Chapter 2: Suffrage Discussions and Questions

CHAPTER 2 In what ways was the early women’s suffrage movement influenced by Civil War? ● Obstruction of social/regular norms in society ● ● White women in the South -- new roles for women possible? Black women's involvement in these movements would have not been possible ● Connections between abolitionism and suffrage What are your thoughts on the different women’s suffrage associations formed around the country? ● Different ambitions across the country and what different women want ● Not all women have the same expectations and want the same things from suffrage How might a centralized movement have hurt the women’s suffrage movement? ● Discludes some women (those of color, poor women, etc.), splintering makes it harder to have a whole message for the movement What implications do Anthony’s attempt to take charge of the Union Association’s 1872 Spring Convention have on that women should oversee the women’s suffrage movement? Why is the existence of the collective memory of the Seneca Falls convention beneficial to the women’s suffrage movement? CHAPTER 3 How is the “mothering” from out of state suffragettes upholding patriarchal habits? In what ways does this break away? (82) ● “Anthony had no intention of risking a loss in Iowa in 1876 by making the same mistake she felt she had made in Michigan, deferring too much to statewide activists. “So now,” she wrote a colleague in January 1875, “I propose that the National Society shall mother Iowa & help her on to her two feet.”46 Iowa women did not always feel they needed out-of-state mothering, however. From 1872 to 1874, while the legislature considered women’s vot- ing rights, a contingent of Iowa suffragists had asked Stanton and Anthony to stay out of the state for fear that their ties to Woodhull would cost votes.47 Despite Anthony’s assistance (or because of it, in some eyes), state-level suffragists lost another chanc for a referendum in 1876, when the Iowa leg- islature failed to pass the provision for a second time.48 Still, state work con- tinued apace, where state-by-state proponents argued among themselves over strategy and what their immediate goal ought to be.” (82) How did mortality change during this time? How is gender, alcohol, and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union tied into morality? (85) ● “Another group of women did even more to push the idea of municipal suffrage: temperance women. The newly formed Woman’s Christian Tem- perance Union (WCTU) held fast to notions of women’s supposedly supe- rior morality. They used housekeeping ideas, suggesting that women could improve city and municipal health by application of their home caretaking skills. And they liked the idea of municipal suffrage giving them a voice in local liquor laws. Municipal suffrage was, for some temperance women, a sufficient extension of rights. Over the 1880s, these campaigns bore fruit, and women began voting in certain types of local elections. But the alli- ances sometimes formed in these municipal suffrage campaigns between temperance and suffrage women also brought powerful enemies in the liquor lobby, meaning that municipal campaigns were not always an easier row to hoe.” (85) What were the strengths of all the different suffrage groups occurring around the same time? What were the disadvantages? Thoughts on partial suffrage? ● ● Only being able to vote in local spheres Needed to be able to vote federally for prohibition Susan B. Anthony’s Definition: “Women’s Rights, a term used in the US to designate the movement for women’s equal social, civil, political, industrireligiousous, and education rights with man.” (109)