Votes For Women!

The other weekend, Adam and I took a day to go out to Old Sturbridge Village. This outing marked the first time since COVID started where we spent any extended time out and about. Since the museum’s primary focus is on rural life in the early 19th century, a lot of what was to be seen was already outdoors or moved out under a tent.

This sojourn into the 19th century came with some of the learning experiences initially slated for the weekend just about everything went dark. The move of Women’s History weekend from March to August was serendipitous. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

The day we were at the village, one of the Women’s History events that took place was a performance reading of historical letters talking about women’s suffrage. The three performers did a fantastic job bringing a curated compilation of voices back to life.

The 19th Amendment is a bit outside of the 1790-1830s/1840s era Sturbridge recreates. But the Amendment didn’t just pop out of the ether. The women’s movement and its opposition were formed in the very period OSV is steeped in.

Before the war for independence, several colonies included women in suffrage. This tidbit is often passed over in school classrooms. Pointing out that women, even in this limited capacity, having political power but then being stripped of it after a war for independence, wouldn’t be great messaging.

Once the war was over, every established state decided to lock down the ability to vote for a specific set of criteria. This decision set us as a nation on a path leading to continuous conflict. Which still hasn’t fully been resolved.

As the 19th century dawned, so did the Industrial Revolution. Goods were mass-manufactured, easily accessible, and abundant. The products coming out of the factories were primarily those previously manufactured by women in the home. The switchover to machine-made goods rather than handmade robbed women of the economic power the manufacturing of goods provided. Women didn’t stop the practices of weaving, spinning, and the like. However, the demand for these items as products to be sold diminished.

During this same time, the idea of distinct gender roles was being peddled around. Not to say gender roles didn’t already exist. However, on a farm, work needed to get done. Who was accomplishing the task made little difference.

At the time, they didn’t specially call them gender roles. They were referred to as spheres. And women’s sphere of influence was defined during the early 19th century as the home, family, and morality. Obviously, the male sphere was everywhere else in the world.

This notion of spheres of influence was a very bourgeois ideal. And one that caught on and hung on good and tight. Framing women’s influence in such a context gave those opposed to women’s suffrage an easy gatekeeping argument.

Women aren’t suited for the political arena. They are our moral compasses who shouldn’t be corrupted by the dingy world of politics. And on and on.

This ideology was one of the many bi-products of the Second Great Awakening. A Protestant rediscovery that swept the new nation with gusto. I’m not sure if they used the term Bible thumper back then, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was also a bi-product of this era of US history.

This is a post about women’s suffrage. Why are you going on about the industrial revolution, the sphere of women being the home, and great awakenings?

These events were many of the oppositions to women gaining the right to vote. What economic power they had wielded had slipped away thanks to mass production. The religious fervor was tipping the scales against them by raising the female gender up onto an untouchable pedestal.

While these facts made it difficult in a lot of ways for women, they also provided middle-class women time and a mission. Giving women the sphere of morality basically means there is an expectation of being the nation’s moral compass. So, women went to work to point to the county due north.

If we were in school getting a history lesson, I would work my way up into a sentimental crescendo. I’d be wheeling out the names of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone. I’d declare that in 1919 when the Amendment was passed, women finally achieved equality. And it was a banner day for all women across the country.

This is, of course, not going to be the case.

First, the names of the women above were the celebrities of the movement. And, in many respects, they are problematic figureheads. Susan B. Anthony was a rigid gatekeeper in her own right. So was Cady Stanton. Neither bothered to sugar coat their stance once it was clear that the 15th Amendment was going to leave women in the dust once again. Stone tempered her language and was not as vehemently opposed to the 14th and 15th Amendments. This led to a schism in the movement between the three heavy hitters in the campaign and probably slowed progress. And why? Gatekeeping.

Don’t get me wrong these women did accomplish great things. I’m not trying to say they aren’t worth talking about. But they were not saints when living, they should not be made saints post humorously.

Side note, in Anthony’s case, she did recently garner an accolade that sets her far apart from every other woman. She received a compliment from Trump. Without him wanting to “grab [her] by the pussy.” I think we should have a moment of silence to commemorate a moment that will never happen again.

Kidding aside, what I am driving at is that putting a select few up onto an untouchable pedestal turns history class into a mythology course. One that only focuses on the high pantheon and never mentions the other gods.

There were thousands of women campaigning, publishing, picketing, rioting, and serving jail sentences for their actions to obtain the right to vote. I won’t go running down the long, long list of women and men who took part in the fight to gain legal standing for women to be able to vote. I do want to pull a few names out in the hopes that you Google to learn more names than just Stanton and Anthony.

Maria W. Stewart, an African American activist, and writer shocked Boston in 1832. She stepped up to a lectern and gave a lecture to an audience of women and men, black and white, about abolishing slavery, improving black communities, and women’s rights. Women speaking publicly to a male audience just wasn’t done in the 1830s. But she did. She became the first woman to talk to a mixed audience of both men and women. Others followed her lead.

Lucy Burns was introduced to the fight for suffrage in Britain but returned home to finish the battle on American shores. She and her friend Alice Paul were considered “militant” in their tactics. Burns was arrested multiple times for picketing at the White House. During her time in prison, she was abused, refused medical treatment, and force-fed repeatedly. She put her body and personal freedom on the line for the right to vote.

Second, the ratification of the 19th Amendment is a moment in history that deserves to be celebrated. It was not, however, a complete victory. Like the 15th Amendment, there were flaws in its execution- gaping loopholes available for exploitation to keep people from being able to exercise their right on paper to vote. The 19th Amendment was not inclusive of all women at the time of its ratification.

So, the 19th Amendment was a big step forward for the women’s rights movement. Women were officially mentioned in the Constitution, that’s kind of a big deal. Although a smidge late if you ask me. It was not a big step forward for all women. Time, additional emotional labor, court cases, continued activism has widened the scope of the Amendment. But, there’s still a lot of work left to be done.

As this anniversary gets floated into the news cycle, remember that the addition of women into the Constitution wasn’t a moment to rest laurels on. We have plenty to learn from the struggle for women’s suffrage. Mistakes were absolutely made along the way. The 19th Amendment was a victory in the larger quest to realize the promises our country is founded upon. That everyone is created equal “with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”