VERY Important Day 85 Years Ago- Aug. 26,1920 The Suffrage Battle Was Won

August 26, 1920

The Day the Suffrage Battle Was Won
Finally, the long battle for the vote for women was won when a young legislator voted as his mother urged him to vote.

Votes for women were first seriously proposed in the United States in July, 1848, at the Seneca Falls Woman's Rights Convention organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. One woman who attended that convention was Charlotte Woodward. She was nineteen at the time. In 1920, when women finally won the vote throughout the nation, Charlotte Woodward was the only participant in the 1848 Convention who was still alive to cast her vote. Eighty-one years old, she cast her vote proudly.

Some battles for woman suffrage were won state-by-state by the early 20th century. Alice Paul and the National Women's Party began using more radical tactics to work for a federal suffrage amendment to the Constitution: picketing the White House, staging large suffrage marches and demonstrations, going to jail. Thousands of ordinary women took part in these -- a family legend is that my grandmother was one of a number of women who chained themselves to a courthouse door in Minneapolis during this period.

In 1913, Paul led a march of eight thousand participants on President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration day. (Half a million spectators watched; two hundred were injured in the violence that broke out.) During Wilson's second inaugural in 1917, Paul led a march around the White House.

Some battles for woman suffrage were won state-by-state by the early 20th century. Alice Paul and the National Women's Party began using more radical tactics to work for a federal suffrage amendment to the Constitution: picketing the White House, staging large suffrage marches and demonstrations, going to jail. Thousands of ordinary women took part in these -- a family legend is that my grandmother was one of a number of women who chained themselves to a courthouse door in Minneapolis during this period.

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrage1900/a/august_26_wed.htm

Saw brief film of a
"housewives on a bread strike parade" in '2O on tv last year.

anyone know what that was about?

i might have the words a bit wrong, but the meaning was that there was a food shortage or prices were too hi.

It was an HBO film. Here's a link that describes the movement: http://barbhowe.typepad.com/lucky/2005/07/iron_jawed_ange.html

Recommended for Greatest page. :)

Edith Galt Wilson, who was virtually running this country while he surreptitiously recovered from a stroke in the White House. She read all the briefings, signed proclamations and legislation, etc. No power was delegated to the Vice President. She did it all. So, she could run the country but she could not vote as per Wilson. Twisted pre-Freeper logic.

LOL

just kidding

odd word.

what is the origin?

Yet, the word"s etymology does not contain any suggestion that the word is to be applied to females only. In fact, our own constitution uses the term suffrage in a universal sense. Read on.

The word was suffragie in English before 1200, and it meant "prayers or pleas on behalf of another." By 1400 it was suffrage, influenced by French suffrage and middle Latin sufragium "support, vote, right of voting". The Latin word came from sufragari "lend support, vote for someone". This word can be broken into suf- "under, near" plus fragor "crash, din, shouts of approval". The English word acquired the Latin meaning "support, vote for" in the early to mid-16th century. The meaning it holds in the United States Constitution (1797) is the same as today"s meaning,"the right to vote". 

 http://www.takeourword.com/Issue002.html

Opposed by a well-organized and well-funded anti-suffrage movement which argued that most women really didn't want the vote, and they were probably not qualified to exercise it anyway, women also used humor as a tactic. In 1915, writer Alice Duer Miller wrote,

Why We Don't Want Men to Vote
? Because man's place is in the army.
? Because no really manly man wants to settle any question otherwise than by fighting about it.
? Because if men should adopt peaceable methods women will no longer look up to them.
? Because men will lose their charm if they step out of their natural sphere and interest themselves in other matters than feats of arms, uniforms, and drums.
? Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them unfit for government.


http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrage1900/a/august_26_wed.htm

What a long, long struggle for the most basic of democratic rights. It still astounds me that there are still Americans alive who were born when women still did not have the right to vote.

Here's to the memory of the suffragists! :toast:

SUFFERIN' TILL SUFFRAGE
Music: Bob Dorough
Lyrics: Tom Yohe
Sung by: Essra Mohawk

>> Yeah!... Hurray!

Now you have heard
Of women's rights
And how we've tried
To reach new heights
If we're all created equal,
That's us too.

>> Yeah!

But you will proba-
Bly not recall...
That it's not been
Too long at all,
Since we even had the right to
Cast a vote.

>> Well...

Well sure some men
Bowed down and called us misses, >> Yeah!
Let us hang the wash out,
And wash the dishes, >> Huh...
But when the time rolled around
To elect a president
What did they say, sisters?

>> What did they say?

They said, uh, see you later,
Alligator, and don't forget my, my...
My mashed potatoes,
Because I'm going downtown to
Cast my vote for president.

But we were sufferin',
Until suffrage, >> Whoah...
Not a woman here could vote
No matter what age.
Then the 19th Amendment
Struck down that restrictive rule.

>> Oh yeah!

Now we pull down
On the lever
Cast our ballots,
And we endeavor
To improve our country,
State, county, town and school.

>> Tell 'em bout it!

Those pilgrim women who
Who braved the boat
>> They cook, cook, cooked!
Could cook the turkey, but they,
They could not vote
Even Betsy Ross who sewed the flag
Was left behind that first election day.

>> What a shame, sisters!

Then Susan B.
Anthony >> Yeah!
and Julia Howe, >> Lucretia!
Lucretia March, >> And others!
They showed us how,
They carried signs
And marched in lines
Until at long last
The law was passed.

Oh we were sufferin',
Until suffrage,
Not a woman here could vote
No matter what age.
Then the 19th Amendment
Struck down that restrictive rule.

>> Oh yeah!

And now we pull down
On the lever
Cast our ballots,
And we endeavor
To improve our country,
State, county, town and school.

Yes the 19th Amendment
Struck down that restrictive rule.
Yes the 19th Amendment
Struck down that restrictive rule.

>> Yeah, yeah!

(We've got 'em now!)
Since 1920, Sisters Unite! Oh lord!

and how it seems there is so little concern for us establishing a government which oppresses women.