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The Woman Suffrage Debate 1865-1919

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The Woman Suffrage Debate 1865-1919 Dialectic of the Enlightenment in America: The Woman Suffrage Debate 1865-1919 Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde der Philosophischen Fakultät für Sprach-, Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften der Universität Regensburg vorgelegt von Frau Borislava Borisova Probst, geboren Marinova Wohnadresse: Ludwig-Thoma-Str. 19, 93051 Regensburg Vorlage der Arbeit bei der Fakultät für Sprach-, Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften im Jahre 2014 Druckort: Regensburg, 2015 Erstgutachter: Herr Prof. Dr. Volker Depkat, Lehrstuhl für Amerikanistik, Universität Regensburg Zweitgutachter: Frau Prof. Dr. Nassim Balestrini, Institut für Amerikanistik, Karl-Franzens- Universität Graz Dialectic of the Enlightenment in America: The Woman Suffrage Debate 1865-1919 Table of Contents: I. Introduction: I. 1. Aim of Study…………………………………………………………………..…1 I. 2. Research Situation ………………………………………………………………9 I. 2.1. Scholarly Situation on Female Suffrage ……………………………10 I. 2.2. The Enlightenment in America…………………………………..……12 I. 2.3. Dialectic of Enlightenment in America………………………….……16 I. 3. Mothodology und Sources ……………………………………………………..18 I. 3.1. Methodology………………………………………………………….18 I. 3.2. Sources………………………………………………………………30 II. Suffragist and Anti-Suffragist Pragmatics of Communication II. 1. The Progressive Era, Women and the Enlightenment…………………………33 II. 1.2. The Communication of the Suffrage Debate: The Institutionalization of the Movements…………………………….……42 II. 1.3. Organized, Public Suffrage Communication………………………………43 II. 1.4. Organized Public Anti-Suffrage Communication……………………….….67 III. Enlightenment and Inclusion: Suffrage Voices…………………………………………88 III. 1. Isabella Beecher Hooker: “The Constitutional Rights of the Women in the United States” (1888)……………90 III. 2. Carrie Chapman Catt: “Will of the People” (1910)………………………………..104 III. 3. Further Suffrage Voices………………………………………………………….…114 III. 3.1. Suffragists’ Self-understanding…………………………..……………….115 III. 3.2. Rights…………………………………………………………………..…120 III. Suffragism and Progress……………………………………………………….126 IV. Enlightenment and Exclusion: Anti-Suffrage Voices………………………………..139 IV. 1. Justin Dewey Fulton: “Woman as God Made Her: The True Woman: To Which is Added: Woman vs. Ballot (1869)……………………………………………………………………….……………..140 IV. 2. Josephine Dodge: “Woman Suffrage Opposed to Woman’s Rights” (1914)………..155 IV. 3. Further Anti-suffrage Voices…………………………………………………….…168 IV. 3.1. Anti-Suffragists’ Self-understanding……………………………………..…….…170 IV. 3.2. Rights…………………………………………………………………..…………171 IV. 3.3. Anti-suffragism and Progress………………………………………….….………172 V. World War I and the Closure of the Suffrage Debate………………………………….190 V. 1. Suffragists and the War………………………………………………………….….192 V. 2. Anti-suffragists and the War…………………………………………………………199 V. 3. Passage and Ratification of the 19th Amendment……………………………….…..206 VI. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………215 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………236 ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! To Thomas also known as the Bavarian Diva and my husband Borislava Probst !1 I. Introduction I. 1. Aim of Study “First let me speak of the Constitution of the United States,” Isabella Beecher Hooker, eminent advocate of female suffrage addressed her audience in 1888, “and assert that there is not a line in it, nor a word, forbidding women to vote; but properly interpreted, that is, interpreted by the Declaration of Independence, and by the assertions of the Fathers, it actually guarantees to women the right to vote in all elections, both state and national” (Hooker 1). “Woman’s right to be a woman,” writes Justin Dewey Fulton, a Baptist preacher and feverous opponent of the vote for women, in 1869, “implies the right to be loved, to be respected as a woman, to be married, to bring forth to the world the product of that love; and woman’s highest interests are promoted by defending and maintaining this right” (Fulton 228). If we compare the rhetoric of the two we will see that Hooker stresses the importance of securing the right to vote just as Fulton affirms women’s disenfranchisement and strictly prescribed apolitical role in the nineteenth- century U.S. as a matter of rights. Both positions utilize the concept of individual, natural rights going back to the ideological ensemble of the Enlightenment written into the U.S. Constitution of 1787. What we come across here are basically two self-excluding notions of female political inclusion and emancipation, vs. exclusion from the democratic processes – both supported by one and the same concept of (as shown in this case) rights. In the early twentieth century, the public debate over the enfranchisement of U.S. women, suffragists (the proponents) and anti- suffragists (the opponents) shared not only ideas for their respective purposes. They both knew very well the importance of winning the public. The two adversarial camps put great effort to convey their messages to society. Suffragists and anti-suffragists organized in extensive nation-wide organizations to gain grass root support and lobbied Congress and Presidents to popularize the vote-for-women issue. Both groups knew that going public and prodding the nation to give its opinion on female suffrage was vital. Both sides Borislava Probst !2 created a dialogue, a public debate, and did their best to win society’s endorsement. They believed that not merely the exchange of arguments between the two camps, but also their dissemination to the people would be the key to success. Both sides were convinced, ideas had to go hand in hand with practice. Thus ideology and public communication were the two main pillars of the female suffrage debate. In a sense, suffragists and anti-suffragists also debated a bigger question: What defined citizenship? From the outset of the U.S. state, the eminent historian in women’s studies, Linda Kerber reminds us, “rights and obligations have generally been stated in generic terms incumbent on all citizens male and female” (Kerber 18, A Contitutional Right). “But,” she points out, “they have been experienced differently by men and by women” (Kerber 18, A Constitutional Right). Linda Kerber draws our attention to the fact “that American tradition and precedent sustained the practice of defining the ingredients of citizenship differently on the basis of gender” (Kerber 17-18, A Constitutional Right). Around 1900, suffragists and anti-suffragists prodded the public to discuss the very linking of the meaning of rights to gender (Kerber 18, A Constitutional Right). This makes us consider the question of female suffrage as defining the substance of U.S. citizenship at that specific point in time. During the Progressive Era, the social debate over votes-for-women was lead predominantly by white, Protestant, native born, middle and upper- middle class women in the Northeast. These women had the time, the money and the education to do so. Accordingly, the cultural concepts in focus here, separate spheres, cult of domesticity, etc., were restricted to this specific group of women. They bore little importance to immigrant women, or women of color, to name two groups, whose experience was completely different.1 The Progressive Era affected women’s lives in many ways and brought about a 1 Historians today are prodded to define as precisely as possible which women they are dealing with. The field of American women’s history has witnessed changing theories and paradigms, ever since its outset, back in the 1970s. There is no such thing as the “uniracial universal woman” any more. Accordingly, historians have to be aware of factors such as race, ethnicity, class background, sexual orientation but also level of education and individual experience. A comprehensive study, sensitive to these issues is: Ellen DuBois, and Vicki Ruiz, (Eds.) Unequal Sisters: An Inclusive Reader in U.S. Women's History, (4th ed.) New York : Routledge, 2008. Borislava Probst !3 push in their politicization. Women took part in and were influenced by numerous developments. Technology infiltrated the households, sparing housewives time and energy that they could devote to social activities. Colleges produced more and more female graduates, who studied the social sciences and were prepared for social service work: the skills needed to be a social reformer. Women organized and added to their agendas topical issues such as child labor, housing, temperance and, last but not least, suffrage. “If we had a snapshot,” Kathryn Kish Sklar suggests, “male and female reform activities would have seemed united and equal behind common goals” (Sklar 36, Two Political Cultures). Yet, at that time, the meaning and obligations of citizenship were tied to gender. Women were given an unprecedented opportunity for political activism, but they were also restricted by very clear boundaries (Sklar 37, Two Political Cultures). Women’s organizations in the Progressive Era sought to, and for the most part, gave answers to questions of child education, wage-earners exploitation and social security measures. “Women did not reside at the margins of progressive social reform,” Sklar makes it clear, “they occupied it’s center” (Sklar 62, Two Political Cultures). On the basis of their new position, female organizations claimed political power. That power gave them the opportunity to bring the issue of suffrage to the political agenda with new importance. And with it, the question of defining U.S. citizenship and its relation to gender was at dispute again. It was not only the suffragists who were organizing and beginning to communicate
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