E-text prepared by Richard J. Shiffer and the Project Gutenberg Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
Also, the HTML version contains links to references
in other volumes of _History of Woman Suffrage_ in
the Project Gutenberg library.
See 29878-h.htm or 29878-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/29878/pg29878-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29878/29878-h.zip)
Transcriber's note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other
inconsistencies.
Many occurrences of mismatched single and double quotes remain
as they were in the original.
Text that has been changed to correct an obvious error is noted
at the end of this ebook.
[Illustration: DR. ANNA HOWARD SHAW.
Vice-President-at-Large of the National American Woman Suffrage
Association 1892-1904 and President 1904-1915.]
THE HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE
Edited by
IDA HUSTED HARPER
Illustrated with Copperplate and Photogravure Engravings
In Six Volumes
VOLUME V
1900-1920
AFTER SEVENTY YEARS CAME THE VICTORY
National American Woman Suffrage Association
Copyright, 1922, by
National American Woman Suffrage Association
PREFACE
The History of Woman Suffrage is comprised in six volumes averaging
about one thousand pages each, of which the two just finished are the
last. While it is primarily a history of this great movement in the
United States it covers to some degree that of the whole world. The
chapter on Great Britain was prepared for Volume VI by Mrs. Millicent
Garrett Fawcett, leader of the movement there for half a century. The
accounts of the gaining of woman suffrage in other countries come from
the highest authorities. Their contest was short compared to that in
the two oldest countries on the globe with a constitutional form of
government--the United States and Great Britain--and in the former it
began nearly twenty years earlier than in the latter. The effort of
women in the "greatest republic on earth" to obtain a voice in its
government began in 1848 and ended in complete victory in 1920. In
Great Britain it is not yet entirely accomplished, although in all her
colonies except South Africa women vote on the same terms as men.
Doubtless other histories of this world wide movement will be written
but at present the student will find himself largely confined to these
six volumes. This is especially true of the United States and many of
the documents of the earliest period would have been lost for all time
if they had not been preserved in the first three volumes. These also
contain much information which does not exist elsewhere regarding the
struggle of women for other rights besides that of the franchise. That
the materials were collected and cared for until they could be
utilized was due to Miss Susan B. Anthony's appreciation of their
value. The story of the trials and tribulations of preparing those
volumes during ten years is told in Volume II, page 612, and in the
Preface of Volume IV. They were written and edited principally by Miss
Anthony and Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and covered the history from
the beginning of the century to 1884. The writers expected when they
began in 1877 to bring out one small volume, perhaps only a large
pamphlet. When these three huge volumes were finished they still had
enough material for a fourth, which never was used.
Miss Anthony continued her habit of preserving the records and in
1900, when at the age of 80 she resigned the presidency of the
National American Woman Suffrage Association, she immediately
commenced preparations for another volume of the History. She called
to her assistance Mrs. Ida Husted Harper, who had recently finished
her Biography, and in her home in Rochester, N. Y., they spent the
next two years on the book, Mrs. Stanton, who was 85 years old, taking
the keenest interest in the work.[1] When the manuscript was completed
hundreds of pages had to be eliminated in order to bring it within the
compass of one volume of 1,144 pages.
Miss Anthony then said: "Twenty years from now another volume will be
written and it will record universal suffrage for women by a Federal
Amendment." Her prophecy was fulfilled to the letter. She put upon
younger women the duty of collecting and preserving the records and
this was done in some degree by officers of the association. In 1917,
after the legacy of Mrs. Frank Leslie had been received by Mrs. Carrie
Chapman Catt, president of the association, she formed the Leslie
Suffrage Commission and established a Bureau of Suffrage Education,
one feature of which was a research department. Here under the
direction of an expert an immense amount of material was collected
from many sources and arranged for use. After the strenuous work for a
Federal Suffrage Amendment had brought it very near, Mrs. Catt turned
her attention to the publishing of the last volume of the History of
Woman Suffrage while the resources of the large national headquarters
in New York and the archives of the research bureau were available,
and she requested Mrs. Harper to prepare it. The work was begun Jan 2,
1919, and it was to be entirely completed in eighteen months. No
account had been taken of the enormous growth of the suffrage
movement. It had entered every State in the Union and it extended
around the world. It was occupying the attention of Parliaments and
Legislatures. In the United States conventions had multiplied and
campaigns had increased in number; it had become a national issue with
a center in every State and defeats and victories were of constant
record.
To select from the mass of material, to preserve the most important,
to condense, to verify, was an almost impossible task. A comparison
will illustrate the difference between the work required on Volume IV
and that on the present volumes. The Minutes of the national
convention in 1901 filled 130 pages of large type; those of the
convention of 1919 filled 320 pages, many of small type; reports of
congressional hearings increased in proportion. Of the State chapters,
describing all the work that had been done before 1901, 29 contained
less than 8 pages, 18 of these less than 5 and 7 less than 3; only 6
had over 14 pages. For Volume VI not more than half a dozen State
writers sent manuscript for less than 14 and the rest ranged from 20
to 95 pages. The report on Canada in Volume IV occupied 3-1/2 pages;
in this volume it fills 18. The chapter on Woman Suffrage in Europe
outside of Great Britain found plenty of room in 4 pages; in this one
it requires 32.
The very full reports of the national suffrage conventions, the
congressional documents, the files of the _Woman's Journal_ and the
_Woman Citizen_ and the newspapers furnished a wealth of material on
the general status of the question in the United States. It was,
however, the evolution of the movement in the States that gave it
national strength and compelled the action by Congress which always
was the ultimate goal. The attempt to give the story of every State,
in many of which no records had been kept or those which had were lost
or destroyed; the difficulty in getting correct dates and proper names
upset all calculations on the amount of material and length of time.
As a result the time lengthened to three and a half years and the one
volume expanded into two, with enough excellent matter eliminated to
have made a third. In each of these chapters will be found a complete
history of the effort to secure the franchise by means of the State
constitution, also the part taken to obtain the Federal Amendment and
the action of the Legislature in ratifying this amendment.
The accounts of the annual conventions of the National American
Suffrage Association demonstrate as nothing else could do the
commanding force of that organization, for fifty years the foundation
and bulwark of the movement. The hearings before committees of every
Congress indicate the never ceasing effort to obtain an amendment to
the Federal Constitution and the extracts from the speeches show the
logic, the justice and the patriotism of the arguments made in its
behalf. The delay of that body in responding will be something for
future generations to marvel at. In Chapter XX will be found the full
history of this amendment by which all women were enfranchised.
In one chapter is a graphic account of the effort for half a century
to get a woman suffrage "plank" into the national platforms of the
political parties and its success in 1916, with one for the Federal
Amendment in 1920. A chapter is devoted to the forming of the National
League of Woman Voters after the women of the United States had become
a part of the electorate. All questions as to the part taken in the
war of 1914-1918 by the women who were working for their
enfranchisement are conclusively answered in the chapter on War
Service of Organized Suffragists. In one chapter will be found an
account of other organizations besides the National American
Association that worked to obtain the vote for women and of those that
worked against it. A full description is given of the organizing of
the International Woman Suffrage Alliance and its congresses in the
various cities of Europe.
Volumes V and VI take up the history of the contest in the United
States from the beginning of the present century to Aug. 26, 1920,
when Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby proclaimed that the 19th
Amendment, submitted by Congress on June 4, 1919, had been ratified by
the Legislatures of three-fourths of the States and was now a part of
the National Constitution. This ended a movement for political liberty
which had continued without cessation for over seventy years. The
story closes with uncounted millions of women in all parts of the
world possessing the same voice as men in their government and
enjoying the same rights as citizens.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, pages 1210, 1256, 1269.
Placing in libraries, 1279 to 1282. Bequeathed to National Suffrage
Association, History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V, page 205.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. PAGE
FOUNDING OF NATIONAL ASSOCIATION 3
Work of the National American Woman Suffrage Association for an
amendment to the Federal Constitution, to State constitutions and
for other reforms--Annual convention in Minneapolis in 1901--Mrs.
Stanton's address on the Church, the Bible and Woman
Suffrage--Miss Anthony's and others' opinions--President's address
of Mrs. Catt on obstacles--Dr. Shaw's vice-president's address on
Anti-suffragists--Plan for national work--Miss Anthony's report on
work with Congress--Protest against "regulated vice" in
Manila--New York _Sun_ and Woman Suffrage--Discriminating against
women in government departments--A tribute to the national
suffrage conventions.