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Cover of American Feminism Key Source Documents 1848–1920

American Feminism: Key Source Documents 1848–1920

Edited by Janet Beer; Anne-Marie Ford; Katherine Joslin

  • Published: 11 Nov 2004
  • DOI: 10.4324/9780415219457
  • Set ISBN: 9780415219457

Set Contents

Suffrage


‘Why should not woman seek to be a reformer?’ asks Lucretia Mott in her 1849 address, ‘Discourse on Woman.’ This volume contains a selection of documents which demonstrate women fulfilling that reforming ambition, from the ‘Declaration of Sentiments’ made by Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, to Carrie Chapman Catt’s address to the Legislatures of the United States in 1919, the year before the ratification of the federal woman suffrage amendment. Among the women who made the dramatic call for the first Convention to take place were Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Mary Ann McClintock as well as Elizabeth Cady Stanton. At Seneca Falls, New York, on 19 and 20 July 1848, three hundred men and women gathered in the Wesleyan Chapel where they heard a variety of speeches, discussed the Declaration of Sentiments and heard Mrs. Stanton read it aloud. The text, reproduced in this volume, was the first of many entries into the public arena for the members of the suffrage movement, a substantial number of whom are represented here. As Carrie Chapman Catt summed it up: ‘To get the word “male” in effect out of the Constitution cost the women of the country fifty-two years of pauseless campaign … During that time they were forced to conduct fifty-six campaigns of referenda to male voters; 480 campaigns to get Legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters; 47 campaigns to get State constitutional conventions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions; 277 campaigns to get State party conventions to adopt woman suffrage planks; 30 campaigns to get presidential party conventions to adopt woman suffrage planks in party platforms, and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses.’

Volume Contents

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    Front Matter
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    Introduction: The Woman Suffrage Movement in America – 1848–1920 By Janet Beer
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    1
    ‘The First Convention: Seneca Falls, including the Declaration of Sentiments’ 1848
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    2
    ‘Discourse on Woman,’ Philadelphia, T.B. Peterson, 1850 By Lucretia Mott
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    3
    ‘Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Woman’s Rights Conventions at Worcester’ (1850) and Syracuse (1852), Woman’s Rights Tracts, Syracuse, Masters’ Print, Malcolm Block, 1852 By Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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    4
    ‘Matilda Gage to Woman’s Rights Conventions at Syracuse,’ Woman’s Rights Tracts, Syracuse: Masters’ Print, Malcolm Block, 18523 By Matilda Gage
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    5
    ‘A Sermon of the Public Function of Women,’ Woman’s Rights Tracts, Syracuse: Master’s Print, Malcolm Block, 1853 By Theodore Parkee
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    6
    ‘The Colored People in America,’ from The Colored People in America: Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects, Philadelphia, 1857 By Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
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    7
    Sojourner Truth, Address to the American Equal Rights Association, 1867 By Sojourner Truth
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    8
    ‘Women are Voters! New York Suffrage Law,’ New York: John W. Lovell Co., 1885 By Hamilton Wilcox
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    9
    ‘Woman Suffrage in Utah’, Washington, Government Print Office, 1886: In the Senate of the United States By Angelina French Newman
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    10
    Woman Suffrage Speech to the Senate, 1886 By Henry Blair
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    11
    ‘The Ballot and the Bullet Theory’ The Woman’s Tribune, Editor, 1883–86 By Clara Benwick Colby
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    12
    ‘Unsolved Problems in Woman Suffrage,’ reprinted from The Forum, New York: Forum Publishing Company, 1887 By Thomas Wentworth Higginson
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    13
    ‘The Women’s Vote in Kansas,’ Boston, American Woman Suffrage Association, 1888 By F.G. Adams
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    14
    ‘Woman’s Suffrage a Political Necessity,’ abstract of address before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, January 28, 1889 By Olympia Brown
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    15
    ‘Questions for Remonstrants,’ Boston, American Woman Suffrage Association, 1889 By Lucy Stone
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    16
    ‘Three Dreams in a Desert,’ Boston, American Woman Suffrage Association, 1889 By Olive Schreiner
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    17
    ‘The Elective Franchise,’ Boston, American Woman Suffrage Association, 1889
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    18
    ‘Municipal Suffrage for Women,’ Boston, American Woman Suffrage Association, 1889 By Ednah D. Oheney
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    19
    ‘Straight Lines or Oblique Lines?’ Boston, American Woman Suffrage Association, 1893 By Thomas Wentworth Higginson
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    20
    ‘Objections to Woman Suffrage Answered,’ Boston, American Woman Suffrage Association, 1896 By Henry Blackwell
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    21
    ‘Colorado Speaks for Herself,’ Boston, American Woman Suffrage Association, 1897 By Katherine A.G. Patterson; Helen G. Ecob
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    ‘How the Women of New Orleans Discovered their Wish to Vote,’ New York, Political Science Study Series, Vol. V, No. 4, 1900 By Carrie Chapman Catt; Florence Kelley; Evelyn W. Ordway
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    23
    ‘What is the Real Emancipation of Woman?’ Boston, Woman Suffrage Association, 1902 By William M. Salter
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    24
    ‘Arguments in Favour of Woman Suffrage,’ Boston, Committee of the College Equal Suffrage Law, 1905 By Marion McB. Schlesinger; Mary A.E.M. Buckminster; Mary Leavens
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    25
    ‘Suffrage a Right,’ 1906, New York, North American Review Publishing Co., 1906 By Ida Husted Harper
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    26
    ‘History of the Movement for Woman Suffrage,’ 1907, New York, Interurban Woman Suffrage Council, 1907 By Ida Husted Harper
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    27
    ‘New Fashioned Argument for Woman Suffrage,’ New York, National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1908 By Martha Carey Thomas
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    28
    ‘Woman and the Suffrage,’ The Outlook 1909 By Julia Ward Howe
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    29
    ‘Woman’s Suffrage and Sentiment,’ New York, The Equal Franchise Society, 1909 By Max Eastman
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    30
    ‘What Women Might Do with the Ballot,’ New York, National American Woman Suffrage Association, circa 1910 By Lucia Ames Mead
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    31
    ‘Six Reasons Why Farmers’ Wives Should Vote,’ New York, National American Woman Suffrage Publishing Co., Inc., circa 1910 By Amelia MacDonald Cutler
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    ‘The Truth versus Richard Barry,’ New York, National American Woman Suffrage Association, circa 1911
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    ‘Equal Suffrage Meeting,’ Cambridge, Frank Facey, 1911
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    ‘Women in the Home,’ San Francisco, California Equal Suffrage Association, circa 1911
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    35
    ‘How Six States Won Woman Suffrage,’ New York, National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1912 By Ida Husted Harper
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    ‘Speech on Suffrage,’ New York, Allied Printing, 1912 By Theodore Roosevelt
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    ‘The Ballot for the Women of the Farm,’ Chicago, 1913 By Ella S. Stewart
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    38
    Official Program, Woman Suffrage Procession, 1913
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    ‘What Have Women Done with the Vote?’ New York, National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company, 1915 By George Creel
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    40
    ‘Jane Addams Testifies,’ Boston, Woman’s Journal, 1915 By Alice Stone Blackwell
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    ‘Woman Suffrage,’ 1915 By Alice Stone Blackwell
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    42
    ‘Are Women a Force for Good Government?’ Chicago, National Municipal Review, Vol. IV, No.3 July 1915 By Edith Abbott
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    43
    ‘Why Women Demand a Federal Suffrage Amendment,’ Washington, Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, 1916 By Mary Beard; Florence Kelley
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    ‘The Negro Votes in the South,’ New York, National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company, 1918 By Mrs Guilford Dudley
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    45
    ‘An Address to the Legislatures of the United States,’ New York, National Woman Suffrage Publishing Co., 1919 By Carrie Chapman Catt