Dear Journal...

Dear Journal,

           

            Even though this is a very stressful subject and is very difficult trying to persuade everyone that women should have the right to vote; I have had a wonderful time meeting all these courageous and brave people. They inspire me so much and have had a huge impact on my life.

            This is a huge change in my life because I have never worked to get something so hard. It has taught me life lessons that I would have never learned if I would not have joined the campaign for women’s suffrage. I have learned that you do not get everything the first time you try. You have to keep working and working and trying different ways to do things that did not work the first time. You have to be very creative.

            In the end, we eventually won the fight. It took many, many years but it was worth it. Even though it got pretty stressful sometimes you just learn to bear through it and hope for the best. I just want to thank everyone who supported women’s suffrage through it all because without you we wouldn’t be where we are today.

                                                                                               

            Margaret Johnson

The Final Stretch

I’ve told you all about the events leading up to the final vote but I haven’t actually told you how they essentially got it approved.

            In 1910 some states in the West began to extend the vote to women for the first time in almost 20 years. Many suffragists argued that women should receive the vote as a war measure. Women’s suffrage would prove that the allies were fighting for democracy. In 1916 NAWSA president Carrie Chapman Catt revealed her “Winning Plan” which was a blitz campaign that mobilized state and local suffrage organizations all over the country. There was another group that focused on more militant tactics including hunger strikes and White House pickets. WW1 slowed the suffragists’ campaign but helped them advance in there argument.

In 1918 President Wilson announced he his support for the women’s suffrage amendment. That year South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Michigan gave women the right. Authorization was repeatedly defeated in the Senate. One member of Congress left his wife’s deathbed to vote and when he had gotten back home she was dead.

To become part of the Constitution, the amendment had to be approved by 36 states. West Virginia became the 34^th state by a single vote and Washington soon followed. Tennessee was the most likely state to be the deciding factor. The decisive vote was cast by there youngest member who had earlier changes his vote because of his mother’s reasoning. The measure passed 49 votes to 47 votes. They became the 36^th state to ratify.

And on August 26, 1930, the 19^th Amendment was added to the Constitution of the United States.

Women Who Fought For The Vote

Today, I met some very popular women, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They are both very inspirational to me. My story is somewhat like there’s so I relate really well to them. I understand where they came from and they understand me.

Susan B. Anthony was perhaps the most well known women’s rights activist in history. She was born a Quaker and was raised to be independent and outspoken, much like me. In 1853 she began to campaign for the expansion of married women’s poverty rights and in 1856 she joined the American Anti-Slavery Society. After the Civil War she refused to support any suffrage amendment unless they granted the franchise to women as well as men. She continued to fight for the vote until she died on March 13, 1906.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was known as one of the foremost women’s rights activist and philosopher of the 19^th century. She married abolitionist Henry Stanton, soon after the two traveled to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, where they were soon turned away because female delegates were unwelcome as they were told. She then organized the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, where they signed a Declaration of Sentiments. Stanton continued to fight for women politically as well as marriage and divorce laws for women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton died in 1902.
            A statue of Stanton, Anthony, and fellow women’s rights activist Lucretia Mott now stands in the rotunda of the U.S. Capital. 

How Did This All Come About?

So you are probably all wondering how women’s suffrage actually got started and what influenced it. I have done a lot of research on this subject and came up with a lot of information on it.

In 1776 Abigail Adams wrote to her husband who was attending the Continental Congress in Philadelphia asking that he and the other men who were working on the Declaration of Independence “remembered the ladies.” John Adams wrote back joking saying the declaration states clearly that “all men are created equal.”

Sarah Grimke began her speaking career in 1836 as an abolitionist and women’s rights advocate. She was silenced by males who considered her speaking to be a liability. In the next year the first National Female Anti-Slavery Society convention meets in New York City and 81 delegates from 12 states attended. In 1890 the NAWSA was formed from two different associations but they came to the differences and joined together. Carrie Catt Chapman proposed her “winning plan” at the convention in New Jersey.

The Nineteenth Amendment is ratified on August 26, 1920. Its victory accomplished, NAWSA ceases to exist, but its organization becomes the canter of the League of Women Voters.

As you see it took a lot to get women’s suffrage and technically it was over a time span of 114 years. All the women who participated in this never gave up and eventually it paid off.

Ain't I a Woman?

One of the most inspirational people that inspired me was Sojourner Truth. Sojourner Truth was a self-given name to Isabella Baumfree. She was an African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist. She was born into slavery but escaped with her daughter in 1826. Her best known speech what really inspires me in “Ain’t I a Woman?” It was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.

            Her speech was mainly saying all the things that she does as a woman that white women also do. So doesn’t that make her a woman? One of my favorite parts was when she said this: “That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?” She said that she could work and eat as much as a man and when she could get it, she could even bear getting whipped by the lash.

            In my opinion she has proven herself to be a woman and she deserves the same rights as we do. She even works harder then we ever would and we get the right to vote and she doesn’t? Now I know what I side I am on but she makes a good point and I believe she should be heard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsjdLL3MrKk

NWSA, AWSA, or NAWSA?

In 1869 two different organizations were formed over the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution both with the same concept. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton created the National Women’s Suffrage Association (NWSA). The purpose of this was to ensure women the right to vote as well as end discrimination in employment and pay and to advocate an easier divorce.  But some suffragists thought that you should only try to focus on one thing as a time. So Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe, and Josephine Ruffin founded the American Women’s Suffrage Association (AWSA). They just wanted to make sure that women got the right to vote so that is what they campaigned about. I for one sided with the NWSA because that is part of my beliefs and religion.

            I will educate you some more on both associations. First will be the NWSA. The NWSA main priority was getting women the right to vote but this group often stirred public debate through its reformed proposals on social issues such as marriage and divorce. They believed that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were injustices to women.

            The AWSA supported the Fifteenth Amendment and strongly supported getting the right to vote for the Negro. They believed the Amendment would be in danger of failing to pass if it included the vote for women as well. They also believed that they could be more successful through state-by-state campaigns.

            In 1887 a group of four ladies consisting of Lucy Stone, Susan B Anthony, Alice Stone Blackwell and Rachel Roster joined to discuss a merger. In 1890 they came to an agreement and soon became the National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Elizabeth Cady Stanton was elected president and Susan B. Anthony, vice president.