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Women's Suffrage in the U.S. Special Collections Resources

Guide to resources related to the American women's suffrage movement found in Smith College Special Collections. Written by Bella Yaguda '22, Digitization Student Assistant.

Overview

The women’s suffrage movement was a decades-long fight to win the right to vote for women in the United States. It took activists and reformers nearly 100 years to win that right, and the campaign was not easy. In July 1848, the first calls for women’s suffrage were made at a convention in Seneca Falls, New York. The Seneca Falls Convention, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, kicked off more than seventy years of organizing, parading, fundraising, advertising, and petitioning.

Cartoon of a woman holding a tattered VOTES FOR WOMEN flag, 1915. On the right there's text that reads "She has just begun to fight!"Political cartoons by Blanche Ames Ames and others, 1914-15. Ames Family papers, Sophia Smith Collection, SSC-MS-00003, Box 94.

During the Civil War, women's suffrage and the abolition movement were closely connected. Activists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth lectured and petitioned the government for the emancipation of slaves with the belief that, once the war was over, women and slaves alike would be granted the same rights as white men. However, at the end of the war, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were ratified, fracturing the movement. The 1868 ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment defined "citizenship" and "voters" as "male," and raised the question of whether women were considered citizens of the United States at all. The exclusion of women was further reinforced with the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870, which enfranchised Black men.

 

 

In a disagreement over these Amendments, the women's suffrage movement split into two factions. In New York, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony established the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), which promoted universal suffrage and opposed the Fifteenth Amendment. Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and Henry Blackwell organized the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) in Boston, which supported

A pro-suffrage cartoon depicting Uncle Sam crossing his arms at two suffragists. The text reads: A GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE BY THE PEOPLE FOR THE PEOPLE. ARE NOT THE WOMEN HALF THE NATION?Undated A-Z, untitled suffrage cartoons. Carrie Chapman Catt papers, Sophia Smith Collection, SSC-MS-00031, Box 4.

the Fifteenth Amendment and had Black and white members. Many Black women worked for women’s suffrage and leading reformers established the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs (NACWC) and campaigned in favor of women’s suffrage and improved education. The NWSA and AWSA merged in 1890 to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) under the leadership of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and later Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt. 

 

Alice Paul, one of NAWSA’s members, believed the organization was too moderate and too focused on state-level legislature in its approach. She founded the National Women's Party (NWP) in 1916 with the goal of passing a national suffrage amendment. In 1917, over 2,000 NWP members, also sometimes referred to as the Silent Sentinels, protested at the White House during Woodrow Wilson's presidency, in support of a national amendment. The pickets resulted in over 200 members being arrested. In response to public outcry about the prison abuse of suffragists, President Woodrow Wilson reversed his position and publicly supported a suffrage amendment. 

Finally, after a strenuous series of votes in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures, the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S.

Inez Milholland on a white horse in suffrage parade, Washington, D.C., 1913.Inez Milholland in suffrage parade, Washington, D.C., 1913. Young, Rose: clippings and photographs, 1947, Suffrage Collection, Sophia Smith Collection, SSC-MS-00447, Box: 9, Folder: 8.

Constitution on August 18, 1920. The amendment enfranchised white American women and declared that they deserve all the rights of citizenship alongside white men. However, the 19th Amendment did not eliminate the state laws that kept American women of color (and men of color) from the polls via poll taxes and literacy tests, nor did the 19th Amendment address violence or lynching. It wasn't until 1952, with the ratification of the McCarran-Walter Act, that Asian Americans were given the right to become citizens and vote. Further, it wasn't for another thirteen years until Black Americans and Indigenous Americans were enfranchised when the Voting Rights Act was signed into law on August 6, 1965.

 

The fight for voting rights continues. Even today, citizens living in the U.S. territories cannot vote for U.S. President. State-level voter suppression laws are being passed across the nation which make it harder for Americans—particularly black people, the elderly, students, and people with disabilities—to exercise their fundamental right to cast a ballot. See below for more online resources to continue learning about the history of women's suffrage, and America's continuing battle for human rights. 

 

Bibliography
Image Sources

Online Resources