Category: resolute-women
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A long social reform movement
“Women staged one of the longest social reform movements in the history of the United States,” says historian Kate Clarke Lemay in the July 10, 2020, issue of The New York Times. “This is not a boring history of nagging spinsters; it is a badass history of revolution staged by political geniuses.” Kate Clarke Lemay…
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Susan B. Anthony votes
Susan B. Anthony and more than 150 other women around the country voted—illegally—in 1872. The judge at Susan B. Anthony’s trial was federal Judge Ward Hunt. Anthony described him as “a small-brained, pale-faced, prim-looking man.” Judge Hunt made one BIG mistake when he asked: “Has the prisoner anything to say why sentence shall not be…
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Who couldn’t vote in 1891?
The Illinois state constitution stated: “Idiots, lunatics, paupers, felons and women shall not be entitled to vote.” That law, we think, provides an indication of the status of women in the United States—and of the need for women’s suffrage.
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Suffragette or suffragist?
The term suffragette was most often used to refer to British women. American women generally preferred to be called suffragists—because they wanted to distance themselves from the more militant suffragettes in Great Britain. When the term suffragette was used in the United States, it was usually a term of derision or disrespect. The distinction between…
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The battle to win the vote
What event marked the beginning of women’s battle to win the vote in the United States? The Seneca Falls Convention on July 19 and 20, 1848—which was held in the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Seneca Falls, New York. More than 300 women and 40 men attended the convention to discuss “the social, civil and religious…
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The first women to vote
Who were the first women to vote in the United States? Almost a thousand years ago, women in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy helped select the chiefs who governed their council, says scholar Sally Roesch Wagner. These were women in the Mohawk, Oneida and other tribes that lived around the Great Lakes, and they helped decide matters…
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Trust in God
During the struggle for women’s suffrage, some men—and even some women—seemed to think that the Bible says that women shouldn’t vote. “Trust in God,” Emmeline Pankhurst said. “She will provide.”
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We, the people
“It was we, the people,” declared Susan B. Anthony. “Not we, the white male citizens. Nor yet, we, the male citizens, but we, the whole people, who formed the Union….Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.”
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Want equality?
“If women want any rights more than they’s got, why don’t they just take them, and not be talking about it,” said Sojourner Truth.
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You can’t stop us
“Women weren’t given the vote,” concluded the PBS series on women’s suffrage. “We took it.” As Sojourner Truth said, “You may hiss as much as you please, but women will get their rights anyway. You can’t stop us, neither.”