, but the administrative and governing centre of a system of colonies and also of dependencies.???The effect of introducing a large female element into the Imperial electorate would undoubtedly be to weaken the centre of power in the eyes of these dependent millions.??Because?past legislation in Parliament shows that the interests of women are perfectly safe in the hands of men.??Because?Woman Suffrage is based on the idea of the equality of the sexes, and tends to establish those competitive relations which will destroy chivalrous consideration.??Because?women have at present a vast indirect influence through their menfolk on the politics of this country.??Because?the physical nature of women unfits them for direct competition with men.Arguments Supporting Women’s Suffrage:Susan B. Anthony, “Is it a Crime for a U.S. Citizen to Vote?”, 1872.Anthony delivered this speech some forty times to defend her act of voting in the 1872 presidential election, and act for which she was arrested and indicted. “One-half of the people of this nation to-day are utterly powerless to blot from the statute books an unjust law, or to write there a new and a just one…It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves… but to the whole people—women as well as men.”Document D: Mary Church Terrell, “What it Means to Be Colored in the Capital of the United States,” 1906.Mary Church was the daughter of the South’s first African-American millionaire. She became a professional lecturer campaigning against lynching, disenfranchisement, and discrimination against African-Americans, and for woman suffrage and racial pride.“For fifteen years I have resided in Washington, and while it was far from being a paradise for colored people, when I first touched these shores, it has been doing its level best ever since to make conditions for us intolerable. Unless I happen to know colored people who live here… I should be obliged to spend the entire night wandering about. The colored man alone is thrust out of the hotels of the national capital like a leper… Unless I am willing to engage in a few menial occupations, in which the pay for my services would be very poor, there is no way for me to earn an honest living, if I am not a trained nurse or a dressmaker or can secure a position as a teacher in the public schools, which is exceedingly difficult to do. It matters not what my intellectual attainments may be or how great is the need of the services of a competent person, if I try to enter many of the numerous vocations in which my white sisters are allowed to engage, the door is shut in my face.” ................
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