Rachel Harris
SC105-15
Dr. Williams
03/23/08
Title: 72 Years Late is Still Better Than Never
Purpose: To inform the audience about the passage of the 19th Amendment
Introduction:
I. In 1776 Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, founding father John Adams, warning him that “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation” (Monk, 2003).
II. Their sentiment is understandable; women played an integral part in the Revolutionary War, but were still treated as second class citizens.
III. This trend continued through the Civil War and even World War I, with no political representation for women, even though they were expected to sacrifice for the country.
IV. Black men gained the right to vote after gaining their freedom, but women were still not allowed to cast a ballot.
V. It took insightful women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to propose the ideas that would sweep into parlors across the nation, igniting the flame of women’s injustice into the fire of the Women’s Suffrage Movement.
VI. This movement would have many ups and downs over its seventy-two year journey.
VII. But in the end the women would see the result of all their struggles – the passage of the 19th Amendment.
VIII. (Thesis) The passage of the 19th Amendment was the conclusion of a difficult seventy-two year struggle.
(Transition/Preview): The long struggle to get the 19th Amendment passed began with the ideas and encouragement of a few tough women.
Body:
I. The fight for women’s right to vote was started with a few strong, inspiring women who banded together to unite all women.
A. Three women would emerge in the mid-1840s that would take up the torch for women – Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucy Stone.
B. These three women, who were unique by having at least nine years of education, would lead the path towards success in the suffrage movement.
C. Elizabeth Cady Stanton managed her time between her six children and the movement, beginning the movement with her monumental Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the famous Seneca Falls convention.
D. Susan B. Anthony gave up her teaching career to travel all over the country giving speeches on suffrage.
E. Lucy Stone was also a great contributor, using her college degree to promote not only the white woman’s right to vote, but also the African American woman’s right to vote.
F. It took a great deal of courage, determination, and intellect to start this enormous movement, but these three women took the challenge with grace, intellect and tact.
G. Olivia Coolidge (1966) sums up these three powerful women in her book Women’s Rights: The Suffrage Movement in America, 1848-1920.
a) She says that while none of these women lived to see the vote, “of those who have helped their fellow women in America, these three stand first” (29).
H. These were not the only leaders in the crusade, however.
I. Later leaders would include women like Alice Paul and Carrie Catt.
a) Alice Paul took a bold move in 1913 by organizing a suffrage parade in Washington the day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson.
b) Then Carrie Catt, known as “the general,” helped give the final push towards the 19th Amendment, with her strict and highly organized leadership style.
J. While these later women had an immense impact, the foundation necessary for success was laid by Stanton, Anthony, and Stone.
(Transition): The strong figures of Anthony, Stanton, and the rest of the leaders of the Women’s Suffrage Movement had many successes during the long period of the Movement, but also had their share of setbacks.
II. The fight for women’s right to vote was characterized by many high and low points.
A. The beginning of the suffrage movement was a success.
B. The Seneca Falls convention, held in Seneca Falls, NY on July 19th and 20th, 1848 was the first large gathering of women to discuss suffrage – or the right to vote.
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Declaration of Sentiments was introduced at the convention and voted favorably on.
- The end of the convention marked a change in women’s suffrage –women across America were talking openly about suffrage.
C. Things were looking up for the suffragists, at least until the start of the Civil War.
D. Suffrage leaders Stanton and Anthony had a decision to make – continue the fight for women or help the Union to abolish slavery.
E. After much debate it was decided that the right to vote would just have to wait.
F. Women took active roles in helping with the war effort, most assisting the Union side.
- They were nurses, scouts and spies for the army, and seamstresses making uniforms and sewing bandages.
G. At the conclusion of the war many of the suffragists, Susan B. Anthony included, felt ‘betrayed’ by the government.
- The 15th amendment had just been passed, giving black men the right to vote.
- Men who were not even considered human until the end of the war received the right to vote before women, and this was not something many of the women took well.
- This stuck in the mind of Anthony, and according to Frost in Women’s Suffrage, Anthony saw it as merely “male suffrage expanded” (169).
- It was over this idea that the suffrage movement experienced a split in leadership.
- Lucy Stone separated from Anthony and Stanton, a breach that would not be healed for two decades.
H. The two groups of women suffragists would lead separate, unsuccessful campaigns until 1890, when the three women reunited to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
- This reunion would strengthen the movement for its final third of the journey.
I. The last few years of the movement took a positive turn.
- Women began to form even tighter bands of support, and many went on strike all over the nation.
- One of the most well known strikes of this time is the Triangle Shirtwaist Company strike in New York in 1909.
- This Company would be heard about again when 146 women were locked in the factory and died in a fire in 1911, because they threatened to strike.
J. Women were speaking out, no matter what the cost.
K. Fortunately the rollercoaster ride for women’s suffrage was about to end.
(Transition): All of these high and low points of the fight for women’s rights finally reached their climax with a hot debate between legislators.
III. The fight for women’s right to vote finally concluded after one last struggle – this time within Congress.
A. The call for the amendment to be brought up in the House of Representatives was initially delayed because of America’s entrance into World War I.
B. Meanwhile, there was still much opposition within the House, until suffrage was granted in New York State.
C. This victory seemed to spark a shift in opinion, and by November of 1917 the House of Representatives began debate on the bill (Coolidge, 1966; 144).
a) This debate continued for two months until January 10, 1918, the amendment passed with just two more votes than the two-thirds needed, according to Coolidge in Women’s Rights (148).
D. The suffragists then moved on to await the amendment’s fate in the U.S. Senate.
E. Carrie Catt pleaded with senators to bring the amendment to the table, but the Senators were too distracted with the war.
F. After a brutal flu outbreak in 1918, many of the anti-suffrage senators died and were replaced by those more sympathetic to the cause (Coolidge, 150).
G. So in September of 1918 the bill went in front of the Senate but was defeated narrowly, meaning it would be up to a new Congress to pass the amendment.
H. At President Wilson’s urging, the new Congress reintroduced the amendment in May of 1919.
a) It passed both the House and Senate rapidly, seventy-one years since the original suffrage movement began.
I. Now the women had finished half of the journey, still having to face the states.
J. The women needed thirty-six states to ratify the 19th Amendment for it to become law.
a) This proved to be a challenge, with Tennessee being the last and toughest to convince.
K. However, the women finally won their seventy-two year battle on August 26, 1920, when the Secretary of State signed the 19th Amendment into law after the Tennessee legislature ratified it.
L. The women had achieved their voting rights after so much hard work.
M. Finally, they saw in print the guarantee that “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” (Monk, 2003; 238).
N. Those were the sweetest of words to suffragists’ ears, success at last.
(Transition): The long fight these strong women faced to have equal representation was rewarded with the passage of the 19th amendment, a piece of legislation that has relevance even today.
Conclusion:
I. It is just a little over seven months until the presidential election, and the candidates are in full campaign mode for the nomination.
II. But this time around the effects of the 19th Amendment can be clearly seen – there is a woman with a real chance of obtaining the nomination for her party’s ticket, and thus a chance at becoming president.
III. Whether a person agrees with Hillary Clinton or not, she exemplifies the benefits of the struggles that began so long ago.
IV. Not only can women in America vote, they can hold office and even have the chance to run for leader of the nation.
V. One might even say that Barack Obama epitomizes these benefits, for he is the first African American to have a real shot at the presidency.
- African American rights were just as important to many of the suffragists as the women’s right to vote.
VI. None of this could have been possible without women like Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the rest of the suffrage leaders who led the charge for all women.
VII. Their fight for the simple right to vote took many years and they had many obstacles to overcome, but the end result has been to enrich America by allowing women to be heard and also allowing women’s voices to be equal to the men.
VIII. Perhaps Elizabeth Cady Stanton captured this sentiment best when she said, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men and women are created equal” (Stanton, 1848).
Bibliography (formatted with APA style)
Coolidge, O., (1966). Women’s Rights: The Suffrage Movement in America, 1848-1920. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co, Inc.
Frost-Knappman, E. & Cullen-DuPont, K., (1992). Women's suffrage in America: an eyewitness history. New York: Facts on File.
Monk, L. R., (2003). The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution. New York: Stonesong Press.
Stanton, E.C., (1848). Declaration of Sentiments. Women’s Rights National Historical Park. Retrieved March 25, 2008 from: http://www.nps.gov/archive/wori/declaration.htm
This website is valid because it is a government run website connected to the national historical archives.
Young, L. M. (1976). Women's Place in American Politics: The Historical Perspective. The Journal of Politics, 38(3), 295-335. Retrieved March 2, 2008, from http://links.jstor.org/