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The Final Push for Woman Suffrage
By the early twentieth century, the women’s movement had mobilized millions, who increasingly concentrated on the passage of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ensure women’s voting rights. Nothing came easily to the suffragists, but in 1920 their passion and courage were rewarded by the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.
DOCUMENT 1
Politicking for Suffrage
While radical suffragists chained themselves to the White House fence and went on hunger strikes, other women followed more traditional political channels—
New York City, N.Y.
March 13th, 1919
Mrs. Maud Wood Park
1626 Rhode Island Avenue
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mrs. Park,
. . . I kept in very close touch on the telephone and telegraph wire with New York Congressmen and they reported to me, really twice a day what was going on, as far as Speaker, Floor Leader and Suffrage Committee was concerned. I can do more in the House than in the Senate, and I have asked Mr. Hays on the long distance telephone to try and see that things are perfectly straight for our Cause there.
Things will be all right, I believe, but I have made up my mind not to trust either Democrats or Republicans, until the Suffrage Amendment is passed; however, I do not say this to the men[,] only to you, and I shall keep my eyes and ears open and busy, and on the job all I can.
Source: Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600–
DOCUMENT 2
The President Intervenes
Although some people urged suffragists to muffle their demands during the war so that the nation could concentrate on victory, Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the NAWSA since 1915, pressed on, recognizing that the war offered a special opportunity. Catt prodded President Woodrow Wilson quietly but persistently, and on September 30, 1918, Wilson finally intervened directly, urging the Senate to pass the Nineteenth Amendment. His argument on behalf of democracy mirrored precisely that of radical suffragists who were protesting in front of the White House.
[The Senate’s] adoption is, in my judgment, clearly necessary to the successful prosecution of the war and the successful realization of the objects for which the war is being fought.
. . . If we be indeed democrats and wish to lead the world to democracy, we can ask other peoples to accept in proof of our sincerity and our ability to lead them whither they wish to be led, nothing less persuasive and convincing than our actions.
. . . They are looking to the great, powerful, famous democracy of the West to lead them to a new day for which they have so long waited; and they think, in their logical simplicity, that democracy means that women shall play their part in affairs alongside men and upon an equal footing with them.
. . . We have made partners of the women in this war. Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right?
This war could not have been fought, either by the other nations engaged or by America, if it had not been for the services of the women—
. . . I tell you plainly that this measure which I urge upon you is vital to the winning of the war and to the energies alike of preparation and of battle.
. . . And not to winning the war only. It is vital to the right solution of the great problems which we must settle, and settle immediately, when the war is over. We shall need in our vision of affairs, as we have never needed them before, the sympathy and insight and clear moral instinct of the women of the world. . . . We shall need their moral sense to preserve what is right and fine and worthy in our system of life as well as to discover just what it is that ought to be purified and reformed. Without their counsellings we shall be only half wise.
Source: “Appeal of President Wilson to the Senate of the United States to Submit the Federal Amendment for Woman Suffrage Delivered in Person Sept. 20, 1918,” in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 5, 1900–
DOCUMENT 3
Reflections on Victory
Catt celebrates the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in this letter to her staff at the NAWSA on Thanksgiving Day 1920. She reflects on the long road to victory and considers the satisfactions of the journey.
I have kept Thanksgiving sacred to reflections upon the long trail behind us, and the triumph which was its inevitable conclusion. John Adams said long after the Revolution that only about one third of the people were for it, a third being against it, and the remaining third utterly indifferent. Perhaps this proportion applies to all movements. At least a third of the women were for our cause at the end. . . . As I look back over the years . . . I realize that the greatest thing in the long campaign for us was not its crowning victory, but the discipline it gave us all. . . . It was a great crusade, the world has seen none more wonderful. . . . My admiration, love and reverence go out to that band which fought and won a revolution . . . with congratulations that we were permitted to establish a new and good thing in the world.
Source: Carrie Chapman Catt to NAWSA Office Staff, Thanksgiving Day 1920, in Women’s Suffrage in America: An Eyewitness History, ed. Elizabeth Frost and Kathryn Cullen-
Questions for Analysis
Analyze the Evidence: What, according to Woodrow Wilson, would America’s rejection of the Nineteenth Amendment have jeopardized?
Consider the Context: How did the First World War further the cause of woman suffrage in the United States?
Ask Historical Questions: Compare the strategies adopted by suffragists and by African Americans seeking reform during World War I. Which was more effective, and why?