Republican Women and the Gendered Politics of Partisanship

Home , American Party (1924)

Melanie Susan Gustafson. Women and the Republican Party, 1854-1924. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2001. ix + 288 pp. $34.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-252-02688-1.

Reviewed by Linda Van Ingen

Published on H-Women (June, 2002)

Republican Women and the Gendered Politics tions of party politics. In other words, disfran‐ of Partisanship, 1854-1924 chised women were both partisan and nonparti‐ Melanie Gustafson successfully confronts the san players who sought access to the male-domi‐ historical complexity of American women's parti‐ nated institutions of political parties without los‐ sanship in Women and the Republican Party, ing their infuence as women uncorrupted by 1854-1924. Her work deepens and enriches the such politics. The resulting portrait of women's feld of women's political history in the late nine‐ political history, then, is more complex than pre‐ teenth and early twentieth centuries by bringing viously realized. This book demonstrates how together two seemingly disparate trends in wom‐ much of women's political history is about the en's politics. On the one hand, historians have gendered politics of partisanship. long focused on women's nonpartisan identities in Gustafson develops her analyses with a focus their altruistic reform and sufrage movements. on the Republican Party at the national level. Politics in these studies has been defned broadly From its founding in 1854, through the Progres‐ to include the wide range of women's public activ‐ sive Party challenge in the early twentieth centu‐ ities and the formation of a women's political cul‐ ry, to the height of its success in the 1920s, the Re‐ ture.[1] On the other hand, historians have more publican Party provides a chronological history recently studied women's partisan loyalties and that holds Gustafson's study of women's varied their roles in institutional politics. In these cases political activities together. With this focus politics has been defned narrowly around elec‐ Gustafson aims to demonstrate the depth of wom‐ toral and party politics, a partisan culture long en's partisanship before women were enfran‐ dominated by men.[2] Gustafson adds to this de‐ chised, to raise new questions about the signif‐ bate by utilizing both meanings of politics to show cance of women's sufrage won in 1920 (including how women secured and advanced their own how disfranchisement shaped a "gendering of pol‐ agendas while also striving to enter the machina‐ itics"), to explore the many ways women shaped H-Net Reviews their political strategies and identities before and men. This gender diference was reinforced in the after sufrage, and to explore the relationships be‐ sufrage states that emerged in the West in the tween the Republican Party and women's political late nineteenth century when sufragists stressed culture (p. 2). Her work efectively addresses all that women, as "proper voters," cleaned up poli‐ these issues and more. tics without competing in partisan ways against The frst of seven chapters traces women's men for elective ofce (p. 43). Pressured "to support for the nascent Republican Party in its smooth their acceptance at a time when their al‐ founding years in the 1850s. White middle-class lies were dwindling," sufragists encouraged en‐ women played an important role in the formation franchised women to present themselves as non‐ of the Party through their infuence as principled partisan voters and to avoid partisan loyalties (p. women. As guardians of virtue, women rein‐ 43). forced the new Party's moral standing by their as‐ Chapters 3 and 4 reveal the growing debates sociation with it. Gustafson is especially efective within and amongst women's organizations over in her discussion of Jessie Benton Fremont and women's partisanship. While devoted sufragists Anna Dickinson. Fremont, the wife of the frst Re‐ pursued nonpartisan alternatives to the Republi‐ publican candidate for president, John Fremont, can Party, others like Judith Ellen Foster sought encouraged the Republican Party to recruit and greater roles for Republican women. Foster's rely upon women's partisan contributions by link‐ work in the 1880s as the founder of the Woman's ing the new Party to abolitionist women. Dickin‐ National Republican Association (WNRA) gave son was a political speaker hired by the Republi‐ women a strong partisan identity and an active can Party during the Civil War to "represent the role in Republican campaigns. A partisan identity, party's moral consensus" (p. 27). Both women em‐ however, did not preclude women's nonpartisan‐ phasized their morality as women uncorrupted by ship. As Foster recognized, women could be loyal party politics to advance the popularity of the Re‐ partisans to a major party while also working in publican Party. the many nonpartisan reform organizations. But The many tensions that arose between Repub‐ there existed yet another alternative for women: lican men and women in the post-war era are de‐ the rise of the Prohibition Party allowed women veloped in Chapter 2. By tracing the well-known to be both partisan and moral reformer. Frances contours of the split amongst abolitionists over Willard of the Woman's Christian Temperance the Fourteenth Amendment, Gustafson argues Union (WCTU) urged women to join the Prohibi‐ that the two organizations created out of this con‐ tion Party where their "moral suasion" would be fict, the American Woman Sufrage Association of political value. Willard believed the major par‐ (AWSA) and the National Woman Sufrage Associ‐ ties had ignored women and their cause for tem‐ ation (NWSA), were a signifcant factor in the de‐ perance, and that nonpartisanship "would keep velopment of women's nonpartisan strategy for women at the end of the army, outside of posi‐ sufrage. While members of AWSA remained loyal tions of power" (pp. 68-69). The solution was a Republicans, those of the alternative NWSA as‐ partisan commitment to a single-issue minor par‐ serted their independence from the Party to con‐ ty. vey their disappointment in the Republican adop‐ These multiple threads of women's partisan‐ tion of voting rights for African-American men ship extended into the 1910s when progressives but not for women. In asserting their indepen‐ departed from the Republican Party. Chapters 5 dence, women of NWSA such as Susan B. Anthony and 6 explore the signifcance of this development tended to emphasize women's diference from for women's partisan history. Importantly, many

2 H-Net Reviews reformers--both women and men--found a new discussed in the fnal chapter, the Republican par‐ home in partisan politics with the rise of the Pro‐ ty formed the Republican Women's National Exec‐ gressive Party. Gustafson's focus on Jane Addams utive Committee (RWNEC) in 1918, with promises reveals the ways her public image as a nonparti‐ that it would "be the partner of the Republican san reformer symbolically enhanced the Progres‐ National Executive Committee" (p. 179). But wom‐ sive Party by linking women's morally principled en would meet once again with disappointment as politics to partisan politics. The Progressive Party men controlled the appointments of women to the "looked more principled with principled men and committees, forcing many active Republican women in it" (p. 115). However, much of the pub‐ women to rely on their auxiliary women's groups lic attention on women's visibility in partisan poli‐ for infuence. Women's partisanship again be‐ tics, as Gustafson points out, refected a lack of came defned by their gender. "social memory of women's partisanship" (p. 122). Gustafson utilizes a wide range of sources in Contrary to contemporary reports, women's parti‐ her efort to discover the activities of the many san allegiance was not new. Even Addams had political women before 1920. While she considers held partisan hopes and believed women would well-known historical fgures like Susan B. Antho‐ fnally be included in the locus of party power by ny and Jane Addams, she also brings to light joining the Progressive Party. She was, in efect, heretofore unknown women by accessing both both nonpartisan and partisan in her eforts to national and state archives to discover correspon‐ advance progressive reform and women's rights. dence, organizational records of women's groups The value of women's nonpartisan image to and political parties, and published accounts writ‐ the Progressive Party, however, ultimately result‐ ten by contemporaries. Gustafson also integrates ed in women's exclusion from decision-making many secondary sources into her account, the re‐ posts within the party. Gustafson points to sult of which is an impressive narrative rich in Frances Kellor's work in the Party's Progressive detail and historical context. National Service which aimed "to fght for princi‐ The greatest strength in Gustafson's book is ples, not for candidates" (p. 150). As Gustafson ob‐ her laudable treatment of the nuances of women's serves, "in of-election years, there was room to partisanship. As her research and analysis make ignore the candidates and the partisan purpose of clear, no view of women in politics during this pe‐ a political organization, and there was room for riod is complete without the context of institution‐ the emphasis on principles over candidates, but al, partisan politics. Women, furthermore, were as the party geared up for the campaigns ... wom‐ widely diverse in their goals and strategies; this en found themselves relegated to the sidelines" diversity of women is a consistent theme of the (p. 150). Organized into auxiliary clubs outside the book. Gustafson extends the reach of this diversi‐ mainstream of party structure, women found "a ty beyond white middle-class women to address way for women's voices to be heard in a partisan the political issues of partisanship faced by culture dominated by men" (p. 153). But they also African-American women. She points out, for ex‐ found that their power and infuence was limited. ample, how African-American women, excluded Despite promises to the contrary, the Progressive from white women's organizations, formed their Party had fallen short of gender equality for wom‐ own nonpartisan clubs but also expressed their en within the party. loyalty to the Republican Party by organizing local As the national sufrage amendment gained women's Republican clubs. Like white women, momentum in the late 1910s, the major parties they pursued both partisan and nonpartisan competed to recruit women into their ranks. As strategies to accomplish their goals.

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Gustafson also expands the picture of wom‐ (June 1984): 620-47; Katherine Kish Sklar, Flo‐ en's partisanship to include views of women as rence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of candidates. For example, Susan B. Anthony op‐ Women's Political Culture, 1830-1900 (New posed women's ambitions for elective ofce in Haven: Yale University Press, 1995); and Gayle sufrage states, while Judith Foster supported this Gullett, Becoming Citizens: The Emergence and idea. Progressive-Republican Florence Collins Development of the California Women's Move‐ Porter of California believed women should run ment, 1880-1911 (Urbana: University of Illinois only for lower-level ofces where they could be Press, 1999). most successful. Gustafson addresses these con‐ [2]. See for example Robert Dinkins, Before ficting views about women candidates through‐ Equal Sufrage: Women in Partisan Politics from out her study. Colonial Times to 1920 (Westport: Greenwood Many of the issues and questions raised by Press, 1995); Rebecca Edwards, Angels in the Ma‐ Gustafson's work can be applied to women's infu‐ chinery: Gender in American Party Politics from ence in the Democratic Party and to politics on the the Civil War to the Progressive Era (New York: state level. While Gustafson rarely mentions the Oxford University Press, 1997); Melanie Democratic Party, she does consider some state- Gustafson, Kristi Miller and Elisabeth Perry, eds., level issues, especially in California where the We Have Come to Stay: American Women and Po‐ Progressive Party took root in the 1910s. In litical Parties, 1880-1960 (Albuquerque: Universi‐ scratching only the surface of these subjects, ty of New Mexico Press, 1999). Gustafson underscores the signifcance of wom‐ en's partisanship beyond the national Republican Party and opens the way for further research. By the time the Nineteenth Amendment passed in 1920, women had clearly been partisan actors walking a fne line between partisan and nonpartisan commitments. Gustafson's work, sig‐ nifcant on many fronts, restores this history of women's partisan past. Just as gender has become an important tool of analysis in American politi‐ cal history, so should the history of American in‐ stitutional politics--with all the complexities of partisanship--become an important consideration in women's political history. This book is an excel‐ lent start in that direction. Notes [1]. These works have been important in re‐ vealing the connection between women's sufrage movements, women's reform organizations and progressivism. See for example William Chafe, The American Woman (New York: Oxford Univer‐ sity Press, 1972); Paula Baker, "The Domestication of Politics: Women and the American Political So‐ ciety, 1780-1920," American Historical Review 89

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Citation: Linda Van Ingen. Review of Gustafson, Melanie Susan. Women and the Republican Party, 1854-1924. H-Women, H-Net Reviews. June, 2002.

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