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‘The Pivotal Right’

Allison Harrell and Jennifer Farrell participate as suffragettes during the 100th anniversary of Lakeview Auditorium in Sugar Land in October 2018.

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2020 Marks the 100th Anniversary of the 19th AmendmentFort Bend history AssociAtion

On August 18, 1920, women across America gained what Susan B. Anthony called “the pivotal right” – the legal ability to vote in political elections. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment; as we head to the polls this election year, take a look back at the history-makers who helped ensure women had the right to cast a vote.

PRIOR TO 1840Though most of the

momentum for women’s suffrage didn’t start until the late 1800s, rumblings of change actually began much earlier.

In the 1700s, some states allowed women to vote if they were widowed or owned property. However, by 1787, legislation had been adopted in all states except New Jersey to prohibit women from voting. By 1807, New Jersey had also revoked women’s voting rights.

1848: SENECA FALLS CONVENTION

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, who met in 1840 at an anti-slavery convention, organized the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. During the event,

Stanton introduced the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments, which listed a number of women’s rights – including the right to vote. This meeting, which was attended by about 300, effectively launched the women’s suffrage movement in the United States.

ABOLITIONISTS & SUFFRAGISTS WORK TOGETHER

Stanton met Susan B. Anthony in 1851 and the two women formed a friendship that spanned more than 50 years. They began collaborating on speeches, articles and books – mostly on women’s rights, but also against slavery. Stanton typically wrote the speeches and Anthony gave them while traveling across the country.

At the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention, Sojourner Truth gave one of the most famous abolitionist/women’s rights speeches in American history called “Ain’t I a Woman?”. Truth continued to speak out for the rights of African Americans and women both before and after the Civil War.

THE CIVIL WARDuring the years 1861-

1865, the country was

embroiled in the Civil War. The women’s suffrage movement slowed as the issue of slavery came to the forefront.

POST-CIVIL WAR IN THE U.S. & TEXAS

After the war, Lucretia Mott helped merge a suffragist group and an anti-slavery group to form the American Equal Rights Association. Its goal was equal suffrage regardless of gender or race.

In 1870, Congress adopted the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, formally giving voting rights to

formerly enslaved black men. Leading suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton opposed the legislation since it did not include women.

In Texas after the Civil War, formerly enslaved males participated in their first vote in 1866. Two years later, a women’s suffrage resolution was introduced at the State Constitutional Convention of 1868-1869. The committee approved the proposal, but the convention rejected it by a vote of 52 to 13.

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Lucretia Mott (left) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met in 1840 at an anti-slavery convention in London. Eight years later, the two organized the first U.S. women’s rights convention.

What is Suffrage?Suffrage is the right to vote

in political elections.

Born into slavery in the late 1700s, Sojourner Truth (left) campaigned for the abolition of slavery and women’s rights. Her speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?,” was given at the 1851 women’s rights convention. Though scholars now debate on the exact wording of her speech, it still became one of the most famous women’s rights talks in American history.

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TEMPERANCE AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS

By the 1890s, suffragists changed their strategy in the case for women’s rights. Instead of arguing that women were equals who deserved the same rights as men, suffragists said that women deserved the right to vote because they were different than men – suggesting that women’s domesticity could be a political virtue to create a better United States.

In Texas, the majority of suffrage work was a mixture of grassroots activism and the efforts of the Texas Women’s Christian Temperance Union. (In 1888, the organization was the first in the South to endorse women’s suffrage.) Suffrage and temperance were often paired over the years, as many women were supporters of both.

The Texas Equal Rights Association was formed in 1893 at a convention in Dallas. The Association organized branches in other Texas cities and, in 1895, introduced a bill to the Texas House of Representatives to enfranchise women. The bill was sent to the Constitutional Amendments Committee but did not advance.

1910S: NATION-WIDEIn the 1910s, the women’s suffrage

movement gained more headway with its first major organized events such as the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade, the National Woman’s Party and the Silent Sentinels. The events garnered large amounts of national attention.

Starting in January 1917, Alice Paul

and a group of suffragists formed a group to publicly protest in front of the White House – the first group to ever do so. Called the “Silent Sentinels” because they protested without speaking a word, their goal was to convince President Woodrow Wilson to pass legislation to guarantee a woman’s right to vote in the United States. Over the course of two years, nearly 2,000 women picketed; hundreds were arrested, and many were jailed, beaten, force-fed and unjustly treated by local and U.S. authorities.

With the start of World War I in 1917, women began to replace men in the workplace as they were shipped overseas to fight. This made a large impact on the suffrage movement, as many women were employed in places

that previously only hired men.

1910S: TEXASCloser to Fort Bend, Minnie Fisher

Cunningham was elected the president of the Galveston Equal Suffrage Association in 1914. She was later elected as the president of the Texas Women’s Suffrage Association.

Cunningham galvanized others to campaign for the impeachment of Texas Governor James E. Ferguson in 1917, and then used the same grassroots campaigning to convince William P. Hobby to give women the primary vote in 1918 (which also ensured Hobby’s nomination).

Hobby’s wife Willie, who had a

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Fort Bend history AssociAtion

According to the December 1913 issue of “The Suffragist,” each color in the suffrage flag had a very specific meaning: “Purple is the color of loyalty, constancy to purpose, unswerving steadfastness to a cause. White, the emblem of purity, symbolizes the quality of our purpose; and gold, the color of light and life, is as the torch that guides our purpose, pure and unswerving.”

Anti-Suffrage GroupsMany people, including prominent women such as Ellen Sherman, wife of General William Tecumseh Sherman, challenged the notion of suffrage as a “natural right,” and opposed its extension to women. In their view, women’s political participation threatened their important roles as wives, mothers, educators and philanthropists.

Massachusetts, home to leading suffrage advocates, was also one of the first states with an organized anti-

suffrage group. In the 1880s, anti-suffrage activists joined together and eventually became known as the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. It wasn’t until 1911, however, that a national organization formed – the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, founded by Josephine Dodge.

Though anti-suffragists eventually lost their battle, their opposition delayed women’s right to vote for decades.

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deep interest in political matters – particularly the feminist movement and women’s suffrage – also became an effective speaker for the cause and later helped influence legislation on its behalf.

On March 26, 1918, Hobby passed a law allowing Texas women to vote in primaries, and in the 17 days following the law going into effect, 386,000 women registered to vote. Hobby won the nomination by 80 percent of the total vote — the largest majority ever received in a Democratic primary.

Hobby attempted to get a full women’s suffrage bill passed in 1919, but it was defeated. At that point, the 19th Amendment was already in the works, so Texas just waited.

A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTAfter decades of struggle, victory was

in sight – though few early supporters of women’s suffrage lived to see the milestone.

By 1916, almost all of the major suffrage organizations were united

behind the goal of a Constitutional amendment.

In 1918, when President Wilson changed his position to support the amendment, the political balance began to shift.

On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the amendment;

the Senate passed it two weeks later. It then went to the states for ratification.

Three-fourths of the states were required to ratify the amendment to become law. Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan were the first to ratify the amendment on June 10, 1919; more than a year later, on August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the

36th state to ratify. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August 26, 1920 and women across America officially had the right to vote.

—“The Pivotal Right” exhibit is currently on display inside the Longhorn Barn at the George Ranch Historical Park. The exhibit explores the women’s suffrage movement and its transition into the Civil Rights era.

Fort Bend history AssociAtion

Minnie Fisher Cunningham was born in 1882 in New Waverly, Texas, the seventh of eight children.

As an adult, Minnie pursued a Graduate of Pharmacy Degree through the Galveston branch of the University of Texas. She graduated in 1901, and found a job in Huntsville, where she worked until 1902, when she married B.J. Cunningham. The inequality of pay between her and her equally-qualified male co-workers

was something that she later cited as a reason she was interested in the suffrage movement.

She became involved with a number of women’s volunteer organizations starting in 1912, and in 1914, was elected the president of the Galveston Equal Suffrage Association. She was later elected as the president of the Texas Women’s Suffrage Association.

Minnie galvanized others to campaign for the impeachment of

Texas Governor James E. Ferguson in 1917, and used the same grassroots campaigning to convince William P. Hobby to give women the primary vote in 1918 (which also ensured Hobby’s nomination).

After the 19th Amendment passed, she continued to be involved in Texas and national politics (she was the first woman from Texas to run for the U.S. Senate). She died in 1964 from congestive heart failure. She was 82.TEXAS STATE LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES

COMMISSION

Texas Suffragette Spotlight: Minnie Fisher Cunningham

William P. Hobby

June 28, 1919Texas became the 9th state to ratify the 19th Amendment.

march 22, 1984After initially rejecting the

Amendment in 1920, Mississippi became the last state to finally

ratify the 19th Amendment.

The Silent Sentinels were the first group to publicly protest outside the White House.