Boston University School of Law Scholarly Commons at Boston University School of Law Publications Betsy Clark Living Archive 10-1989 The olitP ics of God and the Woman's Vote: Religion in the American Suffrage Movement, 1848-1895 Elizabeth B. Clark Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/clark_pubs Part of the Family Law Commons, and the Legal History Commons Recommended Citation Elizabeth B. Clark, The Politics of God and the Woman's Vote: Religion in the American Suffrage Movement, 1848-1895, (1989). Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/clark_pubs/3 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Betsy Clark Living Archive at Scholarly Commons at Boston University School of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons at Boston University School of Law. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. THE POLITICS OF GOD AND THE WOMAN'S VOTE: RELIGION IN THE AMERICAN SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT, 1848-1895 Elizabeth Battelle Clark A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY RECOMMENDED FOR ACCEPTANCE BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY October, 1989 © Copyright by Elizabeth Battelle Clark 1989 All Rights Reserved Thesis Abstract This thesis examines the role of religion— both liberal and evangelical Protestantism— in the development of a feminist political theory in America during the nineteenth century and how that feminist theory in turn helped to transform American liberalism. Chapter 1 looks for the genesis of women's rights language, not in the republican rhetoric of the Founding Fathers, but in the teachings of liberal Protestantism and its links with laissez-faire economic theory.