Link

http://www.societyforhistoryeducation.org/pdfs/M15_Miller.pdf

Archive link

https://web.archive.org/web/20210420082758/http://www.societyforhistoryeducation.org/pdfs/M15_Miller.pdf

An interesting article which offers up an oft-neglected view of the circumstances surrounding women's suffrage. I'd recommend reading the article aside from just my summary of what I view as the general gist of it as there are far more details in the actual article.

The author notes that men were actually more progressive than women on women's suffrage, and notes that opposition mainly came from other women. The anti-suffrage campaign was "primarily a movement of middle- and upper-class white women", and male antis sometimes joined the campaign at the request of women leaders.

"Women’s opposition [to female suffrage] was an embarrassing problem that plagued the suffrage movement from the Seneca Falls convention in 1848 to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920."

Male support "led the way in the earliest suffrage victories. When lawmakers made Wyoming women the first fully enfranchised women in the world in 1869, the only campaign had been two speeches by traveling women suffragists. Similarly, the second victory, in Utah Territory one year later, was apparently achieved without any campaign by women at all. Aware of the strength of male support, suffrage leaders carried out fifty-six campaigns to let men vote on the suffrage question, while they almost always opposed letting women vote on it."

A lone referendum for women only was held in Massachusetts in 1895, and only 4% of eligible women voted. Anti-suffragists had encouraged women to stay away from the polls, and the vast majority of them did. In fifty-seven towns, not a single woman voted for suffrage. Of those few votes that were actually cast, 96% were pro-suffrage. For many years afterward, suffrage leaders like Julia Ward Howe cited that 96% figure as a victory, but they never again asked for a referendum of women only.

Many suffragettes and suffragists like Susan B Anthony, Anna Howard Shaw, Ida Husted Harper, and Harriot Stanton Blatch opposed women voting on the suffrage question. Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of Godey’s Ladies Book and author of Mary Had a Little Lamb, wrote that “For one woman who desires there are fifty who disapprove.”

Many proposals were made that referendums should be held among women to determine if women should be allowed to vote, and suffragists had a habit of turning such proposals down. Minnie Bronson, an anti-suffragist, visited California in 1911, proposing that women themselves should be allowed to decide the suffrage question by vote. Rev. Lyman Abbott, editor of The Outlook, proposed a women-only vote on suffrage in 1913. Alice Hill Chittenden of New York proposed another referendum for women only in 1914. Suffragists objected against all these proposals, with some going as far as to concede that the referendums would fail, and others arguing that women were not able to see clearly on the issue and thus should not decide on it. I'd wager that latter argument would have been seen as rather misogynistic had anti-suffragists made it.

When Congressman Frank Clark of Florida proposed a national referendum for women in 1918, Carrie Chapman Catt objected that the idea was “unconstitutional” and “pointless.” So here we have the head of the suffragists arguing that women should not be allowed to vote on the topic of women's suffrage because it was unconstitutional. Amazing. Anti-suffragist Alice George of Massachusetts pointed out this inconsistency to Congress, saying that suffragists wanted “more votes, more democracy, [they want to] let the women vote on every other thing except on the question of whether or not they shall have the vote.”

"None of the fifteen history textbooks mentions these proposed referendums for women. The antis regularly offered to end their campaign if suffragists could show they had majority support among women; suffragists never seriously claimed to have such support."

The article also addresses why women opposed women's enfranchisement. A whole section is devoted towards explaining one of the reasons why. Antis frequently argued that women had significant power to influence lawmakers, and were concerned that they would lose that power if they entered partisan politics. They thought getting themselves involved with the immoral world of politics would diminish civic-minded women's ability to influence politicians via moral persuasion. Partisan politics was seen as a disreputable business, and many antis thought moral persuasion was easier and quicker. And since they were not affiliated with either political party - in fact, they were thought to be above partisan politics - all parties were willing to listen to them.

"In the era of Tammany Hall, men’s political activity involved deal-making, patronage, personal attacks, bribery, and corruption. Clubwomen and other women activists, as the antis pointed out, were in a separate class: because these respectable white women were working for the good of the community, their motives were never questioned. It was widely accepted that respectable married women occupied the moral high ground, while politicians occupied the moral low ground."

The General Federation of Women's Clubs in the late nineteenth century actually actively excluded any and all clubs that touched the topic of partisan politics. They wanted to present a non-partisan, non-political front, and their books and periodicals are filled with legislative victories from 1890 to 1920.

"Although lobbying by 1,700,000 organized clubwomen resulted in the passage of many new laws, there is a widespread misconception that women were powerless to influence lawmakers before they could vote. Anti-suffrage women never accepted this view, and as proof, they repeatedly argued that laws favoring women, such as those prohibiting night work and long hours for women factory workers, were better in non-suffrage states than in suffrage states. From 1908 to 1910, fifty-four laws to protect women workers were enacted in non-suffrage states, versus only one such law in suffrage states, according to Minnie Bronson ... Mrs. Arthur M. Dodge made similar points many times in The Woman’s Protest Against Woman Suffrage: she argued that women could get the best results from lawmakers by working with them for the common good, not by dividing along party lines. Even without voting, clubwomen around 1900 actively supported political candidates, lobbied for better laws, circulated petitions, and conducted educational campaigns on dozens of issues, but without connections to any political party. People understood the distinction between women having influence over lawmakers, as clubwomen did, and entering the male world of partisan politics, as suffragists advocated." As the author notes, it wasn’t some quaint notion of separate spheres that kept so many women away from the women’s rights movement, it was fear of losing the valuable influence they already possessed.

Antisuffragist Catharine Beecher thought it was a far more achievable goal to “first convinc[e] ... intelligent and benevolent women that what I aimed at was right and desirable, and then secur[e] ... their influence with their fathers, brothers, and husbands, and always with success”. Her experience with campaigning showed her that all reasonable men “are not only willing but anxious to provide for the good of our sex. They will gladly bestow all that is just, reasonable, and kind, whenever we unite in asking”.

The author also notes that political meetings and voting was often done in saloons and stables, and political affairs were “pervaded by a coarse and repulsive vulgarity”. This kept many respectable men from even voting, and entering politics was seen as a demerit to one's character. Election violence was also not uncommon. "For example, when Isabella Bird saw two dead bodies in New York and a roadway slippery with blood, she was told not to worry: it was “only an election riot” in which a few hundred people were killed. Violence at the polls was a regular occurrence in the late 1800s, and it is hard to imagine women being comfortable in such situations."

The author notes that textbooks on women's suffrage could be improved in a few ways, including but not limited to these points: "As a starting point, they should contain these three points: (1) that suffrage was never desired by a majority of women before 1920; (2) that more women were organized against suffrage than in favor of it until 1916; and (3) that for many years, men were on the whole more progressive on the issue than women were."

Edit: a typo