1. Started in 1869, located in Boston, and led by Elizabeth Blackwell and Lucy Stone. The AWSA supported the 15th amendment.
2. "Partly because public speaking was central to the construction of contemporary civil society, the prohibition against respectable women's public speaking was a key ingredient in the practices that denied respectable women-elite, middle-class, and artisan-class women-access to and equality with the new contours of public life. By speaking in public the Grimké sisters precipitated a women's movement that rebelled against the exclusion." (Women's Rights Emerges within the Antislavery Movement 1830-1870, 23)
2.1. The experience of speaking out on behalf of other women built their confidence to pursue the suffrage movement, as well as encouraged other women (and men) to support the movement. This brought the suffrage movement to mean more than just women gaining the right to vote.
3. Famous examples: Rosa Parks, Michelle Obama, Oprah
4. National Level
4.1. Seneca Falls Convention of 1848
4.1.1. Originally known as the first Woman's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls was the meeting in New York that launched the women's suffrage movement at a national level throughout the United States.
4.1.1.1. This was the first attempt at organizing the movement on a national scale. One of my favorite discussions from our class was our realization of this movement being compiled of ordinary women doing extraordinary things.
4.1.2. Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone
4.1.2.1. Susan B. Anthony is typically seen as a leading woman for the origins of suffrage.
4.1.3. Seneca Falls is the traditional history outlining the beginning of the suffrage movement. Everything documented is either before and after this event in history. It symbolizes the start of the women's suffrage movement and really women's history.
4.1.3.1. However, we learned that there was much more history to women's suffrage than before the convention in 1848. Seneca Falls stands as a historical marker on a timeline of women's history.
4.2. Woman Suffrage Organizations
4.2.1. The National Woman Suffrage Association
4.2.1.1. Started in 1869, located in New York, and created by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. The NWSA opposed the 15th amendment.
4.2.2. The American Woman Suffrage Association
5. Local Level
5.1. The Grimké Sisters
5.1.1. Angelina and Sarah Grimké were born into a prominent slave-owning family in South Carolina. The sisters spoke publicly on the sufferings of the slave children on their families plantation which eventually led to their passion for speaking on racial and gender equality.
5.1.2. Women faced the possibility of backlash in society for having no property, no husband, nor rights. Felt like having property gave them rights to speak. Additionally, their rights as a married women were more than their rights as a single woman or widow.
5.2. The "wealthy white woman's" right to vote
5.2.1. While the suffrage movement was derived from the abolitionist movement, the focus was on the vote being given to white women and not women of color.
6. The Anti-Slavery Movement and Women's Suffrage
6.1. American Equal Rights Association (AERA)
6.1.1. "Tensions over priority- who would vote first, black men or white women-wracked the AERA from its inception."- The Myth of Seneca Falls (Page 19)
6.1.2. Status of women should not be equal to that of black men.
6.1.2.1. Feminist-Abolitionist coaltion rivalry
6.2. The so-called "woman question" split the anti-slavery movement. Women's rights emerged from the anti-slavery movement.
6.2.1. What is the woman question? The different ways in which women are oppressed. EX: Race, gender, class
6.3. Grimké Sisters
6.3.1. Their family's wealth derived from a plantation they had never visited. The sisters used their inherited privilege to fight for the rights of those without privilege. They started speaking as public figures throughout the South. People listened to the sisters because they were speaking from experience and eventually gained respectable reputations.
6.4. Slavery "ends" in 1865 with the Emancipation Proclamation. Yet, black men are not freed into anything. There are no reparations for the brutality they lived in for so long.
6.4.1. Raises questions about formerly enslaved persons... were freed people considered citizens? Did they have the same citizenship as whites? What exactly did freedom mean?
6.5. This included men into the question of suffrage.
6.5.1. While some men joined the suffrage movement and supported the equality of women, some men supported the civic divide and continued the spread of toxic masculinity.
6.6. Emancipationists vs. Protectionists
6.6.1. Emancipationists, or marketforce feminism... focused on sameness of all civil rights and that individuals should exercise their civil rights
6.6.2. Protectionists, imagine themselves as protecting women. Based on the ideas that females have natural rights to special protection. Civil rights are different but complementary.
7. Respectability Politics
7.1. Making sure the face of the movement is the most respectable. This is crucial to recruiting and gaining support in public movements. This is crucial to the success of the movement.
8. National Woman Suffrage Asssociation
8.1. Stanton and Anthony left the AERA to form this new national organization. The purpose was to 'organize a National Woman's Suffrage Association separate and apart from the question of equal rights and manhood suffrage.' Further, the goal was to create a 16th Amendment fully enfranchising women.
9. Jury duty- laws were passed to legalize womens right to be on jury duty
9.1. This brought up a conflict of interest between women and sexual assault court cases. In 1936, 26 states still excluded women from juries because of the belief that having women on jury duty would remove fairness from trials.
9.1.1. “According to the suffragists, “the Court declared that as the children had been previously seduced” the real victims were the men “who had not moral strength enough to resist temptation!” To the reporter who detailed the case, the ruling epitomized the injustice of women’s political powerlessness: “No woman’s voice from the judge’s bench or jury box could make itself heard on behalf of outraged childhood.” Female jurors would presumably impose harsher sentences for childhood sexual abuse to mark the seriousness of the crime and to deter it.” (After Suffrage 214.215)
10. Important Events
10.1. Addition of the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Congress passed the amendment on February 26th, 1869 and it was ratified February 3rd, 1870.
10.1.1. The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
10.2. Seneca Falls Convention in 1848
10.2.1. 300 people attend the convention while 68 women and 32 men sign the "Declaration of Sentiments."
10.3. Title IX of the Education Amendment prohibits sex discrimination in schols
11. Indiana Suffrage Movement
11.1. Indiana conventions began with anti-slavery conventions in 1851.
11.2. First Women's Rights Convention in Indiana was held in Dublin, Indiana in October of 1851
11.2.1. "Indiana gained regional and national attention for the progress they had made" (Votes for Women: Women's Suffrage, Gendered Political Culture, and Progressive Era Masculinity in the State of Indiana, Rump 17).
11.3. Amanda Way was considered as being a prominent suffrage leader in Indiana that carried the movement throughout the years. Her work was continued and doubled by other women in Indiana after her.
11.3.1. Some of the most influential women started this movement as individuals and spread their knowledge to gain support.
11.4. As the suffrage movement in Indiana blossomed, the public perception of women changed dramatically. Women began to occupy places that were traditionally dominated by men. Women began to challenge the idea of masculinity and manhood by making their political ideals known and publicized.
11.4.1. The Women's Franchise League was a large suffrage association that held conventions throughout Indianapolis and helped connect Indiana's progress to other bordering states such as Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. While the national push towards suffrage was very prevalent at this time, Indiana's movements were gaining rapid national coverage through word of newspapers and radio broadcasts.
11.4.2. The League of Women Voters in Indiana helped women understand the importance of voting and made sure that women were educated and understanding of the issues they would be voting for or against.
11.5. Mary E. Haggart
11.5.1. Haggart was active in the women's suffrage movement in Indiana beginning in the late 1860's. She was known for her charisma, excellent lecturing ability, and persistence in fighting for women's rights. While much of her work was done in Indiana, she spoke at many conventions in neighboring states, as well as national conventions to larger, more respectable audiences. While she fought on behalf of women, she based her viewpoints around justice the inherent rights of all human beings.
12. "After Suffrage"
12.1. “By the 1920s the case for enforcing female purity was losing much of its salience. More American women earned wages and sought education, and the younger generation embraced sexual liberalism. The response to the masher illustrates women’s rejection of male protection and the reluctance of courts to prosecute unwanted sexual attentions. Reactions to statutory rape laws similarly downplayed the importance of female chastity. Within the women’s movement, too, equal rights rhetoric challenged the older protective approach as activists who considered themselves “feminists” called for gender- neutral laws and a reliance on individual sexual choice.” (After Suffrage 210)
12.2. Educating women on their new legal rights- The National American Women Suffrage Association created a voter education guide in 1921 to inform women of their rights.
12.3. "The Indianapolis Star (post women's enfranchisment) began printing on the 7th page of the paper a "Women's Notes Page" full of suffrage news and news for newly enfranchised voters: new organizations, new causes, and new ways to get involved" (Votes for Women: Women's Suffrage, Gendered Political Culture, and Progressive Era Masculinity in the State of Indiana, Rump 27).
12.3.1. Newspapers continued to spread word of progress being made throughout the country in regards to the suffrage movement.