The Struggle for Women’s suffrage in the United States of America was a long and difficult process. Enfranchisement of Women is in the hands of the government since it is their task to lay down the qualifications to be followed which may include citizenship, age, residence or gender. The Government which was supposed to advance public good has discriminated women of their right for suffrage based on gender since suffrage is seen as right only exclusive for men (Nebres, 2007). The main apparatus for winning the struggle to amend the Constitution to admit women to full citizenship was a powerful social movement that dared to challenge the status quo, used unconventional tactics to get attention and sympathy and demanded bravery and commitment from men and women. Women Social Movements are defined asmovement for social, cultural, political and economic equality of men and women. It is a campaign against gender inequalities and it strives for equal rights for women (Kali, 2010).
In 1890, an independent woman suffrage movement had become known in the United States. The suffrage movement on the national level divided into two rival wings, the National Women Suffrage Association (NWSA) and American Women Suffrage Association (AWSA). It was essentially over whether to work on a state basis or the federal level for Women Suffrage. In 1890, the rival wings were brought back together as the National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA) (Ware, 1989, p. 132).
The Goals of NAWSA as a women social movement was very strictly stuck to the sole demand of the vote. It didn’t take account of early demands by feminists such as Stanton for divorce and women’s economic emancipation. Moreover, increasingly suffragists argued for the vote not as a challenge to conventional notions about women’s proper sphere, but as an extension of that sphere. (Ware, 1989, p. 132). Woman Suffragists believe that politics is a part of their sphere and the right to suffrage must not be excluded from them.
The State as a structure has played a significant role in shaping the rise and latency of the NAWSA. Through its policy changes, it has made an impact on the success and decline of the women suffrage movement. Moreover, it has also been a major factor to the development of tactics employed by the movement over time. This will be the heart of this paper, the Role of the State as Structure in the Rise and Latency of the Movement and its impacts to the movement’s tactical development.
In colonial America, most positions of power outside the family were available only to property-owning men. While the American Revolution led to a broader idea of citizen participation, female taxpayers still voted in only some areas, and early women reformers did not focus on expanding the right to vote to all women citizens. Indeed, at the first women’s rights convention, held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, Elizabeth Cady Stanton shocked her colleagues when she asked the assembly to vote on a resolution demanding suffrage for women (American History, February).
Women’s rights activity was not at the moment dynamic during the Civil War. In the North, women gave attention on propagandizing and petitioning for the abolition of slavery. These women anticipated equality for blacks and women after the war. However, what these women expected did not come about. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were introduced in Congress in 1866 and restricted protection of the right to vote to male citizens.
The passage of the 14th and 15th Amendment to the US Constitution revealed discrimination against women. Despite the democratic atmosphere that existed straight away after the Revolutionary War, many states allowed free blacks to vote. Many feminists were bitterly disappointed that the amendment did not extend the vote to women. They were so angered that the Constitution was being amended in a way that, in effect, made gender a qualification for voting since the word ‘male’ has now written in the constitution (Robert, Breen, Fredrickson, & Williams, 1999). This entails more time and effort for Women Suffragists to attain officially its right to vote.
The 14th and 15th Amendment to the US Constitution has also caused the Women’s Movement to be fragmented, the abolitionist movement and the women’s movement split. The White Abolitionists consisted of northern businessmen and intellectuals wanted an end to slavery so that northern business could expand and they were not concerned with the Social and Economic Quality for the freed slaves. They opposed women’s suffrage because it might disturb the status quo and they could see no gain from women’s votes. Northern politicians wanted the Black vote because they believed it would guarantee Republican Victories in the South and facilitate their domination in national politics (Deckard, 1975, p. 262).
The splitting up did not only took place between the Abolitionist Movement and the Women’s Movement. In 1869, two woman suffrage organizations were established as a result of conflicting stands on the Fifteenth Amendment and dissimilar ideas about how to best advance women suffrage. The National Women Suffrage Association (NWSA) headed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Anthony opposed the Fifteenth Amendment, but called for a 16th Amendment that would enfranchise women through federal action and adopted a more radical tone in promoting a variety of feminist reforms in its short-lived journal, The Revolution. The other organization is the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) which was led by Lucy Stone. Unlike NWSA, it supported the ratification of the 15th Amendment while working for woman suffrage as well. AWSA members promoted state suffrage amendments and various forms of partial suffrage legislation, including bills giving women the right to vote on school or municipal issues or in presidential elections; they believed that these measures were desirable in themselves and a means to the eventual end – full suffrage for all American Women (Wheeler, 1995, p. 10).
However, these two woman suffrage organizations coalesced in the later years and it was considered to be one of the most important turning points in the history of the woman suffrage movement. In 1890, the two national suffrage organizations reunited in one major organization, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). While continuing to demand a federal amendment, NAWSA leaders concluded that they must first build support within the states, winning enough state suffrage amendments that Congress would approve a federal amendment and three-fourths of the states would surely ratify (Wheeler, 1995, p. 12).
The 1890s did see women suffrage prevail in four states. Wyoming and Utah, which had enfranchised women while still territories, were admitted to the Union. In 1893 Colorado granted votes to women, and in 1896 Idaho followed suit (O’Neill, 1969, p. 71). As you can observe, these states which first enfranchised women are Western States. It is for a reason that the women’s movement was confined to the North and the West. Besides, no women spoke for women’s rights in the South before the Civil War.
From the late 1880s to around 1910, in a period historians once described as “the doldrums” of the woman suffrage movement, the NAWSA went through a major period of rebuilding – in regard to membership as well as image (Wheeler, 1995, p. 14). The generation whose ideas were based on the reformism of the pre-civil war era and especially, the great anti-slavery movement, faded in the 1890s. Mrs. Stanton resigned her presidency of the National American Women Suffrage Association in 1892. Lucy Stone died in 1893. Susan Anthony, who had succeeded the presidency, resigned it in 1900. They were replaced by women of a different stamp (O’Neill, 1969, p. 72).
The suffrage movement profited greatly from the new ideas and energy of younger leaders such as Maud Wood Park and Inez Haynes Irwin who formed the College Equal Suffrage League and Mary Hutcheson Page of Massachusetts and Harriot Stanton Blatch of New York. These women reinvigorated the suffrage movements in their states by introducing new tactics borrowed from English suffragists or working class political activists including open-air meetings and parades. The NAWSA also expanded its educational efforts, distributing literature to schools and libraries, sponsoring debates, disseminating a new and less radical image of their movement’s own history in which Anthony was virtually canonized (Wheeler, 1995, p. 14).
As late as 1910, the woman suffrage movement had won the vote in still only four states, but the tide was turning. New leadership, notably the NAWSA Presidency of Carrie Chapman Catt from 1915-1920, revitalized the movement with the use of attention grabbing tactics, such as suffrage parades and open-air meetings. Militant tactics, such as picketing the White House and conducting hunger strikes for the cause also won support (Ware, 1989, p. 133).
Catt insisted that further state work was vital, but made it clear that the federal amendment was still the ultimate goal. Her plan called for suffragists in states that had not adopted woman suffrage – and where a victory seemed possible – to launch campaigns at once. In states where defeat was likely, she insisted that suffragists avoid such an embarrassment to the cause and seek only partial suffrage – municipal, presidential or primary suffrage – as they thought best. She urged suffragists in states where women already voted to pressure their national representatives to support the federal amendment (Wheeler, 1995, p. 17).
Catt and her lieutenants, Maud Wood Park and Helen Gardener, worked hard to convince President Wilson to support woman suffrage by federal as well as state action. They conducted a massive lobbying effort to enlist congressional support which was dubbed by the press as ‘Front Door Lobbying.’ During January 1917, NAWSA lobby stayed in Washington at their own expense for periods ranging from six days to four weeks. In the Front Door Lobbying for Suffrage, lobby rules had drawn up in terms of preparation, interviewing, and report making. (Ware, 1989, p. 149). Women from all parts of the nation came in ‘relays’ to reinforce those stationed at NAWSA’s Washington Headquarters, who studied the congressmen with microscopic intensity, seeking the right words or arguments with which to persuade them to support the federal amendment. It had long since become clear to the suffragists that ‘justice’ arguments alone would not be sufficient; politicians had to be convinced that it was expedient for them personally as well as for their party to support woman suffrage. Suffragists found it necessary to learn the art of ‘practical politics’ (Wheeler, 1995, p. 17).
The final chapter in the suffrage story was still ahead: 36 states had to ratify the amendment before it could become law. By the summer of 1920, suffragists were dismayed to find that while only one more state was needed, no further legislative sessions were scheduled before the November 1920 election. Desperate, suffragists began pleading for special sessions. President Wilson was finally able to pressure the reluctant governor of Tennessee into calling such a session. Thus, the final battle over woman suffrage took place in Nashville, Tennessee in the long, hot summer of 1920. When, on August 18, it appeared that Tennessee had ratified, the antis still managed to delay official ratification through parliamentary tricks such as avoiding a quorum, holding massive anti-ratification rallies and convincing pro-suffrage legislators to oppose ratification. Finally, Tennessee reaffirmed its vote for ratification and the Nineteenth Amendment was officially added to United States Constitution on August 26, 1920 (Wheeler, 1995, p. 19).
A growing number of state victories and Woodrow Wilson’s conversion who began working for the federal amendment in 1918 finally led Congress to approve the Nineteenth Amendment and submit it to the states in June 1919. Catt’s careful coordination of suffragists all over the nation and skillful political maneuvering, together with the pressure on Wilson and members of the congress that Paul and other militant suffragists applied by less orthodox methods of persuasion, were all major factors (Wheeler, 1995, p. 18).
A Combination of factors, including women’s patriotic contributions to the home front during World War I, helped to push the Nineteenth Amendment over the top (Ware, 1989, p. 131). When the United States entered World War I, Catt put her own pacifism on hold and urged suffragists to support the war effort. This enhanced the patriotic image of the movement with the public and powerful decision makers including Wilson (Wheeler, 1995, p. 18).
The 1920s represent the advent of modern times in the United States, a transition which had as large an impact on the nation’s women as its men. On Election Day, 1920, twenty-six million women were eligible to go to the polls as a result. To the new woman of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the vote was an affront, a slap in the face that they were not allowed this basic democratic right. Going to the polls would be confirmation of women’s new role as full citizens, the public equals of men (Ware, 1989, p. 133).
As we have seen in the historical development of NAWSA as a Social Movement Organization, it has involved in various activities to achieve its goals. Here we could see how the power of the state in distinguishing which are legal and official from activities that are illegal and unofficial through enacting laws and policies. Through the imposition of such laws and policies, the State conditions how actors in social movements behave in the society. For the Legal and Official Activities, they lobbied and sent Petitions to Congress and State Legislatures. They have also utilized print media to further their cause such as the Woman’s Journal. Aside from that, NAWSA has also conducted numerous conventions and campaigns. Between 1870 and 1910, women suffragists staged 480 campaigns in thirty-three states to have the issue voted upon. Yet only seventeen resulted in actual referenda, and just two of these were successful (O’Neill, 1969). They have also these Feminist Parades like In 1912 when the NAWSA paraded through the streets of Washington before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration to support a constitutional amendment for suffrage and it was attended by more than 5,000 women dressed in white, some on horseback (Greenberg & Page, 2002).These parades caught public attention since women who joined receive no protection from the police against the antagonistic spectators. Moreover, the use of force by the government in controlling these women is a dubious matter. It may work in favor of the government in the short run but if it goes on too long or becomes extreme, the use of force can generate a backlash against government and a boost for the movement. NAWSA considers their best action to be their opponent’s reaction. Because a violent response to a peaceful protest generates great sympathy from the media and the general public, peaceful provocation has become a standard tactic of activists.
But nonetheless, not all activities that were conducted by NAWSA were considered to be legal and official by the United States of America. In 1872, Susan Anthony attempted to vote, hoping to be arrested and to have the opportunity to test this strategy in the courts; she was arrested and indicted for “knowingly, wrongfully and unlawfully voting for a representative to the Congress of the United States.” Virginia minor, a suffrage leader in St. Louis, succeeded in getting the issue before the United States Supreme Court, but in 1875 the court ruled unanimously that citizenship did not automatically confer the right to vote and that the issue of female enfranchisement should be decided within the states (Wheeler, 1995, p. 11). Militant tactics of NAWSA such as destroying property and chaining themselves to Public Buildings is another illegal and unofficial activity as considered by the Government.
In this paper, I would focus on the roles played by the State as a structure in terms of its policies in the Success and Failure of the National Women Suffrage Association as a Social Movement Organization. Success of the SMO studied would mean granting of full voting rights to women. First, I would look into the policy changes of the state and its impacts to the tactical developments of NAWSA over time with the aid of the Frustration Aggression Theory. Moreover, giving Resource Mobilization theory a prominent place in my analytical work, I will look into the link between the development of social movements as dependent on the availability of varied resources, primarily internal to the movement, such as money, facilities, and skilled leaders. I would analyze whether it was these resources, then, that gave rise to movement emergence, and consequently, allowed organizations to pursue their goals.
Despite all the efforts contributed by women in the civil war and their continuous lobbying and sending of petitions to the US Government, still they were not granted the right to vote in the 14th and 15th Amendment of the constitution. Women who felt that the government baffled the movement in attaining their goals decided to employ more confrontational and radical ways in pursuing their interest such as illegal and unofficial activities aforementioned above. This phenomenon can be explained through the use of Frustration-Aggression Theory. Because of the frustration of women suffragettes, their behavior as manifested in their later collective actions turned to be more violent such. Another case is in 1920 where suffragists were distressed since only one more state was needed to ratify the 19th amendment. Because of extreme anxiety, suffragists began pleading for special sessions to the president.
Social strain and distress are almost always present in the society. But social movements occur only when the aggrieved group has the resources enough to organize those who are suffering strain and suffering. According to Mancur Olson, social movement activity can be explained as the product of an increased flow of resources from elites to social movement organizations. Resource Mobilization theory sought to factor into the study of social movements the pressures and incentives that structure the political or institutional context in which the rational actor acts. RM Theory conceptualizes social movements as political rather than mainly psychological phenomena (Young, 1997).
Financial resources are given much importance in a Social Movement since it is through which they are able to mobilize and carry out their activities to press their cause forward. For the Movement to be able to conduct such activities, NAWSA used the money they obtained from dues and fundraising to pursue their goal of voting rights for women. NAWSA as a political pressure group implemented effective organizational techniques such as the use of paid professional organizers and organizing on the district and precinct levels to put forth maximum constituency pressure on state politicians. They also established Suffrage schools where movement organizers are being trained. They also offer courses on fund-raising, press work, and organizational strategy (Mowery, 2006).
Membership of a particular Social Movement Organization also plays an important role in movement’s mobilization. For the case of NAWSA, from the late 1800s through 1920, its membership grew at a remarkable rate.Between the years of 1911 and 1913, the organization more than doubled in size, from 19,013 to 45,658 members. An additional 40,000 members were added during the ensuing seven years (Mowery, 2006). To explain the drastic increase of women joining the NAWSA, Frame Theory can be used. A frame is defined as an “interpretive schemata that simplifies and condenses ‘the world out there’ by selectively punctuating and encoding objects, situations, events, experiences, and sequences of actions within one’s present or past environments.”Through the use of frames, Women Social Movement Leaders and Organizers present their ideologies to would-be supporters and induce them to take part in the movement.
Smart, honest, committed leaders are priceless to a social movement. Predominantly vital is the communicative and charismatic leader who can sophisticatedly articulate people’s concerns, and instigate an emotional response. NAWSA has a number of female skilled leaders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Anthony and Lucy Stone who a played a prominent role in start of the movement for the right of suffrage for women American Society who. Included also in here is the new generation of women who led the group in the later years such as Carrie Chapman Catt who was known for her winning plan that eventually resulted to the 19th Constitutional Amendment which granted women the right to vote.
The rise of social movements requires more than the existence of resources for mobilization among aggrieved groups. The times must also be right, in the sense that a degree of support and open-mindedness must exist for the movement among public and society’s leaders. Political Opportunities theory asserts that social movements are heavily influenced by political constraints and opportunities of the broader political context in which they are embedded (Mowery, 2006). In this paper, we would look how political opportunity structures have influenced NAWSA’s outcomes of suffrage policy changes in both the state and national level.
First, the level of institutional access measures the degree of difficulty suffragists had in gaining access to the government. The social movement organization needs to establish a niche for itself in the larger environment of other organizations pursuing similar objectives, as well as develop productive relationships with media, funders, the media and especially the government. State could either be facilitative, neutral or totally against to the interest of a particular SMO which directly affects the success and failure of the movement.
Four Western States have granted women the right to vote in 1910, specifically Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Idaho. This can be attributed to the fact that states and territories with simpler procedures for changing suffrage law are seen as more open than those with more complex procedures. As women gained full, primary, or presidential suffrage in some states, women’s political rights expanded which signaled a fundamental shift in gender relations.These changes, while seemingly political in nature, were gendered opportunities because the change in law redefined gender relations by allowing women formal access to the polity and, political decision-makers began to view gender relations differently.It seems likely that suffragists would be more successful in gaining full, primary or presidential suffrage if their state was bordered by states that had already passed one of these three forms of suffrage. Thus, the proportion of neighboring states with full, presidential or primary suffrage is also controlled for in my analyses.
After NAWSA has achieved its goal, giving women the right to suffrage, the movement has then been replaced by the League of Women Voters in 1920. The League is a grassroots organization, working at the national, state and local levels. Over time, the League’s legislative priorities change to reflect the needs of society and critical issues of concern. Before NAWSA, from which it emanated, was focused on Women’s suffrage. The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan political organization which aims to progress US systems of government and impact public policies through citizen education and advocacy. The commonality it shares with NASA is remains true to its basic purpose: to make democracy work for all citizens (League of Women Voters, 2010).
We have seen how State facilitates or serve as an impediment to the Rise and Latency of Social Movement Organizations particularly in the case of National American Women Suffrage Association in the United States of America. The State has been a factor for the rise of Women Suffrage Movements. Through state policies, it has been the source of cleavage and structural strain for the movement. Also, it affected how the movement mobilized towards attaining their goal. Tactics employed by the movement also changes over time as a reaction to the Policy Changes enacted by the State. One factor are the laws and policies enacted by the State to lay down the rules on which are official and legal and which are unofficial and illegal activities. With the following roles of the State, I therefore conclude that State helps shape the Success or the Failure of a National American Women Suffrage Association.
