Alice Paul and the American Suffrage Campaign

Katherine H. Adams and Michael L. Keene’s book Alice Paul and the American Suffrage Campaign tells the story of the rhetorical and activist strategies Alice Paul pioneered during the fight for suffrage.

About this book:

Past biographies, histories, and government documents have ignored Alice Paul’s contribution to the women’s suffrage movement, but this groundbreaking study scrupulously fills the gap in the historical record. Masterfully framed by an analysis of Paul’s nonviolent and visual rhetorical strategies, Alice Paul and the American Suffrage Campaign narrates the remarkable story of the first person to picket the White House, the first to attempt a national political boycott, the first to burn the president in effigy, and the first to lead a successful campaign of nonviolence.

Katherine H. Adams and Michael L. Keene also chronicle other dramatic techniques that Paul deftly used to gain publicity for the suffrage movement. Stunningly woven into the narrative are accounts of many instances in which women were in physical danger. Rather than avoid discussion of Paul’s imprisonment, hunger strikes, and forced feeding, the authors divulge the strategies she employed in her campaign. Paul’s controversial approach, the authors assert, was essential in changing American attitudes toward suffrage.

Of particular interest to readers of this website may be chapter three, which chronicles Paul’s 1913 founding of Suffragist, a journal with striking political cartoons that advocated for the passage of a federal amendment to grant women voting rights. It was published originally with the backing of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), though after Paul split from the association over strategic differences, the paper was published with the backing of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, and later, the National Woman’s Party, with which the Union eventually merged.

The fourth chapter details the parades for suffrage that Paul organized, with a focus on their symbolism and how they looked to the crowds watching them. The chapter also goes into the newspaper coverage of Paul’s suffrage parades and protests, with a focus on the famous 1913 parade in Washington, DC.

You can purchase the book from the publisher, or read it on JStor or at a library near you. You can also read excerpts on Google Books.

For more about Alice Paul, see this website’s entry on the film Iron Jawed Angels. 

The Perfect 36: Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage

The Perfect 36: Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage by Carol Lynn Yellin and Janann Sherman is “the most complete account of Tennessee’s pivotal role in the passage of the 19th Amendment.”

About the book:

Yellin and Sherman bring to life the struggle of suffragists to earn women the right to vote which culminated with the final vote needed for ratification in the Tennessee legislature. The Perfect 36 gives voice to those who were for and against the right of women to vote with a richly illustrated volume. The authors provide a great deal of writings of those who were involved in this important movement along with pictures and cartoons to give a vivid sense of what it was like to win enfranchisement.

A limited preview is available from Google Books. You can buy the book through the publisher’s website (Vote 70 Press).

There is also a companion DVD, Generations: American Women Win the Vote, a 12.5-minute film covering 72 years of history, available for purchase on the Perfect 36 website.

ISBN: 978-0-9742456-5-2

Film: “Generations: American Women Win the Vote”

Generations: American Women Win the Vote (produced by Paula Casey) is the companion DVD to Carol Lynn Yellin and Janann Sherman’s book The Perfect 36: Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage. The film covers 72 years of history in just under 13 minutes.

About the film:

For 72 years, from 1848-1920, generations of women—from every state and every party, of every race and every religion—fought for the right to vote. The 19th Amendment was introduced in Congress 42 years before the House and Senate could muster the 2/3 majority to pass it. And that vote was just the beginning of another round of state battles—the final battle for ratification.

This 12-1/2 minute DVD, covering 72 years of suffrage history, describes the struggle the suffragists faced. Would women gain the right to vote before the 1920 presidential election? Which state would be the “perfect 36” to ratify and make the 19th Amendment law? The answer came when Tennessee, the last state that could possibly ratify, convened in special session on Aug. 9, 1920. This final battle to include women in the U.S. Constitution was especially fierce. Suffrage supporters wore the yellow rose while the “antis” countered with red roses. On August 18, the day of the final House vote, 24-year-old Harry Burn, the youngest member of the Tennessee General Assembly, acted on the advice of his mother, and cast the deciding vote granting all American women the right to vote.

You can buy the film and the book through the Perfect 36 website. A preview and the option to buy the film for streaming are available through the Films Media Group website. You can read an excerpt of The Perfect 36 here.

Seeing Suffrage: The 1913 Washington Suffrage Parade, Its Pictures, and Its Effects on the American Political Landscape

Seeing Suffrage chronicles the 1913 Suffrage Parade in Washington, DC, focusing on photographs from the parade.

On March 3, 1913, the day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration, leaders of the American suffrage movement organized an enormous march through the capital that served as an important salvo on the long road to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Coinciding with the widespread rise of photography in daily newspapers and significant shifts in journalism, the parade energized a movement that had been in the doldrums for nearly two decades. In Seeing Suffrage, James G. Stovall combines a detailed account of the parade with more than 130 photographs to provide a stunning visual chronicle of one of the most pivotal moments in the struggle for women’s rights.

You can purchase a copy of the book from its publisher’s website.

For more on the parade, see The Atlantic‘s Pictures of the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade, this academic article examining suffrage parades from 1910-1913, as well as this New York Tribune essay explaining why suffragists were parading, penned by Harriet Stanton Blatch (daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton).

ISBN: 978-1-57233-940-8

19th Century Suffrage Periodicals: Conceptions of Womanhood and the Press

In the fourth chapter of the book Ruthless Criticism: New Perspectives in U.S. Communication History, journalism scholar Linda Steiner delves into the history of 19th century women-run suffrage periodicals and how they provided an arena for collective action and the forging of new identities. Many men-run publications dismissed suffrage, or scarcely covered it, so prominent activists created their own publications.

The periodicals she covers wanted to change the image of women as meek subjects to people entitled to status and honor, which the right to vote represented.

Steiner details how suffrage periodicals were not concerned with the conventions of modern-day journalism. They were non-hierarchal, unconcerned with objectivity and did not separate their publishing and business departments.

Steiner focuses on seven different publications in her chapter: the Lily (1849-1856); the Una (1853-1855); Revolution (1868-1870); the Woman’s Journal (1870-1931); the New Northwest (1871-1887); the National Citizen and Ballot Box (1876-1881); and the Woman’s Tribune (1883-1909).

For more information on how periodicals covered suffrage, see the book Women’s Periodicals in the United States: Social and Political Issues;  Tracy Kulba and Victoria Lamont’s article “The Periodical Press and Western Woman’s Suffrage Movements in Canada and the United States: A Comparative Study“;  the book A Voice of Their Own: The Woman Suffrage Press, 1840-1910; Linda Steiner’s “Finding Community in Nineteenth Century Suffrage Periodicals“; “A New Generation,” in Women of the Washington Press: Politics, Prejudice; and Persistence; and Women and The Press: The Struggle for Equality.

Google Books has most of Steiner’s chapter for free. You can buy the book on Amazon here, or directly from the publisher here. The book is available in many libraries. Check WorldCat to see if a library near you has it.

ISBN 978-0-8166-2170-5.

 

 

Women’s Periodicals in the United States: Social and Political Issues 

Women’s Periodicals in the United States: Social and Political Issues is a collection of alphabetical entries written by different scholars on various women’s publications that existed in the 19th and 20th centuries. For each periodical that it covers, this book provides history and background information, circulation numbers, and a bibliography that points readers to more information about it. Periodicals in the United States shows the diversity of women’s voices on the political and social issues of the day.

The topics that the chosen periodicals covered vary, but a number of entries deal with suffrage.

Linda Steiner wrote the entry on the newspaperThe New Northwest, started by Abigail Scott Duniway, an Oregon suffragist.

Sherilyn Cox Bennion explores the publications The Pioneer and The Queen Bee, both of which were pro-suffrage publications in the western United States.

Agnes Hooper Gottilieb wrote on the National Women’s Suffrage Association-linked periodical The Revolution.

Therese L. Lueck, a co-editor of the book, authored the entry on Woman’s Journal, a publication of the American Woman Suffrage Association.

The book also covers two periodicals that opposed suffrage: Lueck wrote the entry on The Anti-Suffragist, created by the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage; and Elizabeth Burt wrote about The Remonstrance, a big voice in the anti-suffrage movement. Excerpts of book’s entry onThe Remonstrance can be found here.

For more information on how periodicals covered suffrage, see Tracy Kulba and Victoria Lamont’s article “The Periodical Press and Western Woman’s Suffrage Movements in Canada and the United States: A Comparative Study“;  the book A Voice of Their Own: The Woman Suffrage Press, 1840-1910; Linda Steiner’s “Finding Community in Nineteenth Century Suffrage Periodicals“; “A New Generation,” in Women of the Washington Press: Politics, Prejudice; and Persistence; and Women and The Press: The Struggle for Equality.

You can find excerpts of Women’s Periodicals in the United States on Google Books and Questia, and you can purchase the book on Amazon.

ISBN-13: 978-0313286322
ISBN-10: 0313286329

 

Women’s Suffrage Prison Narratives

Prison Narratives from Boethius to Zana examines selected works of writers, from the 6th century to the 21st, imprisoned for their beliefs. The book’s seventh chapter, “‘From Prison to People’: How Women Jailed for Suffrage Inscribed Their Prison Experience on the American Public,” focuses on Alice Paul and members of the National Woman’s Party (NWP) who were jailed for picketing for suffrage in Washington, DC.

Since most of the NWP suffragists who were “jailed for freedom”—to use member Doris Steven’s term—were denied personal items like pens and paper, they did not leave behind a large body of jailhouse writings. However, if we expand our definition of “prison writing” to include other forms of visual and verbal rhetoric designed to inscribe their experience upon public consciousness, a great deal of material is available, including picket messages, The Suffragist magazine, and the “Prison Special” speaking tour. The chapter examines these efforts in light of Paul’s approach to non-violent “militancy” and rhetorical strategies such as “political mimesis.”

A free excerpt is available through Google Books, where you can also purchase access to the full work. You can purchase a physical copy of the book through the publisher’s website.

ISBN: 978-1-349-49153-7

Suffrage and the Silver Screen

Suffrage and the Silver Screen explores how suffragists used the new medium of film to advance their cause.

About the book:

In the 1910s, the American woman suffrage movement became a modern mass movement by using visual culture to transform consciousness and gain adherents. As part of this transformation, suffrage organizations produced several films and related cinematic projects, including four full-length, nationally distributed feature productions. This activist use was one of the first instances in the United States that a social movement recognized and harnessed the power of cinema to transform consciousness and, in turn, the social order. Suffrage and the Silver Screen discusses how the suffrage movement accomplished this formidable goal through analysis of the local and national uses of cinema by the movement. Amy Shore argues that these works must be considered as part of a political filmmaking tradition among feminists. The book contextualizes the films within the politics and practices of the suffrage organizations that produced them in order to understand and assess the strategic role of these films. By examining these works, the history of both suffrage and cinema is necessarily reconsidered and expanded. Suffrage and the Silver Screen is an essential resource for those studying early cinema, women and cinema, the woman suffrage movement, and the use of visual media in social movements.

You can buy an e-book version through the publisher’s website.

Kay Sloan’s documentary Suffragettes in the Silent Cinema may also be of interest to readers curious about this subject.

ISBN-13: 9781454192404

ISBN-10: 1433117819

Gilded Suffragists: The New York Socialites who Fought for Women’s Right to Vote

In the early twentieth century over two hundred of New York’s most glamorous socialites joined the suffrage movement. Their names—Astor, Belmont, Rockefeller, Tiffany, Vanderbilt, Whitney and the like—carried enormous public value. These women were the media darlings of their day because of the extravagance of their costume balls and the opulence of the French couture clothes, and they leveraged their social celebrity for political power, turning women’s right to vote into a fashionable cause.
Although they were dismissed by critics as bored socialites “trying on suffrage as they might the latest couture designs from Paris,” these gilded suffragists were at the epicenter of the great reforms known collectively as the Progressive Era.  From championing education for women, to pursuing careers, and advocating for the end of marriage, these women were engaged with the swirl of change that swept through the streets of New York City.
Johanna Neuman restores these women to their rightful place in the story of women’s suffrage.  Understanding the need for popular approval for any social change, these socialites used their wealth, power, social connections and style to excite mainstream interest and to diffuse resistance to the cause.  In the end, as Neuman says, when change was in the air, these women helped push women’s suffrage over the finish line.

Reviews of the book:

Setting the record straight on the driving forces in the early-20th-century fight for women’s suffrage . . . Neuman counters the popular opinion that these women were merely “bored socialites trying on suffrage as they might the latest couture designs from Paris,” and she makes a solid case . . . Neuman concisely explains how these gilded women have been airbrushed out of history, resented by those who felt exploited, but thankfully, they succeeded, and women vote today because of them. —Kirkus Reviews

 

Gilded Suffragists can be purchased from its publisher’s website.

ISBN: 9781479837069

Humanities New York Resource Guide: NYS Women’s Suffrage Centennial

This 31-page document (click the button below to download it as a PDF) contains myriad useful resources for those interested in teaching—or learning—about the 100th anniversary of women getting the vote in New York State. It may also be of use to those already familiar with the topic, as it offers an admirably condensed overview of the various events that both public and private organizations will be staging over the course of 2017 in celebration of the centennial (see the document’s “Centennial Calendars of Events” section starting on p. 6).

The guide’s Educator Resources section contains a range of teaching materials, variously aimed at elementary school, junior high, high school, and even undergraduate students. These include:

The guide also contains a wealth of resources in addition to those meant just for teachers, including lists of books and films pertaining to suffrage and women’s rights, conversation starters, tips on how to host a speaker or a traveling exhibition, and research support. 

From the guide, a description of the organization that put the project together:

Humanities New York is bringing the people, places and ideas of the women’s suffrage movement to life. As of May 2017, Humanities New York has invested over $344K in Centennial-themed activities that explore the diversity of individuals and ideas that contributed to this grassroots movement. In particular, Humanities New York has supported projects that connect contemporary concerns (civil rights, gender diversity, equality, and civic engagement) to the history of women’s suffrage.