The American Woman Suffrage

Movement 1848-1920

Reading Like a Historian

Why did people oppose woman suffrage? Did anti-suffragists

think men were superior to women?

Women and Reform Movements

In early 1800s, women involved in many different reform movements including suffrage, abolition (no slavery), and temperance (no alcohol)

Right to vote:Suffrage = Enfranchisement =Franchise

Seneca Falls Convention 1848 July 1848, -Elizabeth

Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and other organized the first women’s right convention in Seneca Falls, New York.

The convention, attended by women and men, issued a Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions modeled on the Declaration of Independence.

Susan B Anthony built the women’s movement into a national organization

A Declaration of Sentiments

The most controversial issue concerned suffrage

Elizabeth Stanton insisted that they include a demand for woman suffrage, but the idea of women voting was too radical.

Anti-Suffragists:

Those who opposed suffrage

(many “Anti’s”were women)

Arguments of Anti-Suffragists:

Women were high-strung, irrational, 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

The Seneca Falls Convention &

The Declaration of Sentiments

Comparing Two Declarations

The Declaration of Independence

and The Declaration of

Sentiments

The Five Parts of The Declaration of

Independence Preamble “When in the Course of Human events…”

The Rights of the People “…We hold these truths to be self

evident…” List of Grievances

“…He has refused his assent to laws…for the public good…”

Efforts to avoid separation “…We have petitioned for a redress of

grievances in the most humblest terms…” Independence Declared

“…These united colonies are, of right ought to be free and independent states…”

Declaration of Sentiments

Read the “Declaration of Sentiments” handout together with your partner.

Fill in the Grievance/Explanation Chart and be ready to discuss.

Comparing Two Declarations

Turn to pg. 166-169 of your textbook

Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Sentiments

Discussion questions

Which complaints would you consider the most serious?

Which complaints most resemble complaints of colonists prior to the Revolutionary War?

Do any of the grievances relate more to entrenched attitudes about women than they do to legal obstacles to equality?

19th Amendment, 1920“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.Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

(Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify and it passed by only 1 vote)