Alice Hill Chittenden, Ballot not a Panacea for Existing Evil , 1913. New-York Historical Society Library.
The right to vote is not a cure all for society. | |
Women claim they want the vote so they can make society better. But the vote does not clean streets, expand schools, improve tenements, or ensure healthy food. | |
Suffragists support an old-fashioned belief that the vote will solve everything. | |
Even men, who can vote, know that they cannot make changes through voting. Instead, they have created organizations and committees to address society’s problems. | |
Men and women who organize outside of politics can influence lawmakers. Women can work with men and hold appointed positions that make a difference. | |
Women sit on many important boards and committees in state and local government. | |
Volunteer organizations and leagues have been very influential in making changes in society. | |
The State Charities Aid Association is an example of an organization that helped in the areas of public health and childcare. | |
Women who are opposed to woman suffrage believe in social reform. However, they believe that they can accomplish more through organizing outside the official political system. | |
Women would lose power if they gained the right to vote. They are better off outside of politics. |
By 1900, the fight over woman suffrage had persisted for over half a century, and a new momentum was building as women activists rallied on both sides of the debate. But suffragists and anti-suffragists had more in common than they wished to admit. Most women actively involved in the fight were white, educated, and financially stable. Even the arguments they used were similar. Both suffragists and anti-suffragists tended to favor a traditional view of womanhood that embraced women in the home . It was the power and importance of the vote that created the difference between these opposing views.
Instead of promoting a vision of gender equality, suffragists usually argued that the vote would enable women to be better wives and mothers. Women voters, they said, would bring their moral superiority and domestic expertise to issues of public concern. Anti-suffragists argued that the vote directly threatened domestic life. They believed that women could more effectively promote change outside of the corrupt voting booth.
For more about the arguments against suffrage, watch the video below.
About the document.
Both documents exemplify the types of materials created by suffragists and anti-suffragists to share their beliefs with a wider audience. Articles and broadsides were distributed at meetings, rallies, and parades, and displayed in meeting rooms, coffee shops, and other public places.
The first document is a pro-suffrage broadside created by the New York State Woman Suffrage Association in New York City. The second document is an anti-suffrage essay written by Alice Hill Chittenden, president of the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage.
AMERICAN IDENTITY AND CITIZENSHIP; ACTIVISM AND SOCIAL CHANGE; DOMESTICITY AND FAMILY
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As the United States spread west of the Mississippi River, those who followed their dreams of a better life often included complete families: father, mother, and children taking whatever fit in the wagon or hand cart to a new opportunity across the Rocky Mountains through an opening called South Pass in what is now known as the state of Wyoming. This discovery gave those willing to risk what was familiar for the chance to expand their horizons in a new location with possibly better soil, better climate, or to explore what their own future could be away from the crowded cities they left behind. What a promising idea: expand your horizons.
The features of each new territory became known quickly. These territories grew in population large enough for statehood, meaning the form of government established by the U.S. Constitution could now be organized on local state, county, and city levels. The decision to include women in the governing decisions in these new territories and states caught the attention of those attempting to gain voting rights for women nationally through an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Suffrage organizers visited newly enfranchised women’s groups to help to make the right to vote universal nationally.
This unit will discuss the role of Westward Expansion with the country borders now from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean; how Overland Trails, and the transcontinental railroad paved the way for women’s suffrage in the newly created territory and state governments. This unit also helps students use primary documents related to efforts to extend the newly acquired voting rights, any disenfranchisement by federal legislation or an individual state, and the regaining of voting rights already experienced through a constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote universally throughout the United States. This unit will also acknowledge those persons who were not included when the nineteenth amendment was finally ratified.
The Language Arts portion of the Common Core as well as the Reading Standards for Social Studies guidelines will form the instructional basis of this unit plan. Specifically, there is an emphasis on vocabulary skills, literacy in geography through map activities, drawing comparisons, and the use of primary and secondary documents for discussion with peers. Class discussions of video presentations will assist students in building a timeline from the 1800’s to 1920 when the constitutional amendment became law. A readers’ theater activity is also planned to increase student participation. Students will be expected to write short descriptions of the primary document exercise or video presentation at the end of the class session. A short review will prepare students for a formative assessment of the unit contents. This assessment will allow students to use visual art skills or established essay principles to demonstrate mastery of their chosen unit main idea.
The grade 7 format of this unit plan can be adapted for use with U.S. History I, U.S. History II, and U.S. Government and Citizenship course standards established by state and local school boards or charter schools. The reader’s theatre activity has a simpler version website link to give students with limited reading ability a chance to participate without the embarrassment of trying to pronounce complicated words in a public setting.
Course Description:
A unit designed to expand student horizons as they analyze maps and primary documents and share stories of the Westward Expansion relating to gaining women’s suffrage through ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Each lesson of The Path to Women’s Suffrage unit is designed for a 55 minute lesson.
The objective of this unit is to:
All downloadable materials are available below under the Procedures section.
A dependable computer with an internet connection, a lcd projector to facilitate displaying each power point outline, and school permission to access YouTube videos are required for this unit instruction. The maps, pictures, and pair/share/ documents can be loaded to a Canvas site to reduce copying expenses.
Day 1 Introduction Lesson Downloads: Documents | PowerPoint Preparation before class: post pictures of vocabulary term or phrase around the classroom. Leave pictures in place until this unit is complete. Be sure slides are in full screen mode to begin the lesson.
Starter: Describe how people traveled across the U.S. without cars, trains, or airplanes. (3 min.)
I Can Statement: I can connect the vocabulary terms for this unit to the definition.
Vocabulary Walk:
Westward Expansion Introduction:
Exit question:
Day 2 Westward Expansion Opens New Opportunities
Downloads: Documents | PowerPoint Starter: Based on the Westward Exploration video, which Overland Trail would you choose if you lived between 1838 and 1869? Why? (5 min.)
I Can Statement: I can explore how the U. S. western border changed from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.
Objectives:
Overland Trail small group read/pair/share (total 15 min).
Power Point slides and video using Overland Trail maps.
Questions to consider:
Day 3 Women’s Suffrage Efforts Begin
Downloads: Documents | PowerPoint Starter: Considering the Overland Trails discussed yesterday, describe what contribution you think women made to the journey between Missouri and the unsettled west. (3 min.)
I Can Statement: I can describe early efforts to give women the right to vote while examining two primary documents.
Seneca Falls Convention:
Primary Document Comparison:
Readers’ Theater Participation Request:
Exit Ticket:
Write one difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Sentiments approved at the Seneca Falls Convention.
Day 4 Women’s Suffrage in the New Settlements
Downloads: Documents | PowerPoint Starter: Describe how organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention could get their message to women living west of the Rocky Mountains. (3 min.)
I Can Statement: I can describe when at least two territories gave women the right to vote and why.
Map Skill Review: Show U.S. map after 1850. What is the most frequently used word on this map?
The Territories and Women’s Suffrage:
Strategies for Women’s Suffrage in the Territories: (5 min.)
Census Impact on Territories:
Access to voting successes and challenges:
Disenfranchise: Edmunds-Tucker Act 1887: (10 min)
Readers’ Theater - Indignation Meeting speeches (15 min.)
“Great Indignation Meeting,” January 6, 1870 and January 13, 1870.
Exit question: How much time or money would be needed to get voting rights back after 1887?
Day 5 The Nineteenth Amendment Ratification, Was Everyone Included?
Downloads: Documents | PowerPoint Starter: Explain the picture of Seraph Young voting on February 14, 1970. How does this primary document apply to casting Utah women’s first vote? (3 min.)
I Can Statement: I can explain the most effective strategies women’s suffrage supporters used to persuade law makers to create, sign, and ratify the Nineteenth amendment to the U. S. Constitution.
Review Question:
Suffrage Efforts Continue:
Nineteenth Amendment Results:
Timeline activity:
Exit Question: When is the most important date about voting after the Nineteenth Amendment became law? Explain your answer. (5 min.)
Day 6 Unit Review
Downloads: Documents | PowerPoint Preparation: set up a bench or set of chairs without desks where students can sit to answer the questions. Laminated cards with answers to the questions will be placed against a wall, white board, or other flat surface using attaching tools that will hold the card without damaging the surface. One clean flyswatter per team will be needed. Students may work in pairs to begin this activity. [iv]
Starter: How does passage of the Nineteenth Amendment apply today? (3 min.)
I Can Statement: I can explain ideas about women’s suffrage studied during this unit.
Objective: Students will use a review document and game to reinforce concepts presented during the Path to Women’s Suffrage unit.
Review Document:
Review Game:
Review activity reflection:
Day 7 Assessment Activity (poster, political cartoon, or essay)
Download: PowerPoint Preparation: A blank paper, pencil, and color pencils needed for the poster or political cartoon as individual student’s assessment document. A blank lined paper, and pencil needed for the reflective essay assessment document. Students may use their notes from the unit while completing the assessment, but not their neighbor for information. Students may need a reminder concerning school and/or district decency guidelines where artwork is concerned before students begin a poster or political cartoon assessment.
Starter: If you wanted to describe your opinion for or against the Nineteenth Amendment, what strategies used in this unit would you choose? (3 min.)
I Can Statement: I can show what I know about the struggle for or against the Nineteenth Amendment.
Assessment Activity:
What if I finish early?
A formative assessment giving students three ways to show what they learned during the Path to Women’s Suffrage unit: draw a political cartoon or poster for or against women’s suffrage based on documents, videos, and class presentations, draw a timeline showing five steps important to the passage of the 19 th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, write a three paragraph essay for or against extending women’s voting rights as if you were alive in 1920.
[i] Idea shared with permission by Stephannie Jones West, Minot, ND.
[ii] Worksheet shared with permission by Stephannie Jones West, Minot, ND.
[iii] Vocabulary form adapted from vocabulary form developed by Canyons School District, Sandy, Utah.
[iv] Review flyswatter game first used with World Geography teacher, Jeanette Bytendorp , Centennial Junior High, Davis School District, Kaysville UT.
Language Arts Core, 7 th Grade
https://www.uen.org/core/core.do?courseNum=4270 (accessed 8-2-2019).
Reading: Literature Standard 1 Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
Reading: Literature Standard 2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.
Reading: Literature Standard 3 Analyze how particular elements of a story or drama interact (e.g., how setting shapes the characters or plot).
Reading: Literature Standard 4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of rhymes and other repetitions of sounds (e.g., alliteration) on a specific verse or stanza of a poem or section of a story or drama.
Reading: Literature Standard 9 Compare and contrast a fictional portrayal of a time, place, or character and a historical account of the same period as a means of understanding how authors of fiction use or alter history.
Writing Standard 9 Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and
Speaking and Listening Standard 1 Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 7 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
Follow rules for collegial discussions, track progress toward specific goals and deadlines, and define individual roles as needed.
Speaking and Listening Standard 2 Analyze the main ideas and supporting details presented in diverse media and formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) and explain how the ideas clarify a topic, text, or issue under study.
Speaking and Listening Standard 5 Include multimedia components and visual displays in presentations to clarify claims and findings and emphasize salient points.
The Path to Women’s Suffrage: Westward Movement to the 19 th Amendment
Reading Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies 6–12
(based on Core Curriculum document https://www.uen.org/core/languagearts/downloads/6-12RdgLit_in_Hist_SS.pdf (accessed 8-2-2019).
Grades 6–8 students: | Grades 9–10 students: | Grades 11–12 students: |
1. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources. |
1. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, attending to such features as the date and origin of the information. |
1. Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources, connecting insights gained from specific details to an understanding of the text as a whole. |
2. Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions. | 2. Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text. | 2. Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas. |
4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies. |
4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies. |
4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies. |
Grades 6–8 students: | Grades 9–10 students: | Grades 11-12 students: |
7. Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts. |
7. Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts. |
7. Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.
|
8. Distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text. | 8. Assess the extent to which the reasoning and evidence in a text support the author’s claims. | 8. Evaluate an author’s premises, claims, and evidence by corroborating or challenging them with other information. |
9. Analyze the relationship between a primary and secondary source on the same topic. | 9. Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources. | 9. Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources. |
Mary church terrell , belva lockwood and the precedents she set for women’s rights, women’s rights lab: black women’s clubs, educational equality & title ix:.
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Music in the women's suffrage movement.
For as long as socially and politically aware citizens have gathered to protest laws and voice dissent, music has served a paramount role; the women's suffrage movement proves no exception. From local community suffrage meetings, to large-scale city-wide marches, to prison cells -- suffragists consistently unified, rallied, and asserted their unbreakable spirit in song.
Many suffrage songs featured original texts written by suffragists but sung to popular tunes of the day, often patriotic ones such as "Yankee Doodle," "America," and others. On June 15, 1911, The New York Times published a story about suffragists in Los Angeles who were holding a public rally. Police informed the women that "votes for women" speeches were prohibited at the rally; to circumvent the ordinance, the suffragists set those suffrage speeches to music and sang their message instead. And in 1917 when six suffragists were incarcerated after protesting in front of the White House, they organized a song service and suffrage meeting for tens of other women inmates in the prison. Suffrage organizations across the country sponsored song competitions encouraging suffragists of both sexes to pen more music for the movement.
The suffrage movement started in earnest early in the nineteenth century with the activities of leading suffragists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton , Susan B. Anthony , Lucretia Mott , Carrie Chapman Catt , and Alice Paul , among many others. Abolitionists and reformers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the now-famous 1848 convention in Seneca Falls, New York (July 19-20) that many historians regard as the official start of the movement. The convention was followed in quick succession by two significant organized meetings: first, a celebration of Emancipation Day on August 1, 1848 in Rochester, New York to honor the abolition of slavery in British and French West Indies, and, second, the Rochester Women's Rights Convention on August 2, 1848. Though the suffrage movement often has been described in isolation , these suffragist-organized meetings exemplify the numerous concurrent social and political movements that intersected with the suffrage movement, such as abolition, racial justice, and the temperance movement.
By 1890, after realizing that their efforts would be more effective if combined, the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association merged to become the National American Woman Suffrage Association . By 1900 the new leaders, Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt, were employing less revolutionary, more practical methods to achieve their goals; however, some of the more militant suffragists were less patient. Alice Paul led the National Woman's Party and continued to strive for a constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote, as did Harriet Stanton Blatch (daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton) . By 1907 suffragists were organizing marches , leading parades , and staging pageants, scenes , and elaborate tableaux that depicted both the societal advantages of giving women the right to vote as well as the disadvantages of denying it. Eventually, the arguments took on the softer approach that women need to vote in order to nurture and benefit society, which encouraged many more women to participate.
Women's Suffrage in Sheet Music provides researchers with a study of the suffrage movement, its counter movement, and its impact on society and popular culture through the lens of music. The digital collection includes mostly published sheet music and texts, and also showcases self-published works and a handful of manuscripts. Musical substance ranges from Dame Ethel Smyth's famous anthem of the movement, "The March of the Women" to amateur songs likely never performed in large public forums. Music included in the digital collection served vastly different purposes: there are suffrage hymns and martial pieces that were intended for performance at suffrage meetings and public demonstrations; parlor songs published to support specific suffrage or anti-suffrage leagues and organizations; sheet music published by song sharks; and commercial sheet music drawing upon the topical theme for marketing purposes. Some composers and lyricists are so obscure that we know nothing more about them than their names. In fact, there is a certain irony in the names that some suffragists provided when registering music for copyright; women who wrote impassioned song texts about suffrage and equality sometimes identified themselves in print only with modest initials or with their husband's name, e.g., Mrs. D.P. Owens (actually F.K. Owens), Mrs. Alfred E. Clark, and Mrs. E.P. Kellogg, among others. In some cases, with enough research, it is possible to uncover the individual's actual name; in many instances, however, their identities remain hidden. On the other hand, much of the music features composers and/or lyricists who were well-known within the suffrage movement, and some were well-known in any context.
When searching the music selections included in the digital collection, it is important to examine the lyrics of every piece of sheet music; while some titles and cover art initially suggest support of women's suffrage, many lyrics reveal an anti-suffrage message that ultimately mocks suffragists. Anti-suffrage sentiment seeps into much of the popular music of the time, with a striking amount of song lyrics that expose male anxiety about a woman's ability to vote, predicting the societal demise of the family and the consequent subjugation of men.
The decades-long suffrage campaign, which included conferences and other organizational meetings on the local and national level, made use of banners, signs, and slogans, and even specific colors associated with the movement. At these meetings, songs and music united and inspired women to persist until they were successful. Often, songs were dedicated to women prominent in the movement, on both the national and local level. Many well-known activists such as Emmeline Pankhurst and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn were mentioned in some of the lyrics, and many songs were written in honor of, inspired by, or dedicated to a woman prominent in the movement. One manuscript in the collection was written by Sofia M. Loebinger , feminist and editor of the legal periodical The American Suffragette . A few were even inscribed by suffragists or previously belonged to a suffragist's personal library. Two pieces in this collection bear the name of Sophonisba P. Breckinridge (1866-1948) as previous owner (although no conclusive proof of ownership could be found). Breckinridge was the first woman graduate of the University of Chicago law school and a social worker, educator, and associate of Hull House from 1907 to 1920. In the end, most songs are concerned with the average anonymous American woman who simply wanted to vote.
Exhibitions.
World War II opened a new chapter in the lives of Depression-weary Americans. As husbands and fathers, sons and brothers shipped out to fight in Europe and the Pacific, millions of women marched into factories, offices, and military bases to work in paying jobs and in roles reserved for men in peacetime.
For female journalists, World War II offered new professional opportunities. Talented and determined, dozens of women fought for--and won--the right to cover the biggest story of their lives. By war's end, at least 127 American women had secured official military accreditation as war correspondents, if not actual front-line assignments. Other women journalists remained on the home front to document the ways in which the country changed dramatically under wartime conditions.
Women Come to the Front: Journalists, Photographers and Broadcasters of World War II spotlights eight women who succeeded in "coming to the front" during the war--Therese Bonney, Toni Frissell, Marvin Breckinridge Patterson, Clare Boothe Luce, Janet Flanner, Esther Bubley, Dorothea Lange, and May Craig. Their stories--drawn from private papers and photographs primarily in Library of Congress collections--open a window on a generation of women who changed American society forever by securing a place for themselves in the workplace, in the newsroom, and on the battlefield.
The women journalists, photographers, and broadcasters of World War II followed two centuries of trailblazers. During the 1700s, Mary Katherine Goddard, Anne Royall, and other women ran family printing and newspaper businesses along the East Coast. By the late 1800s, the growth of higher education for women had spawned a new market--and jobs--for writers of "women's news."
At the turn of the twentieth century, the woman's suffrage movement opened opportunities for female reporters to cut their teeth on national politics under the guise of women's news. However, female reporters often worked without permanent office space, salaries, or access to the social clubs and backrooms where men conducted business. In response, women began their own professional associations, such as the Women's National Press Club, founded on September 27, 1919, by a group of Washington newswomen. The organization eventually merged with the National Press Club after it admitted women in 1971.
When the Great Depression threatened the tenuous foothold of women on newspaper staffs, Eleanor Roosevelt instituted a weekly women-only press conference to force news organizations to employ at least one female reporter. During World War II, many of the newswomen in the First Lady's circle served as war correspondents.
Those who did get to the war front followed a path begun a century earlier by pioneers such as Margaret Fuller (the New York Herald Tribune's European correspondent in the 1840s), Jane Swisshelm (Civil War), Anna Benjamin (Spanish-American War), and Dorothy Thompson (overseas correspondent in the 1930s), among others. One of the most important predecessors was Peggy Hull, who on September, 17, 1918, won accreditation from the War Department to become the first official American female war correspondent and who went on to serve as a correspondent during World War II.
Whatever route led them to the hospitals, battlefields, and concentration camps, female reporters found that the war offered an unanticipated opportunity. Political-reporter-turned-war correspondent May Craig best summed up their achievements in a 1944 speech at the Women's National Press Club: "The war has given women a chance to show what they can do in the news world, and they have done well."
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Download Woman's Rights to the Suffrage by Susan B. Anthony in PDF
Susan B. Anthony recognized that without the right to vote women would keep fighting the same battles for equality over and over again. She traveled many miles, giving hundreds of speeches, gathering thousands of signatures on petitions, and organizing suffragists, to press for women’s suffrage.
In 1872 Susan B. Anthony forced the issue. The newly added Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution granted equal protection under the law, and defined citizens as anybody born or naturalized in the United States. The law was passed to protect freed black people in the aftermath of the Civil War. As a citizen, Susan B. Anthony decided to test the Amendment and went with her sisters and several other women to vote. After casting her ballot Susan B. Anthony wrote, “I have been and gone and done it…positively voted…” (p.424 Life & Work )
Soon after, a federal marshal showed up at Susan B. Anthony’s door to arrest her for wrongfully and willfully voting. She insisted the marshal arrest her properly and take her to the police station. In between her arrest and her trial, Susan B. Anthony spoke in all 28 towns and villages in Monroe County, New York, asking “Is it a crime for a U.S. citizen to vote?” At Susan B. Anthony’s trial, the judge ordered she be found guilty without deliberation, and fined her $100. She refused to pay. To avoid an appeal, the judge did not throw Susan B. Anthony in jail.
In 1875, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that women were indeed citizens but that citizens do not necessarily have the right to vote. It was up to the states to decide voting requirements beyond what was written in the Constitution. Southern states instituted poll taxes and literacy tests that, in addition to the threat of lynching, effectively kept poor black people from voting until the 1960s.
It would take more than fifty years for the 19th Amendment to pass, fourteen years after Susan B. Anthony died. Widely known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, “the right to vote shall not be denied on account of sex,” became the law of the land in 1920.
Text prompt
10 Examples of Public speaking
20 Examples of Gas lighting
For Mehta, women’s rights were human rights, and in all her endeavors she took women’s participation in public and political realms to new heights.
A postcard depicting Hansa Mehta. Her work included helping to draft India’s first constitution as a newly independent nation. Credit... via Mehta family
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By Radha Vatsal
While researching this article, Radha Vatsal discovered that she and Hansa Mehta both descended from the 19th-century novelist Nandshankar Mehta.
This article is part of Overlooked , a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.
Human rights has long been considered a Western concept, but recent scholarship has been uncovering the influence of women from the global south. Women like Hansa Mehta.
Mehta stood up against the British government during India’s struggle for independence. She campaigned for women’s social and political equality and their right to an education. And she fought for her ideals during the framing of the constitution for a newly independent India.
For Mehta, women’s rights were human rights. This conviction was best exemplified at a 1947 meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, to which she had been appointed as one of just two women delegates, alongside Eleanor Roosevelt. Mehta boldly objected to the wording of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the commission was tasked with framing.
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Throughout March, WSU is featuring stories of women whose contributions to society have helped shape the university and the world.
When Paulina Gómez Vega traveled to Pullman to study at Washington State College in 1921, it was because women in her country, Colombia, were barred from a university education. Gómez Vega’s experience in Pullman set her on a path that made her an education leader and an influential voice for women’s rights back home.
“Everything I have done in Colombia was by the inspiration I received here in Pullman,” she said when visiting the campus again in 1973.
What she did in Columbia is wide-ranging, and important.
She was a bacteriologist and public health advocate. She promoted education for women, directing the first official women’s high school in the country. And she was a feminist, advocating for women to have the right to vote, to go to university, and to manage their own finances.
That last role stemmed from her time in Pullman, according to “Paulina Gómez-Vega: educator, pioneer of the suffrage movements in Colombia,” a chapter in a book about Latin American educators published in Colombia in 2011.
At Washington State College, Gómez-Vega was exposed to the successes of the women’s suffrage movement in America. Women had finally been given the right to vote in 1920 through ratification of the 19 th Amendment. As a student in the United States, “she had the privilege of enjoying the cultural, social, and artistic awakening of the time, brought about in large part by the power that gave American women the right to vote,” the authors of the chapter said.
Gómez-Vega had progressed as high as she could in education in Colombia at the time, graduating at age 16 with a teaching credential. After teaching for a few years, she came across a flyer from Washington State College, she said in 1973.
“I wrote in Spanish and asked if I could come,” she said. The head of the college’s Department of Foreign Languages (now the WSU School of Languages, Cultures, and Race ) responded and asked if she’d like to teach Spanish. She arrived in 1921 and not only taught Spanish, she enrolled as a student and served as “housemother” for the Spanish House, where she was younger than some of the students.
Gómez Vega got two degrees from WSC: a bachelor of arts degree in foreign languages and a bachelor of science degree with an emphasis in bacteriology.
“When she returned to Colombia at the end of 1927 she was a professional in two careers and a feminist, roles still little known” in Colombia, said Esneider Agudelo Arango and Patricia Triana Rodríguez, who wrote about her in 2011.
She returned to the U.S. to study bacteriology at Johns Hopkins University, getting a master’s degree from that institution and working toward a doctoral degree. But she wasn’t able to finish after being denied a scholarship “due to her feminist activism” in Colombia, Agudelo Arango and Rodriguez said.
As a school director, Gómez Vega emphasized sports and the arts over more traditional pursuits like needlework, and other schools followed suit. Eventually Colombian women were able to attend universities there, and in 1973 she observed, “Now you see many girls at the university, and many women as doctors and lawyers.”
Gómez Vega had a long and varied career as a teacher. She represented Colombia at international conferences and worked for peace and civil rights. In 1938 Frances Burlingame, dean of Elmira (New York) College, visited Colombia and was hosted by Gómez Vega. Burlingame wrote, “Senorita Paulina Gómez Vega is one of the most active, intelligent and stimulating people I have ever met… She works constantly for girls and women here in Colombia.”
By Addy Hatch, WSU Insider
IMAGES
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This thesis challenges the conventional wisdom that the W.S.P.U.'s strategy choices were unimportant in regard to winning women's suffrage. It confirms the hypothesis that the long-range strategy of the W.S.P.U. was to escalate coercion until the Government exhausted its powers of opposition and conceded, but to interrupt this strategy whenever favorable bargaining opportunities with the ...
A more recent book of primary sources is Women's Suffrage in America, edited by Elizabeth Frost-Knappman and Kathryn Cullen-Dupont, which combines a variety of documents with introductory essays and chronologies. 41. Available on microfilm are The Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and History of Women Microfilm Collection. 42
Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle: The Women's Rights Movement in the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 1959); Aileen S. Kraditor, The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, 1890-1920 (New York, 1965); Gerda Lerner, The Grimké Sisters from South Carolina: Rebels against Slavery (Boston, 1967); Alan P. Grimes, The Puritan Ethic and Woman Suffrage (New York, 1967); Barbara J. Berg, The ...
A suffragist stands by a sign reading, "Women of America! If you want to put a vote in in 1920 put a (.10, 1.00, 10.00) in Now, National Ballot Box for 1920," circa 1920.
Senators—some of them working closely with activists—continued to debate women's political rights over the next four decades as suffrage lobbyists ramped up pressure on members of Congress. After several failed attempts, the Senate finally approved a constitutional amendment for woman suffrage on June 4, 1919.
Series: Essays: Overview of Women's Suffrage. Women in America collectively organized in 1848 at the First Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY to fight for suffrage (or voting rights). Over the next seventy years, not everyone followed the same path in fighting for women's equal access to the vote. The history of the suffrage ...
The first women's suffrage organizations were created in 1869. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), while Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and Henry Blackwell founded the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA).These two rival groups were divided over the Fifteenth Amendment, which guaranteed African American men the right to vote.
Women's suffrage, the right of women by law to vote in national or local elections. Women were excluded from voting in ancient Greece and republican Rome as well as in the few democracies that had emerged in Europe by the end of the 18th century. The first country to give women the right to vote was New Zealand (1893).
Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change in the Constitution - guaranteeing women the right to vote. Some suffragists used more confrontational tactics such as picketing, silent vigils, and hunger strikes. Read more ...
The National American Woman Suffrage Association Formed in 1890, NAWSA was the result of a merger between two rival factions--the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), led by Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe. These ...
Part of the American Women series, these essays provide a more in-depth exploration of particular events of significance in women's history, including the 1913 woman suffrage parade, the campaign for the equal rights amendment, and more. Part of the American Women series, this essay tells the story of the parade, including the mistreatment of marchers by rowdy crowds and inept police, the ...
Women's suffrage procession in Washington, D.C. 1913, March 3, crowd around Red Cross ambulance, Courtesy: Library of Congress. Women's Suffrage. Nineteen-twelve was when Theodore Roosevelt came ...
Women's suffrage is a broad topic! As you start your research, think about what specific area of the broader topic you could focus on for your project. Once you have a more specific idea identified, it can be helpful to write a research question that will then serve as your foundation for further research. You can check out the Shapiro Library ...
In the Progressive era, 1870-1920, Womens suffrage became a huge priority for women during this time; especially for the right to vote.Women of middle and upper classes created three groups that were most important to the women's suffrage movement: the NAWSA, NWSA, AWSA and NWP.. The letter shown on the left was written by Emma Smith DeVoe, president of the Washington Equals Suffrage ...
Women's Suffrage Movement. The struggle for women suffrage augmented in the middle of the nineteenth century with the establishment of diverse associations. The formation of the International Council of Women occurred in the year 1888. Views on Women's Suffrage by E.Kuhlman, L.Woodworth-Ney and E.Foner.
Women gained the right to vote in 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment. On Election Day in 1920, millions of American women exercised this right for the first time. But for almost 100 years ...
Women are, by nature and training, housekeepers. Let them have a hand in the city's housekeeping, even if they introduce an occasional house-cleaning. NEW YORK STATE WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION. 303 Fifth Avenue. New York City. Printed by the NATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE PUBLISHING CO., INC., New York City: Women are natural housekeepers.
White leaders were often exclusive and discriminatory. A group of African American women's clubs was barred from joining the Leslie Woman Suffrage Commission in 1919 on the eve of the 19th Amendment's passage. Some white suffragists argued that enfranchising women would expand the "native" voting population.
The Territories and Women's Suffrage: ... It needs an introduction with a thesis statement stating a for or against position, a body of information based on primary documents including maps and pictures, video presentations, or notes taken during this unit, and a conclusion. Place the source of primary document information used next to the ...
56 Words. 1 Page. Open Document. Thesis: The women's suffrage movement effect many areas around America, including: social expectations, economic roles, and political positions. Revised Thesis: The women's suffrage movement opened many doors for the women of America and allowed them to achieve many objects they had never before thought of ...
Women's Suffrage Thesis. 1063 Words5 Pages. Thesis Proposal Title The impact women's right to vote had on economic growth in the U.S, as women in integrated into the labour force from the 1920's to the 1990's. Background Prior to the 1920s, before women got their right to vote in America. They took up in the more subservient role in ...
For as long as socially and politically aware citizens have gathered to protest laws and voice dissent, music has served a paramount role; the women's suffrage movement proves no exception. From local community suffrage meetings, to large-scale city-wide marches, to prison cells -- suffragists consistently unified, rallied, and asserted their unbreakable spirit in song.
The woman's suffrage movement was close to victory following World War I due to the efforts of women in support of the war. In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson issued a statement supporting a Constitutional Amendment to grant woman suffrage. That statement was a departure from his earlier view supporting state granted suffrage (Hossell).
By the late 1800s, the growth of higher education for women had spawned a new market--and jobs--for writers of "women's news." At the turn of the twentieth century, the woman's suffrage movement opened opportunities for female reporters to cut their teeth on national politics under the guise of women's news.
Susan B. Anthony recognized that without the right to vote women would keep fighting the same battles for equality over and over again. She traveled many miles, giving hundreds of speeches, gathering thousands of signatures on petitions, and organizing suffragists, to press for women's suffrage. In 1872 Susan B. Anthony forced the issue.
For Mehta, women's rights were human rights. This conviction was best exemplified at a 1947 meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, to which she had been appointed as one of ...
That last role stemmed from her time in Pullman, according to "Paulina Gómez-Vega: educator, pioneer of the suffrage movements in Colombia," a chapter in a book about Latin American educators published in Colombia in 2011. At Washington State College, Gómez-Vega was exposed to the successes of the women's suffrage movement in America.