Chapter 17 Section 2 Critical Thinking #3

Chapter 17 Section 2 Critical Thinking #3
During the progressive Era, it seems that many women stepped forward to fight for their rights and introduced many movements that helped to do away with the notion that women were submissive and nonpolitical. Two women who were icons in the suffragist movement were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the women responsible for the Seneca Falls convention of 1848, and .started the National Women’s Suffrage Association with Susan B. Anthony. The NWSA merged with another group in 1890 to make the National American Woman Suffrage Association, a group dedicated (obviously) to suffrage, and facing opposition constantly from different groups (p. 521-522). Other important leaders of the movement were Julia Ward Howe (who wrote “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”), and Lucy Stone. These women were a contradiction to the belief that women were wallflowers in themselves, and were very aggressive in trying to attain what they wanted. Suffragist leaders later launched a 3- Part strategy in order to win the vote for women. First, suffragists tried to convince state legislatures to allow women to vote. They then argued that women were citizens, and denying them the right to vote was against the 14th amendment, and pursued court cases on the matter. Finally, they pushed for an amendment to the constitution granting women the right to vote. They did not always meet with success, but their determination and tenacity did win the suffragists some victories. Utah, Colorado, Idaho and the territory of Wisconsin granted the right to vote to women, and Stanton did succeed in getting the amendment introduced in California, though it was later killed (p. 522). Suffragists did not succeed for the next 41 years, but their determination made a statement, and their refusal to give in did eventually pay off when women were finally granted the right to vote. Without the leadership of leaders such as Stanton and Anthony, women might have still been stereotyped as submissive and nonpolitical for years, but the suffragist leaders changed that.