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Winning the Vote in the West: The Political Successes of the Women's Suffrage Movements, 1866-1919 Holly J. McCammon; Karen E. Campbell Gender and Society, Vol. 15, No. 1. (Feb., 2001), pp. 55-82. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0891-2432%28200102%2915%3A1%3C55%3AWTVITW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z Gender and Society is currently published by Sage Publications, Inc.. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/sage.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org Wed Mar 26 14:15:43 2008

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Page 1: vol15no1

Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens SuffrageMovements 1866-1919

Holly J McCammon Karen E Campbell

Gender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82

Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

Gender and Society is currently published by Sage Publications Inc

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use available athttpwwwjstororgabouttermshtml JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use provides in part that unless you have obtainedprior permission you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles and you may use content inthe JSTOR archive only for your personal non-commercial use

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work Publisher contact information may be obtained athttpwwwjstororgjournalssagehtml

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission

The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academicjournals and scholarly literature from around the world The Archive is supported by libraries scholarly societies publishersand foundations It is an initiative of JSTOR a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community takeadvantage of advances in technology For more information regarding JSTOR please contact supportjstororg

httpwwwjstororgWed Mar 26 141543 2008

WINNING THE VOTE IN THE WEST The Political Successes of the

Womens Suffiage Movements 1866-1919

HOLLY J M C C A M M O N KAREN E CAMPBELL Vanderbilt University

When Congress passed the 19th Amendment in 1919 granting women voting rights 13 western states had already adopted woman suflage Only 2 states outside the West had done so Using event history analysis the authors investigate why woman suffrage came early to the western states Alan Grimess hypotheses thatnative-born western men were willing to give women the vote to remedy western social problems and to increase the number of women in the region receive little support in our analysis Rather this studypnds that woman suffrage came to the West because of the mobilization of the western suffrage movements and because of political and gendered opportunities existing in that region

By1919 when Congress passed the 19th Amendment granting women full voting rights in the United States 13 out of the 16 western states had already granted women full suffrage (see Figure 1) Wyoming was the earliest state (then a territory) to grant suffrage to women doing so in 1869 By contrast outside the West suffra- gists were able to win the right to vote prior to the federal amendment in only two states-New York in 1917 and Michigan in 1918 This regional pattern in the ex- pansion of womens political rights presents an interesting question Why were the western states more likely than states in the East and South to grant woman suffrage prior to the federal amendment

This question has piqued the interest of a number of scholars (eg Beeton 1986 Berman 1987 Grimes 1967 Larson 1971a 1971b) While many have argued that idiosyncratic circumstances in each of the suffrage states resulted in the vote for women (eg Beeton 1986 Larson 197la) the fact that the West was the forerunner in broadening voting rights to include women suggests a set of common social cir- cumstances at work in this region (and not for the most part in other regions) In the

AUTHORSNOTEThis research wasfunded by the National Science Foundation (SBR-31520) the University Research Council at Vanderbilt University and the Carrie Chapman Can Centerfor Women and Politics at Iowa State University We appreciate the comments of Wayne Santoro and the research assistance of Bill Fletcher Ellen Granberg and Chris Mowery

REPRINT REQUESTS Holly JMcCammon Department of Sociology Vanderbilt University Nash- ville TN 37235 e-mail mccammhjctrvarvanderbiltedu

GENDER amp SOCIEIY Vol 15 No 1 February 2001 55-82 Q 2001 Sociologistsfor Women in Society

Figure 1 States and Years in Which Women Won Full Suffrage NOTE Women also gained the right to vote in limited elections in states prior to the federal amendment For instance 26 states allowed women to vote in school elections 13 allowed women to vote in presidential elections and 2 allowed women to vote in primary elections In Washinaton and Utah woman suffrage passed then was rescinded and laterrestored The two years listed for each are for the first and second passages of woman suffrage Using cen- sus cateaories we define the western states (shaded liaht arav) as Arizona California Colorado Idaho Kansas Montana Nebraska Nevada New Mex- ico ~ o r 6 Dakota Oklahoma Oregon south Dakota ijtati washington and wyoming The eastern states (dotted) are Connecticut Delaware Illinois Indiana Iowa Maine Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Missouri New Hampshire New Jersey New York Ohio Pennsylvania Rhode Island Ver- mont West Virginia and Wiconsin The southern states are Alabama Arkansas Florida Georgia Kentucky Louisiana Maryland Mississippi North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee Texas and Virginia (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii from our analysis due to a lack of data)

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 57

most detailed explanation of western suffrage Alan Grimes (1967) in The Puritan Ethic and Woman Suffrage argues that women won the vote earlier in the West because of the belief particularly among many native whites of the region that Puritan values and the resultant lifestyle would more readily take hold on the fron- tier if women could vote According to Grimes native white male legislators and electorates that endorsed woman suffrage did so because they believed that women would support laws regulating the social problems of the region particularly drunk- enness gambling and prostitution These behaviors were typically associated with the young single transient and often immigrant male population of the West

While many historians since Dee Browns (1958) The Gentle Tamers have pointed to womens role on the frontier as that of social civilizers (eg Bartlett 1974 Roy Jeffrey 1998) we offer an alternative to Grimess explanation of why the West led the way in establishing womens voting rights Our explanation is grounded in sociological theories of social movement success As we elaborate below we argue that gendered and political opportunities worked together with the ways in which the suffragists mobilized to convince male lawmakers and male elec- torates to extend democracy to women While such explanations are prominent in sociological studies of social movement success (McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996) and some historians have developed aspects of these theories in their treat- ments of suffrage in particular states (eg Goldberg 1994 Stefanco 1993) they have not been used to offer a general explanation of the adoption of woman suffrage in the West In fact Grimess general explanation continues to shape debates about woman suffrage (Berman 1987 Marshall 1998) We demonstrate in analyses pre- sented here that an explanation rooted in social movement theory better fits the evi- dence of how women won the vote in the western United States

In the following discussion we develop more specific hypotheses concerning passage of suffrage in the West and then use event history analysis to examine the merit of the hypotheses To develop our hypotheses we draw not only on relevant theory and history but also on our data to provide evidence of regional differences in pertinent measures While some of the data used below came from government and other sources many measures were constructed from our extensive content analy- sis of more than 650 secondary accounts of the 48 state suffrage movements in addi- tion to numerous archival sources for six states for which few secondary accounts exist (The six states are Arizona Delaware Maine New Hampshire New Mexico and North Dakota) Unless other sources are noted below the reader can assume that the data came from this extensive collection process

EXPLANATIONS OF HOW WOMEN WON THE VOTE

Alan Grimess Puritan Ethos

In his now classic explanation of how woman suffrage came to the West Grimes (1967) gives responsibility to a primarily native white male constituency that not

58 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

only had the legislative and electoral power to confer the vote upon women but also had an interest in doing so Grimes theorizes that this segment of the western popu- lation reacted to the social instabilities of frontier life and set about to build a more orderly community Granting women voting rights was simply one step in this over- all agenda Female voters would bring Puritan norms of behavior into public life Grimes states that women were for law and order and opposed to vice and the starting place of vice was the saloon (p 70) By supporting laws restricting saloons and other venues of gambling and prostitution women would provide a civilized reaction to frontier rowdiness (p 76)

The desire to impose this vision of social order on emerging frontier communi- ties was also motivated by ethnocentric views According to Grimes some native- born residents were threatened by an influx of foreign-born settlers-for example in South Dakota the Russians Poles and Scandinavians in California the Chi- nese in Iowa the Germans in Wyoming the Irish and Chinese (Berman 1987 Grimes 1967) Particularly threatening were the concentrations of these groups in the growing urban areas of the West Interestingly the West did not lag much behind the East in terms of the presence of urban immigrants While in the East between 1870 and 1920 an average of 24 percent of urban residents were foreign- born in the West 22 percent of urban residents were born outside US borders (Lee et al 1957) (In the South the figure was only 7 percent)

This native-born constituency also argued that giving women voting rights wouldeffectively double the vote of stable manied men many of whom according to Grimes (1967) were proponents of the Puritan ethos (p 53) In addition where sex ratios were skewed toward men as they often were on the western frontier native whites argued that voting rights for women would help to lure greater num- bers of women-with their keener sense of moral behavior-to the West (p 58)

While a number of researchers have examined the empirical support for Grimess theory the results have been mixed at best Most of these studies have focused on native-born and foreign-born votes on suffrage referenda to discern whether an eth- nic difference in support for woman suffrage existed Berman (1987) for instance found that in the 1912 Arizona constitutional referendum on woman suffrage both native- and foreign-born male voters supported giving women the vote McDonagh and Price (1985 428-29) in analyses of referenda in California Oregon and Washington found little evidence of ethnic differences in support for woman suf- frage One study that does provide support for Grimess thesis is early work by Riessen Reed (1958) on South Dakota where German Americans resisted suf- frage primarily because of the assumption that female voters would support prohi- bition legislation

However Grimes (1967) was not as concerned with ethnic differences in sup- port of woman suffrage as he was with the circumstances in which the native-born population was likely to support woman suffrage Grimes posited that support for woman suffrage would be most pronounced where the social problems of the West (in particular drunkenness gambling and prostitution) were pervasive where a high concentration of urban immigrants resided and where a high male-to-female

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 59

population ratio existed Below we explore whether empirical support exists for Grimess hypotheses First however we discuss an alternative explanation of the Wests early adoption of woman suffrage

Movement Mobilization and Opportunity Structures

We propose an alternative understanding of suffrage success in the West Ours is an explanation rooted in three dynamics theorized in the social movements litera- ture to be important in winning significant changes in political policy (1) the ways in which the western suffrage movements mobilized (2) political opportunities in the West and (3) gendered opportunities that also existed in the West We discuss each of these in turn

Resource Mobilization and Ideological Framing

A number of researchers including Grimes (1967) who have explored the inci- dence of early suffrage in the West ignore the role of the state suffrage movements in bringing about voting rights for women (see eg Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) This is an odd oversight given that suffrage movements were active at some point in every state except Wyoming the very first state to grant suffrage Sociologists (eg Gamson 1975) on the other hand have pointed to the impor- tance of movements mobilizing key resources as they attempt to achieve signifi- cant political change Thus we explore the role of the state suffrage movements in winning full voting rights in the West

Resource mobilization theorists (eg McCarthy and Zald 1977) argue that movement organization and key strategies are crucial resources as movements seek social change And in the West there were active suffrage associations in all but two cases No organized movement existed in Wyoming although a few individuals demanded the vote before suffrage was won there Also no movement existed in Utah before 1870 when suffrage was first granted there (see Figure 1) But when the franchise was later granted again in 1895 there was a sizable suffrage movement in Utah On the other hand every state outside the West also had an organized suffrage movement yet few states outside the West enacted suffrage For instance suffra- gists first organized the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 (Cady Stanton Anthony and Gage [I8861 1985 321) one of the earliest state associa- tions It lasted until the end of the movement in 1920 But prior to the 19th Amend- ment Connecticut did not grant woman suffrage While the presence of suffragists mattered in that they were instrumental in putting woman suffrage on the legislative and electoral agendas the presence of a movement organization alone did not guar- antee success at the state level

It is also unclear how important the extent of organizing was for political suc- cess While some western states had sizable suffrage movements not all of them did and moreover a number of states outside the West had large movements For instance some states had multiple types of suffrage organizations such as Mens

60 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

TABLE 1 Average Membership in NAWSA-Affiliated State Suffrage Associations for Years of Suffrage Activity 1892-1919 (members per 10000 in states population)

State Members per 10000 State Members per 10000

Utah 4070 Vermont 246 Nevada 3343 Tennessee 241 New Hampshire 985 West Virginia 241 Connecticut 953 Illinois 231 Massachusetts 760 Texas 21 8 Delaware 682 Oregon 217 Maryland 623 South Dakota 206 Rhode Island 608 Ohio 199 Montana 593 Washington 190 North Dakota 565 Alabama 187 Virginia 531 Kansas 164 Nebraska 528 Wisconsin 159 Iowa 452 Arkansas 148 Indiana 451 Michigan 131 New York 430 Missouri 108 New Jersey 391 Oklahoma 107 Louisiana 369 Georgia 101 Kentucky 345 Colorado 067 California 334 Mississippi 062 Minnesota 333 North Carolina 060 Florida 310 New Mexico 058 Maine 292 South Carolina 031 Pennsylvania 267 Idaho 000 Arizona 266

NOTE NAWSA = National American Woman Suffrage Association No data are available for Wyoming Data on membership are only available beginning in 1892 (NAWSA 1893-1 91 7 191 9)

Suffrage Leagues or College Womens Equal Suffrage Leagues and more than one state organization But the western states generally lagged behind the eastern and southern states in the number of suffrage organizations While roughly half of the eastern and southern states had three or more suffrage organizations in existence at one time at the height of their movements only one-third of the western states did so A large number of suffrage organizations then probably was not a key factor in the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

The extent of organizing can also be considered in terms of movement member- ship Data on membership appear in Table 1 and show that the top two states in terms of average membership were Utah and Nevada each of which had extremely large memberships in state suffrage associations just prior to winning the vote in those states (the second time suffrage was won in Utah) Yet on the other hand North Dakota and Nebraska also had relatively large memberships and neither granted suffrage Furthermore the South and the West seem to compete in terms

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 61

of states with the smallest memberships Of the six states with the smallest member- ships three are southern (Mississippi North and South Carolina) and three are western (Colorado Idaho and New Mexico) and two of the western states (Colo- rado and Idaho) enacted suffrage Thus while the ability of some of the western movements to recruit sizable memberships may help explain why woman suffrage came early to those states (eg in Utah Nevada and Montana) the more frequent occurrence appears to be that large memberships did not translate into suffrage suc- cess Some western states with large memberships did not pass suffrage (Nebraska and North Dakota) and the eastern states with the largest memberships (New Hampshire Connecticut and Massachusetts) also did not grant suffrage Other aspects of the movements besides organization are likely to be more important in the passage of suffrage

In particular the strategies used by the movements in the West may help explain early suffrage there Suffragists in general engaged in a variety of tactics to con- vince lawmakers and the general public that women ought to have the vote We con- sider four types of activities The first two concern what political scientists refer to as insider and outsider strategies (Hunter Graham 1996 xv-xvi) Insider strate- gies involve activities used by movement activists to persuade political insiders- effectively lawmakers or politicians-that movement demands ought to be met The state suffragists used a variety of insider strategies including personally lobby- ing state legislators writing them letters giving speeches in state legislatures and gathering signatures on petitions to present to state legislatures Outsider strategies on the other hand involved suffragist attempts to recruit new members along with efforts to alter public opinion on woman suffrage effectively strategies designed to target political outsiders or at least nonpoliticians The suffragists engaged in a variety of such activities To build membership suffragists held regular state suf- frage conventions organized various social events and put trained organizers in the field To persuade the general public that women should be given the right to vote suffragists gave public speeches distributed handbills advertised in newspapers held suffrage parades and set up booths at local fairs

A preliminary look at regional differences in the overall use of insider and out- sider strategies reveals that the West differed from the other areas in terms of out- sider strategies Table 2 presents figures on the average use of these strategies in the different regions from 1866 to 1919 for the years of suffrage activity The West did not engage in insider strategies more or less so than did the South and East (see col- umn 1 including t-statistics) But western movements did use outsider strategies significantly less frequently than the other two regions (column 2) At first this might seem counterintuitive One would expect that greater use of outsider strate- gies would aid the suffragists in winning the vote but some western movements worked to keep a low profile advertising their message less to the general public to minimize backlash against the movements Abigail Scott Duniway a prominent leader in the Idaho Oregon and Washington campaigns preferred what she called the still hunt whereby the suffragists would quietly appeal to sympathetic

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 63

legislators for their support avoiding highly public demands for the vote (Moynihan 1983) Ultimately perhaps this quiet campaign style helped the suf- frage cause in the West by failing to arouse opposition to the movements

The suffragists used another strategy as they worked for voting rights They crafted their public arguments for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs in society in this case particularly beliefs about womens appropriate roles Snow et al (1986) refer to this activity as frame bridging Over time the suffra- gists became more savvy to the kinds of arguments for the vote that were likely to be accepted by the public The suffragists came to realize that arguments asserting womens right to equal suffrage-what Kraditor (1965) calls justice argumentsw-- met with resistance in the larger population (Baker 1984 634) Justice arguments tended to call for a basic redefinition of womens roles arguing that it was appropri- ate for women to participate in the political arena as equals Widely held beliefs at the time however defined womens appropriate roles as domestic such as caring for children and running households These were quite different from the roles defined for men in the public domains of business and politics (Kerber 1997) Jus- tice arguments about equality presented a direct challenge to such assumptions of male and female differences and separate spheres

Thus increasingly over time suffragists began to rely on another type of argu- ment As Kraditor (1965) points out and as our data indicate the suffragists began to use expediency arguments (although as our data also show and as Buechler [I9861 notes the suffragists did not abandon the justice arguments) Expediency arguments posited that women should have the vote to bring their special skills and insights to the political arena what Baker (1984635) calls a public motherhood role for women whereby women with their nurturing qualities would care for and improve public life by reducing corruption in government helping the poor im- proving public education and so on The different character of women would be an asset to politics and effectively the private sphere of womanhood would be expanded to include aspects of political or public life Expediency arguments thus framed the rationale for woman suffrage in ways that did not pose the same sort of challenge to accepted beliefs about womens roles and the differences between women and men as did the justice arguments

Table 2 shows that western suffragists were significantly more likely than suffra- gists outside the West to use expediency arguments (column 3) In Washington State for instance in the 1909 suffrage campaign participants called it a womanly campaign emphasizing the home interests (Husted Harper [I9221 1985 677) Perhaps this more frequent use in the West of an argument that was likely to reso- nate with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate place in society boosted the efforts of the suffragists in the West The West also was a region as Grimes (1 967) makes clear with numerous social problems For this reason as well expedi- ency arguments extolling womens ability to remedy social ills might have reso- nated among western legislators and voters Thus while Grimes (1967) argues that the problems of the West themselves resulted in support for voting rights for women we hypothesize that the suffragists brought about this support by shaping

64 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

their arguments to emphasize the contribution women voters could make in reme- dying such conditions

Finally we consider a fourth strategy used by the suffragists fund-raising Rais- ing funds to sustain movement activities is a crucial ingredient to successful activ- ism (McCammon et al forthcoming) Making trips to the state capitol to lobby law- makers and spreading the suffrage message through newspapers and other literature all held costs for the suffragists The movements raised funds in a variety of ways charging admission to suffrage speeches and plays soliciting outright contribu- tions to the movement and holding a variety of types of sales and other events For instance in 1909 in Washington suffragists sold a suffrage cookbook and in Montana in 1914 they held dances to raise funds (Husted Harper [I9221 1985365 677)

But the figures in column 4 of Table 2 show that the western movements were not different from the eastern and southern movements in the amount of their fund- raising activity However we examine an additional measure the amount of money the state associations were able to contribute to the National American Woman Suf- frage Association (NAWSA) divided by the size of the states population (NAWSA 1893-1917 1919 US Bureau of the Census 1975 col 5)-in large part an out- come of the movements fund-raising activities While the western and eastern regions were not significantly different from one another the western movements contributed significantly greater funds to NAWSA than did the southern suffrage movements Perhaps this financial advantage experienced by the West (and also the East) but not the South helps in part at least to explain the early suffrage successes in the West The western movements in fact may have had a greater need for funds than the eastern (or southern) movements given the greater geographic distances they had to cover to spread their message and the travel costs this entailed

Political and Gendered Opportunity Structures

A number of researchers who study movements have noted that success hinges not only on the movements ability to mobilize key resources but also on contextual circumstances that provide opportunities for movement success (eg McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996 McCammon et al forthcoming) While Grimes (1967) in his theorizing ignored the role of the state suffrage movements in the West he did attend to cultural beliefs and ethnic relations that provided in his thinking a con- text in which suffrage was possible Here we consider additional contextual cir- cumstances in the western frontier that may have provided opportunities for the success of the suffrage movements

Various researchers have theorized the importance of political opportunity structures for movement emergence and success opportunities that tend to reside in formal state structures or in shifts in electoral politics (McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996) A political opportunity that may have eased the way for the passage of woman suffrage in the West concerns the nature of state and territorial procedures for reform of voting rights While almost all states required a public referendum on

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 65

woman suffrage in addition to a legislative vote the territories did not The territo- ries could enact woman suffrage simply with a favorable legislative vote and dur- ing the years of suffrage activity all of the territories in existence were in the West (They were Arizona Colorado Idaho Montana Nebraska New Mexico North Dakota Oklahoma South Dakota Utah Washington and Wyoming) The ease offered by a less complex procedure for reform of voting rights such as that which existed in the territories suggests that a political opportunity for policy change can help explain why suffrage came to the West earlier than elsewhere

On the other hand although the territories had a less complex procedure for enacting suffrage only 3 of the 12 states that were territories during the suffrage years passed woman suffrage during their territorial years (Utah Washington [only in 18831 and Wyoming) The other western states that enacted suffrage along with Michigan and New York did so as states But the procedural ease or difficulty of expanding voting rights varied between the states as well While all states except Delaware required a referendum vote on woman suffrage some states such as Michigan required only a single legislative vote prior to a referendum Other states had far more complex procedures Illinois in fact first required a positive vote in the state legislature then a favorable vote by a constitutional convention and then finally public approval in a referendum Constitutional conventions however could be called only every 20 years in Illinois and this in particular severely hin- dered the suffragists chances of winning full voting rights in Illinois (Buechler 1986103) It is likely then that reform procedures in both territories and states mat- tered for sufiage In fact overall the states granting full suffrage to women had simpler reform procedures on average than did states not granting voting rights to women

Another circumstance that can provide a political opportunity for groups to bring about political change is when such groups win the support of political elites (Tarrow 1998) Such elites then can become allies in the quest for political change The suffragists routinely sought the support of political parties not only the Demo- cratic and Republican Parties but third parties-the Populists Progressives Prohi- bitionists and Socialists-as well The suffragists regularly attended state party conventions and appealed for party endorsements of woman suffrage In 11 out of the 15 states in which suffrage was won either the Democrats or the Republicans had recently endorsed woman suffrage-and in 8 of these states both parties did so In addition in 9 out of the 15 suffrage states the suffragists received endorsements from third parties just before winning suffrage (and in every case this was in addi- tion to support from at least one of the two major parties)

On the other hand in states where woman suffrage was not adopted by the final decade of the suffrage movement suffrage movements in only 8 (out of 33) states had solid support (ie an endorsement lasting four or more years) from at least one of the two major parties and in only 4 states had solid support from one of the third parties The lack of support particularly among the Democrats and Republicans in states outside the West is due both to the opposition to woman suffrage by the politi- cal machines in many large eastern industrial cities that lasted until the late 1910s

66 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

(Buenker 1971) and the opposition of southern Democrats who feared woman suf- frage would mean Negro (woman) suffrage (Spruill Wheeler 1993 17- 18) The lack of such entrenched political interests in the West then suggests another politi- cal opportunity for suffrage in that region

Just as political opportunities mattered for woman suffrage we theorize that gendered opportunities also are important in explaining early suffrage in the West Gendered opportunities can emerge from shifts in gender relations and from changes in beliefs about these relations (McCammon et al forthcoming) In the late 19th century as noted a widely accepted belief was that men should inhabit the public sphere of business and politics while women were thought to be fit both biologically and socially for only the private sphere of the home (Kerber 1997) Such beliefs worked to exclude women from activities in business and politics including exercising the franchise However in various ways where the boundary between the two spheres became blurred we argue it became more acceptable for women to have a formal voice in the polity and thus a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage emerged

The boundary between the public and private spheres tended to blur where women were moving into areas previously occupied by men and interestingly this pattern was more pronounced in a number of ways in the western states during the years of suffrage activity than in the eastern and southern states Columns 67 and 8 in Table 2 show that in terms of womens enrollment in higher education and employment in the professions of law and medicine during the years of suffrage activity the West for the most part led the rest of the nation Column 6 provides regional means for the percentage of all college and university students who were women The figures show that there were proportionately more women in colleges and universities in the West than in the East or the South Table 2 also shows that among lawyers and physicians proportionately more women tended to be in these occupations in the West during this period than in the East or South (columns 7 and 8) The figures in the table represent the number of female lawyers and doctors per 1000 lawyers and doctors respectively While the numbers particularly for women lawyers are quite small the West had significantly more women in the occupation of lawyer than the East or South and had significantly more women in the occupation of physician than the South (the mean is slightly higher for the West compared with the East but they are not significantly different) Moreover in 1910 while 11 percent of the overall US female population lived in the West the West was home to 21 percent of all female lawyers and 22 percent of all female doctors (US Bureau of the Census 1914) Clearly women in the West had made greater inroads into these male spheres of activity than had women in other regions

Another indicator of womens presence in a traditionally male arena is lobbying and other political efforts on the part of womens groups as they attempted to shape social policy A number of such womens groups existed during these years includ- ing (1) the Consumers League which lobbied legislatures to enact protective legis- lation for women and child laborers (McCammon 1995) (2) the General Federa- tion of Womens Clubs which worked not only on protective laws but numerous

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 67

other types of legislation such as school library and food reform (Blair 1980) (3) the National Congress of Mothers which also advocated for a variety of legislative reforms (Cott 1987 87) (4) the National Womens Trade Union League which also pushed for protective legislation for women (Schrom Dye 1980) and (5) the Womans Christian Temperance Union which played a role in winning prohibi- tion reforms and in some states woman suffrage as well (Epstein 1981) In terms of the number of such organizations in a state (divided by the size of the female population) the West outpaced the East and South (column 9) While the western states had about one womens organization for every 100000 women in thepopula- tion the eastern states had approximately one organization for every 250000 women (or 039 per 100000) and the southern states had one organization for every 400000 women (or 025 per 100000) We argue that the prevalence of politically active womens organizations in the West also provided a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage

Others as well have noted the Wests progressiveness in terms of womens move- ment into male domains (eg Cole 1990 Myres 1982 Patterson-Black 1976) For instance Matsuda (1985) finds that women owned more property in the West than elsewhere largely because of the Homestead Act of 1862 and its role in allowing thousands of single divorced and widowed women (but not married women living with their husbands [Muhn 19941) to claim property in the western region Patterson-Black (197668) in fact estimates that across the West between the late 19th and early 20th centuries about 12 percent of homestead entrants were women with the percentage starting small but increasing over time By 1913 one estimate of the proportion of female homesteaders put the figure at one-third (Stuart 19 13)

The reasons for the Wests leadership are not entirely clear Some have followed Frederick Jackson Turners (1972 Cole 1990) reasoning by claiming that a liberat- ing culture of frontier egalitarianism prevailed on the western frontier This argu- ment holds that the arduousness of life on the frontier caused women and men to work and struggle side by side often at the same tasks This allowed Westerners to innovate and hold more egalitarian beliefs about gender relations which then per- mitted women easier access to traditionally male arenas of activity

But other explanations of the Wests early acceptance of women in male domains are probably also useful For instance womens early presence in institu- tions of higher education in the West in all likelihood was tied to the fact that the West unlike many parts of the East and South was far more likely to have public land grant universities provisioned for under the Morill Act of 1862 (Goldin and Katz 1999) and public universities were typically less resistant to womens enroll- ments than were privately funded colleges and universities (Albjerg Graham 1978 767) The fact that women were more common in institutions of higher education in the West may also have helped pave the way for their greater presence in the profes- sions in that region Another circumstance unique to the West was that the average age of the population was younger in the West than in other regions (Larson 1974 8) and this also may have contributed both to higher enrollments in colleges and universities and to womens presence in law and medicine Younger women are

68 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

typically more willing and likely to move into traditionally male fields (Beller 1984) Finally the Homestead Act itself may have contributed to altered gender relations in the West The law did not exclude women from claiming land stating that Any person [emphasis added] who is the head of a family or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years is entitled to stake a claim (Muhn 1994 285) While this was interpreted to mean that married women living with their husbands could not make an independent entry it did give some women access to the economic power of property ownership and this provided a circumstance unique to the West that helped women step across the boundary separating the public and private spheres

Whether the primary cause underlying womens greater presence in male arenas of activity in the West stemmed from frontier egalitarianism or from a coincidental confluence of demographic and legal circumstances in that region in the end we argue that womens greater inroads into these male spheres in education the profes- sions voluntaristic politics and property ownership helped structure a gendered opportunity for the adoption of woman suffrage in the West Because women had already begun crossing gender boundaries in these other spheres male legislators and the male electorates of the West were more willing or tolerant of the idea of women participating formally in politics Thus in addition to the activities of the western suffrage movements and political opportunities in the West gendered opportunities we argue also helped to create an environment in which women were more likely to win voting rights

DATA AND METHOD

We use discrete methods in event history analysis to analyze the circumstances resulting in woman suffrage at the state level prior to passage of the 19th Amend- ment (McCammon 1998) All of our data are annual state-level measures and all 48 states are included in our analysis (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii due to a lack of data) Unless a data source is listed below one can assume data came from our con- tent analysis of documents describing the state suffrage movements (McCammon et al forthcoming) Our dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of the pas- sage of woman suffrage and is equal to 0 for years prior to the passage of full suf- frage in a state and 1 for the year in which suffrage was enacted (NAWSA 1940) If suffrage was not enacted in a state the dependent variable remains equal to 0 Years following the adoption of suffrage are not included in the analysis because a state is no longer at risk of passing suffrage3

We use three measures to assess Grimess (1967) theory (1) the number of bar- keeps and saloon keepers per capita (US Bureau of the Census 186418721883 1897 1902 1914 1923 1975)4 (2) the percentage of the population that was urban foreign-born (Lee et al 1957 US Bureau of the Census 1975) and (3) the ratio of the size of the male population to the size of the female population (US Bureau of the Census 1975) In the analyses including the saloon variable we also

McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

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Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

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WINNING THE VOTE IN THE WEST The Political Successes of the

Womens Suffiage Movements 1866-1919

HOLLY J M C C A M M O N KAREN E CAMPBELL Vanderbilt University

When Congress passed the 19th Amendment in 1919 granting women voting rights 13 western states had already adopted woman suflage Only 2 states outside the West had done so Using event history analysis the authors investigate why woman suffrage came early to the western states Alan Grimess hypotheses thatnative-born western men were willing to give women the vote to remedy western social problems and to increase the number of women in the region receive little support in our analysis Rather this studypnds that woman suffrage came to the West because of the mobilization of the western suffrage movements and because of political and gendered opportunities existing in that region

By1919 when Congress passed the 19th Amendment granting women full voting rights in the United States 13 out of the 16 western states had already granted women full suffrage (see Figure 1) Wyoming was the earliest state (then a territory) to grant suffrage to women doing so in 1869 By contrast outside the West suffra- gists were able to win the right to vote prior to the federal amendment in only two states-New York in 1917 and Michigan in 1918 This regional pattern in the ex- pansion of womens political rights presents an interesting question Why were the western states more likely than states in the East and South to grant woman suffrage prior to the federal amendment

This question has piqued the interest of a number of scholars (eg Beeton 1986 Berman 1987 Grimes 1967 Larson 1971a 1971b) While many have argued that idiosyncratic circumstances in each of the suffrage states resulted in the vote for women (eg Beeton 1986 Larson 197la) the fact that the West was the forerunner in broadening voting rights to include women suggests a set of common social cir- cumstances at work in this region (and not for the most part in other regions) In the

AUTHORSNOTEThis research wasfunded by the National Science Foundation (SBR-31520) the University Research Council at Vanderbilt University and the Carrie Chapman Can Centerfor Women and Politics at Iowa State University We appreciate the comments of Wayne Santoro and the research assistance of Bill Fletcher Ellen Granberg and Chris Mowery

REPRINT REQUESTS Holly JMcCammon Department of Sociology Vanderbilt University Nash- ville TN 37235 e-mail mccammhjctrvarvanderbiltedu

GENDER amp SOCIEIY Vol 15 No 1 February 2001 55-82 Q 2001 Sociologistsfor Women in Society

Figure 1 States and Years in Which Women Won Full Suffrage NOTE Women also gained the right to vote in limited elections in states prior to the federal amendment For instance 26 states allowed women to vote in school elections 13 allowed women to vote in presidential elections and 2 allowed women to vote in primary elections In Washinaton and Utah woman suffrage passed then was rescinded and laterrestored The two years listed for each are for the first and second passages of woman suffrage Using cen- sus cateaories we define the western states (shaded liaht arav) as Arizona California Colorado Idaho Kansas Montana Nebraska Nevada New Mex- ico ~ o r 6 Dakota Oklahoma Oregon south Dakota ijtati washington and wyoming The eastern states (dotted) are Connecticut Delaware Illinois Indiana Iowa Maine Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Missouri New Hampshire New Jersey New York Ohio Pennsylvania Rhode Island Ver- mont West Virginia and Wiconsin The southern states are Alabama Arkansas Florida Georgia Kentucky Louisiana Maryland Mississippi North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee Texas and Virginia (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii from our analysis due to a lack of data)

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 57

most detailed explanation of western suffrage Alan Grimes (1967) in The Puritan Ethic and Woman Suffrage argues that women won the vote earlier in the West because of the belief particularly among many native whites of the region that Puritan values and the resultant lifestyle would more readily take hold on the fron- tier if women could vote According to Grimes native white male legislators and electorates that endorsed woman suffrage did so because they believed that women would support laws regulating the social problems of the region particularly drunk- enness gambling and prostitution These behaviors were typically associated with the young single transient and often immigrant male population of the West

While many historians since Dee Browns (1958) The Gentle Tamers have pointed to womens role on the frontier as that of social civilizers (eg Bartlett 1974 Roy Jeffrey 1998) we offer an alternative to Grimess explanation of why the West led the way in establishing womens voting rights Our explanation is grounded in sociological theories of social movement success As we elaborate below we argue that gendered and political opportunities worked together with the ways in which the suffragists mobilized to convince male lawmakers and male elec- torates to extend democracy to women While such explanations are prominent in sociological studies of social movement success (McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996) and some historians have developed aspects of these theories in their treat- ments of suffrage in particular states (eg Goldberg 1994 Stefanco 1993) they have not been used to offer a general explanation of the adoption of woman suffrage in the West In fact Grimess general explanation continues to shape debates about woman suffrage (Berman 1987 Marshall 1998) We demonstrate in analyses pre- sented here that an explanation rooted in social movement theory better fits the evi- dence of how women won the vote in the western United States

In the following discussion we develop more specific hypotheses concerning passage of suffrage in the West and then use event history analysis to examine the merit of the hypotheses To develop our hypotheses we draw not only on relevant theory and history but also on our data to provide evidence of regional differences in pertinent measures While some of the data used below came from government and other sources many measures were constructed from our extensive content analy- sis of more than 650 secondary accounts of the 48 state suffrage movements in addi- tion to numerous archival sources for six states for which few secondary accounts exist (The six states are Arizona Delaware Maine New Hampshire New Mexico and North Dakota) Unless other sources are noted below the reader can assume that the data came from this extensive collection process

EXPLANATIONS OF HOW WOMEN WON THE VOTE

Alan Grimess Puritan Ethos

In his now classic explanation of how woman suffrage came to the West Grimes (1967) gives responsibility to a primarily native white male constituency that not

58 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

only had the legislative and electoral power to confer the vote upon women but also had an interest in doing so Grimes theorizes that this segment of the western popu- lation reacted to the social instabilities of frontier life and set about to build a more orderly community Granting women voting rights was simply one step in this over- all agenda Female voters would bring Puritan norms of behavior into public life Grimes states that women were for law and order and opposed to vice and the starting place of vice was the saloon (p 70) By supporting laws restricting saloons and other venues of gambling and prostitution women would provide a civilized reaction to frontier rowdiness (p 76)

The desire to impose this vision of social order on emerging frontier communi- ties was also motivated by ethnocentric views According to Grimes some native- born residents were threatened by an influx of foreign-born settlers-for example in South Dakota the Russians Poles and Scandinavians in California the Chi- nese in Iowa the Germans in Wyoming the Irish and Chinese (Berman 1987 Grimes 1967) Particularly threatening were the concentrations of these groups in the growing urban areas of the West Interestingly the West did not lag much behind the East in terms of the presence of urban immigrants While in the East between 1870 and 1920 an average of 24 percent of urban residents were foreign- born in the West 22 percent of urban residents were born outside US borders (Lee et al 1957) (In the South the figure was only 7 percent)

This native-born constituency also argued that giving women voting rights wouldeffectively double the vote of stable manied men many of whom according to Grimes (1967) were proponents of the Puritan ethos (p 53) In addition where sex ratios were skewed toward men as they often were on the western frontier native whites argued that voting rights for women would help to lure greater num- bers of women-with their keener sense of moral behavior-to the West (p 58)

While a number of researchers have examined the empirical support for Grimess theory the results have been mixed at best Most of these studies have focused on native-born and foreign-born votes on suffrage referenda to discern whether an eth- nic difference in support for woman suffrage existed Berman (1987) for instance found that in the 1912 Arizona constitutional referendum on woman suffrage both native- and foreign-born male voters supported giving women the vote McDonagh and Price (1985 428-29) in analyses of referenda in California Oregon and Washington found little evidence of ethnic differences in support for woman suf- frage One study that does provide support for Grimess thesis is early work by Riessen Reed (1958) on South Dakota where German Americans resisted suf- frage primarily because of the assumption that female voters would support prohi- bition legislation

However Grimes (1967) was not as concerned with ethnic differences in sup- port of woman suffrage as he was with the circumstances in which the native-born population was likely to support woman suffrage Grimes posited that support for woman suffrage would be most pronounced where the social problems of the West (in particular drunkenness gambling and prostitution) were pervasive where a high concentration of urban immigrants resided and where a high male-to-female

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 59

population ratio existed Below we explore whether empirical support exists for Grimess hypotheses First however we discuss an alternative explanation of the Wests early adoption of woman suffrage

Movement Mobilization and Opportunity Structures

We propose an alternative understanding of suffrage success in the West Ours is an explanation rooted in three dynamics theorized in the social movements litera- ture to be important in winning significant changes in political policy (1) the ways in which the western suffrage movements mobilized (2) political opportunities in the West and (3) gendered opportunities that also existed in the West We discuss each of these in turn

Resource Mobilization and Ideological Framing

A number of researchers including Grimes (1967) who have explored the inci- dence of early suffrage in the West ignore the role of the state suffrage movements in bringing about voting rights for women (see eg Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) This is an odd oversight given that suffrage movements were active at some point in every state except Wyoming the very first state to grant suffrage Sociologists (eg Gamson 1975) on the other hand have pointed to the impor- tance of movements mobilizing key resources as they attempt to achieve signifi- cant political change Thus we explore the role of the state suffrage movements in winning full voting rights in the West

Resource mobilization theorists (eg McCarthy and Zald 1977) argue that movement organization and key strategies are crucial resources as movements seek social change And in the West there were active suffrage associations in all but two cases No organized movement existed in Wyoming although a few individuals demanded the vote before suffrage was won there Also no movement existed in Utah before 1870 when suffrage was first granted there (see Figure 1) But when the franchise was later granted again in 1895 there was a sizable suffrage movement in Utah On the other hand every state outside the West also had an organized suffrage movement yet few states outside the West enacted suffrage For instance suffra- gists first organized the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 (Cady Stanton Anthony and Gage [I8861 1985 321) one of the earliest state associa- tions It lasted until the end of the movement in 1920 But prior to the 19th Amend- ment Connecticut did not grant woman suffrage While the presence of suffragists mattered in that they were instrumental in putting woman suffrage on the legislative and electoral agendas the presence of a movement organization alone did not guar- antee success at the state level

It is also unclear how important the extent of organizing was for political suc- cess While some western states had sizable suffrage movements not all of them did and moreover a number of states outside the West had large movements For instance some states had multiple types of suffrage organizations such as Mens

60 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

TABLE 1 Average Membership in NAWSA-Affiliated State Suffrage Associations for Years of Suffrage Activity 1892-1919 (members per 10000 in states population)

State Members per 10000 State Members per 10000

Utah 4070 Vermont 246 Nevada 3343 Tennessee 241 New Hampshire 985 West Virginia 241 Connecticut 953 Illinois 231 Massachusetts 760 Texas 21 8 Delaware 682 Oregon 217 Maryland 623 South Dakota 206 Rhode Island 608 Ohio 199 Montana 593 Washington 190 North Dakota 565 Alabama 187 Virginia 531 Kansas 164 Nebraska 528 Wisconsin 159 Iowa 452 Arkansas 148 Indiana 451 Michigan 131 New York 430 Missouri 108 New Jersey 391 Oklahoma 107 Louisiana 369 Georgia 101 Kentucky 345 Colorado 067 California 334 Mississippi 062 Minnesota 333 North Carolina 060 Florida 310 New Mexico 058 Maine 292 South Carolina 031 Pennsylvania 267 Idaho 000 Arizona 266

NOTE NAWSA = National American Woman Suffrage Association No data are available for Wyoming Data on membership are only available beginning in 1892 (NAWSA 1893-1 91 7 191 9)

Suffrage Leagues or College Womens Equal Suffrage Leagues and more than one state organization But the western states generally lagged behind the eastern and southern states in the number of suffrage organizations While roughly half of the eastern and southern states had three or more suffrage organizations in existence at one time at the height of their movements only one-third of the western states did so A large number of suffrage organizations then probably was not a key factor in the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

The extent of organizing can also be considered in terms of movement member- ship Data on membership appear in Table 1 and show that the top two states in terms of average membership were Utah and Nevada each of which had extremely large memberships in state suffrage associations just prior to winning the vote in those states (the second time suffrage was won in Utah) Yet on the other hand North Dakota and Nebraska also had relatively large memberships and neither granted suffrage Furthermore the South and the West seem to compete in terms

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 61

of states with the smallest memberships Of the six states with the smallest member- ships three are southern (Mississippi North and South Carolina) and three are western (Colorado Idaho and New Mexico) and two of the western states (Colo- rado and Idaho) enacted suffrage Thus while the ability of some of the western movements to recruit sizable memberships may help explain why woman suffrage came early to those states (eg in Utah Nevada and Montana) the more frequent occurrence appears to be that large memberships did not translate into suffrage suc- cess Some western states with large memberships did not pass suffrage (Nebraska and North Dakota) and the eastern states with the largest memberships (New Hampshire Connecticut and Massachusetts) also did not grant suffrage Other aspects of the movements besides organization are likely to be more important in the passage of suffrage

In particular the strategies used by the movements in the West may help explain early suffrage there Suffragists in general engaged in a variety of tactics to con- vince lawmakers and the general public that women ought to have the vote We con- sider four types of activities The first two concern what political scientists refer to as insider and outsider strategies (Hunter Graham 1996 xv-xvi) Insider strate- gies involve activities used by movement activists to persuade political insiders- effectively lawmakers or politicians-that movement demands ought to be met The state suffragists used a variety of insider strategies including personally lobby- ing state legislators writing them letters giving speeches in state legislatures and gathering signatures on petitions to present to state legislatures Outsider strategies on the other hand involved suffragist attempts to recruit new members along with efforts to alter public opinion on woman suffrage effectively strategies designed to target political outsiders or at least nonpoliticians The suffragists engaged in a variety of such activities To build membership suffragists held regular state suf- frage conventions organized various social events and put trained organizers in the field To persuade the general public that women should be given the right to vote suffragists gave public speeches distributed handbills advertised in newspapers held suffrage parades and set up booths at local fairs

A preliminary look at regional differences in the overall use of insider and out- sider strategies reveals that the West differed from the other areas in terms of out- sider strategies Table 2 presents figures on the average use of these strategies in the different regions from 1866 to 1919 for the years of suffrage activity The West did not engage in insider strategies more or less so than did the South and East (see col- umn 1 including t-statistics) But western movements did use outsider strategies significantly less frequently than the other two regions (column 2) At first this might seem counterintuitive One would expect that greater use of outsider strate- gies would aid the suffragists in winning the vote but some western movements worked to keep a low profile advertising their message less to the general public to minimize backlash against the movements Abigail Scott Duniway a prominent leader in the Idaho Oregon and Washington campaigns preferred what she called the still hunt whereby the suffragists would quietly appeal to sympathetic

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 63

legislators for their support avoiding highly public demands for the vote (Moynihan 1983) Ultimately perhaps this quiet campaign style helped the suf- frage cause in the West by failing to arouse opposition to the movements

The suffragists used another strategy as they worked for voting rights They crafted their public arguments for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs in society in this case particularly beliefs about womens appropriate roles Snow et al (1986) refer to this activity as frame bridging Over time the suffra- gists became more savvy to the kinds of arguments for the vote that were likely to be accepted by the public The suffragists came to realize that arguments asserting womens right to equal suffrage-what Kraditor (1965) calls justice argumentsw-- met with resistance in the larger population (Baker 1984 634) Justice arguments tended to call for a basic redefinition of womens roles arguing that it was appropri- ate for women to participate in the political arena as equals Widely held beliefs at the time however defined womens appropriate roles as domestic such as caring for children and running households These were quite different from the roles defined for men in the public domains of business and politics (Kerber 1997) Jus- tice arguments about equality presented a direct challenge to such assumptions of male and female differences and separate spheres

Thus increasingly over time suffragists began to rely on another type of argu- ment As Kraditor (1965) points out and as our data indicate the suffragists began to use expediency arguments (although as our data also show and as Buechler [I9861 notes the suffragists did not abandon the justice arguments) Expediency arguments posited that women should have the vote to bring their special skills and insights to the political arena what Baker (1984635) calls a public motherhood role for women whereby women with their nurturing qualities would care for and improve public life by reducing corruption in government helping the poor im- proving public education and so on The different character of women would be an asset to politics and effectively the private sphere of womanhood would be expanded to include aspects of political or public life Expediency arguments thus framed the rationale for woman suffrage in ways that did not pose the same sort of challenge to accepted beliefs about womens roles and the differences between women and men as did the justice arguments

Table 2 shows that western suffragists were significantly more likely than suffra- gists outside the West to use expediency arguments (column 3) In Washington State for instance in the 1909 suffrage campaign participants called it a womanly campaign emphasizing the home interests (Husted Harper [I9221 1985 677) Perhaps this more frequent use in the West of an argument that was likely to reso- nate with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate place in society boosted the efforts of the suffragists in the West The West also was a region as Grimes (1 967) makes clear with numerous social problems For this reason as well expedi- ency arguments extolling womens ability to remedy social ills might have reso- nated among western legislators and voters Thus while Grimes (1967) argues that the problems of the West themselves resulted in support for voting rights for women we hypothesize that the suffragists brought about this support by shaping

64 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

their arguments to emphasize the contribution women voters could make in reme- dying such conditions

Finally we consider a fourth strategy used by the suffragists fund-raising Rais- ing funds to sustain movement activities is a crucial ingredient to successful activ- ism (McCammon et al forthcoming) Making trips to the state capitol to lobby law- makers and spreading the suffrage message through newspapers and other literature all held costs for the suffragists The movements raised funds in a variety of ways charging admission to suffrage speeches and plays soliciting outright contribu- tions to the movement and holding a variety of types of sales and other events For instance in 1909 in Washington suffragists sold a suffrage cookbook and in Montana in 1914 they held dances to raise funds (Husted Harper [I9221 1985365 677)

But the figures in column 4 of Table 2 show that the western movements were not different from the eastern and southern movements in the amount of their fund- raising activity However we examine an additional measure the amount of money the state associations were able to contribute to the National American Woman Suf- frage Association (NAWSA) divided by the size of the states population (NAWSA 1893-1917 1919 US Bureau of the Census 1975 col 5)-in large part an out- come of the movements fund-raising activities While the western and eastern regions were not significantly different from one another the western movements contributed significantly greater funds to NAWSA than did the southern suffrage movements Perhaps this financial advantage experienced by the West (and also the East) but not the South helps in part at least to explain the early suffrage successes in the West The western movements in fact may have had a greater need for funds than the eastern (or southern) movements given the greater geographic distances they had to cover to spread their message and the travel costs this entailed

Political and Gendered Opportunity Structures

A number of researchers who study movements have noted that success hinges not only on the movements ability to mobilize key resources but also on contextual circumstances that provide opportunities for movement success (eg McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996 McCammon et al forthcoming) While Grimes (1967) in his theorizing ignored the role of the state suffrage movements in the West he did attend to cultural beliefs and ethnic relations that provided in his thinking a con- text in which suffrage was possible Here we consider additional contextual cir- cumstances in the western frontier that may have provided opportunities for the success of the suffrage movements

Various researchers have theorized the importance of political opportunity structures for movement emergence and success opportunities that tend to reside in formal state structures or in shifts in electoral politics (McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996) A political opportunity that may have eased the way for the passage of woman suffrage in the West concerns the nature of state and territorial procedures for reform of voting rights While almost all states required a public referendum on

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 65

woman suffrage in addition to a legislative vote the territories did not The territo- ries could enact woman suffrage simply with a favorable legislative vote and dur- ing the years of suffrage activity all of the territories in existence were in the West (They were Arizona Colorado Idaho Montana Nebraska New Mexico North Dakota Oklahoma South Dakota Utah Washington and Wyoming) The ease offered by a less complex procedure for reform of voting rights such as that which existed in the territories suggests that a political opportunity for policy change can help explain why suffrage came to the West earlier than elsewhere

On the other hand although the territories had a less complex procedure for enacting suffrage only 3 of the 12 states that were territories during the suffrage years passed woman suffrage during their territorial years (Utah Washington [only in 18831 and Wyoming) The other western states that enacted suffrage along with Michigan and New York did so as states But the procedural ease or difficulty of expanding voting rights varied between the states as well While all states except Delaware required a referendum vote on woman suffrage some states such as Michigan required only a single legislative vote prior to a referendum Other states had far more complex procedures Illinois in fact first required a positive vote in the state legislature then a favorable vote by a constitutional convention and then finally public approval in a referendum Constitutional conventions however could be called only every 20 years in Illinois and this in particular severely hin- dered the suffragists chances of winning full voting rights in Illinois (Buechler 1986103) It is likely then that reform procedures in both territories and states mat- tered for sufiage In fact overall the states granting full suffrage to women had simpler reform procedures on average than did states not granting voting rights to women

Another circumstance that can provide a political opportunity for groups to bring about political change is when such groups win the support of political elites (Tarrow 1998) Such elites then can become allies in the quest for political change The suffragists routinely sought the support of political parties not only the Demo- cratic and Republican Parties but third parties-the Populists Progressives Prohi- bitionists and Socialists-as well The suffragists regularly attended state party conventions and appealed for party endorsements of woman suffrage In 11 out of the 15 states in which suffrage was won either the Democrats or the Republicans had recently endorsed woman suffrage-and in 8 of these states both parties did so In addition in 9 out of the 15 suffrage states the suffragists received endorsements from third parties just before winning suffrage (and in every case this was in addi- tion to support from at least one of the two major parties)

On the other hand in states where woman suffrage was not adopted by the final decade of the suffrage movement suffrage movements in only 8 (out of 33) states had solid support (ie an endorsement lasting four or more years) from at least one of the two major parties and in only 4 states had solid support from one of the third parties The lack of support particularly among the Democrats and Republicans in states outside the West is due both to the opposition to woman suffrage by the politi- cal machines in many large eastern industrial cities that lasted until the late 1910s

66 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

(Buenker 1971) and the opposition of southern Democrats who feared woman suf- frage would mean Negro (woman) suffrage (Spruill Wheeler 1993 17- 18) The lack of such entrenched political interests in the West then suggests another politi- cal opportunity for suffrage in that region

Just as political opportunities mattered for woman suffrage we theorize that gendered opportunities also are important in explaining early suffrage in the West Gendered opportunities can emerge from shifts in gender relations and from changes in beliefs about these relations (McCammon et al forthcoming) In the late 19th century as noted a widely accepted belief was that men should inhabit the public sphere of business and politics while women were thought to be fit both biologically and socially for only the private sphere of the home (Kerber 1997) Such beliefs worked to exclude women from activities in business and politics including exercising the franchise However in various ways where the boundary between the two spheres became blurred we argue it became more acceptable for women to have a formal voice in the polity and thus a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage emerged

The boundary between the public and private spheres tended to blur where women were moving into areas previously occupied by men and interestingly this pattern was more pronounced in a number of ways in the western states during the years of suffrage activity than in the eastern and southern states Columns 67 and 8 in Table 2 show that in terms of womens enrollment in higher education and employment in the professions of law and medicine during the years of suffrage activity the West for the most part led the rest of the nation Column 6 provides regional means for the percentage of all college and university students who were women The figures show that there were proportionately more women in colleges and universities in the West than in the East or the South Table 2 also shows that among lawyers and physicians proportionately more women tended to be in these occupations in the West during this period than in the East or South (columns 7 and 8) The figures in the table represent the number of female lawyers and doctors per 1000 lawyers and doctors respectively While the numbers particularly for women lawyers are quite small the West had significantly more women in the occupation of lawyer than the East or South and had significantly more women in the occupation of physician than the South (the mean is slightly higher for the West compared with the East but they are not significantly different) Moreover in 1910 while 11 percent of the overall US female population lived in the West the West was home to 21 percent of all female lawyers and 22 percent of all female doctors (US Bureau of the Census 1914) Clearly women in the West had made greater inroads into these male spheres of activity than had women in other regions

Another indicator of womens presence in a traditionally male arena is lobbying and other political efforts on the part of womens groups as they attempted to shape social policy A number of such womens groups existed during these years includ- ing (1) the Consumers League which lobbied legislatures to enact protective legis- lation for women and child laborers (McCammon 1995) (2) the General Federa- tion of Womens Clubs which worked not only on protective laws but numerous

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 67

other types of legislation such as school library and food reform (Blair 1980) (3) the National Congress of Mothers which also advocated for a variety of legislative reforms (Cott 1987 87) (4) the National Womens Trade Union League which also pushed for protective legislation for women (Schrom Dye 1980) and (5) the Womans Christian Temperance Union which played a role in winning prohibi- tion reforms and in some states woman suffrage as well (Epstein 1981) In terms of the number of such organizations in a state (divided by the size of the female population) the West outpaced the East and South (column 9) While the western states had about one womens organization for every 100000 women in thepopula- tion the eastern states had approximately one organization for every 250000 women (or 039 per 100000) and the southern states had one organization for every 400000 women (or 025 per 100000) We argue that the prevalence of politically active womens organizations in the West also provided a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage

Others as well have noted the Wests progressiveness in terms of womens move- ment into male domains (eg Cole 1990 Myres 1982 Patterson-Black 1976) For instance Matsuda (1985) finds that women owned more property in the West than elsewhere largely because of the Homestead Act of 1862 and its role in allowing thousands of single divorced and widowed women (but not married women living with their husbands [Muhn 19941) to claim property in the western region Patterson-Black (197668) in fact estimates that across the West between the late 19th and early 20th centuries about 12 percent of homestead entrants were women with the percentage starting small but increasing over time By 1913 one estimate of the proportion of female homesteaders put the figure at one-third (Stuart 19 13)

The reasons for the Wests leadership are not entirely clear Some have followed Frederick Jackson Turners (1972 Cole 1990) reasoning by claiming that a liberat- ing culture of frontier egalitarianism prevailed on the western frontier This argu- ment holds that the arduousness of life on the frontier caused women and men to work and struggle side by side often at the same tasks This allowed Westerners to innovate and hold more egalitarian beliefs about gender relations which then per- mitted women easier access to traditionally male arenas of activity

But other explanations of the Wests early acceptance of women in male domains are probably also useful For instance womens early presence in institu- tions of higher education in the West in all likelihood was tied to the fact that the West unlike many parts of the East and South was far more likely to have public land grant universities provisioned for under the Morill Act of 1862 (Goldin and Katz 1999) and public universities were typically less resistant to womens enroll- ments than were privately funded colleges and universities (Albjerg Graham 1978 767) The fact that women were more common in institutions of higher education in the West may also have helped pave the way for their greater presence in the profes- sions in that region Another circumstance unique to the West was that the average age of the population was younger in the West than in other regions (Larson 1974 8) and this also may have contributed both to higher enrollments in colleges and universities and to womens presence in law and medicine Younger women are

68 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

typically more willing and likely to move into traditionally male fields (Beller 1984) Finally the Homestead Act itself may have contributed to altered gender relations in the West The law did not exclude women from claiming land stating that Any person [emphasis added] who is the head of a family or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years is entitled to stake a claim (Muhn 1994 285) While this was interpreted to mean that married women living with their husbands could not make an independent entry it did give some women access to the economic power of property ownership and this provided a circumstance unique to the West that helped women step across the boundary separating the public and private spheres

Whether the primary cause underlying womens greater presence in male arenas of activity in the West stemmed from frontier egalitarianism or from a coincidental confluence of demographic and legal circumstances in that region in the end we argue that womens greater inroads into these male spheres in education the profes- sions voluntaristic politics and property ownership helped structure a gendered opportunity for the adoption of woman suffrage in the West Because women had already begun crossing gender boundaries in these other spheres male legislators and the male electorates of the West were more willing or tolerant of the idea of women participating formally in politics Thus in addition to the activities of the western suffrage movements and political opportunities in the West gendered opportunities we argue also helped to create an environment in which women were more likely to win voting rights

DATA AND METHOD

We use discrete methods in event history analysis to analyze the circumstances resulting in woman suffrage at the state level prior to passage of the 19th Amend- ment (McCammon 1998) All of our data are annual state-level measures and all 48 states are included in our analysis (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii due to a lack of data) Unless a data source is listed below one can assume data came from our con- tent analysis of documents describing the state suffrage movements (McCammon et al forthcoming) Our dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of the pas- sage of woman suffrage and is equal to 0 for years prior to the passage of full suf- frage in a state and 1 for the year in which suffrage was enacted (NAWSA 1940) If suffrage was not enacted in a state the dependent variable remains equal to 0 Years following the adoption of suffrage are not included in the analysis because a state is no longer at risk of passing suffrage3

We use three measures to assess Grimess (1967) theory (1) the number of bar- keeps and saloon keepers per capita (US Bureau of the Census 186418721883 1897 1902 1914 1923 1975)4 (2) the percentage of the population that was urban foreign-born (Lee et al 1957 US Bureau of the Census 1975) and (3) the ratio of the size of the male population to the size of the female population (US Bureau of the Census 1975) In the analyses including the saloon variable we also

McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

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The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

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Figure 1 States and Years in Which Women Won Full Suffrage NOTE Women also gained the right to vote in limited elections in states prior to the federal amendment For instance 26 states allowed women to vote in school elections 13 allowed women to vote in presidential elections and 2 allowed women to vote in primary elections In Washinaton and Utah woman suffrage passed then was rescinded and laterrestored The two years listed for each are for the first and second passages of woman suffrage Using cen- sus cateaories we define the western states (shaded liaht arav) as Arizona California Colorado Idaho Kansas Montana Nebraska Nevada New Mex- ico ~ o r 6 Dakota Oklahoma Oregon south Dakota ijtati washington and wyoming The eastern states (dotted) are Connecticut Delaware Illinois Indiana Iowa Maine Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Missouri New Hampshire New Jersey New York Ohio Pennsylvania Rhode Island Ver- mont West Virginia and Wiconsin The southern states are Alabama Arkansas Florida Georgia Kentucky Louisiana Maryland Mississippi North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee Texas and Virginia (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii from our analysis due to a lack of data)

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 57

most detailed explanation of western suffrage Alan Grimes (1967) in The Puritan Ethic and Woman Suffrage argues that women won the vote earlier in the West because of the belief particularly among many native whites of the region that Puritan values and the resultant lifestyle would more readily take hold on the fron- tier if women could vote According to Grimes native white male legislators and electorates that endorsed woman suffrage did so because they believed that women would support laws regulating the social problems of the region particularly drunk- enness gambling and prostitution These behaviors were typically associated with the young single transient and often immigrant male population of the West

While many historians since Dee Browns (1958) The Gentle Tamers have pointed to womens role on the frontier as that of social civilizers (eg Bartlett 1974 Roy Jeffrey 1998) we offer an alternative to Grimess explanation of why the West led the way in establishing womens voting rights Our explanation is grounded in sociological theories of social movement success As we elaborate below we argue that gendered and political opportunities worked together with the ways in which the suffragists mobilized to convince male lawmakers and male elec- torates to extend democracy to women While such explanations are prominent in sociological studies of social movement success (McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996) and some historians have developed aspects of these theories in their treat- ments of suffrage in particular states (eg Goldberg 1994 Stefanco 1993) they have not been used to offer a general explanation of the adoption of woman suffrage in the West In fact Grimess general explanation continues to shape debates about woman suffrage (Berman 1987 Marshall 1998) We demonstrate in analyses pre- sented here that an explanation rooted in social movement theory better fits the evi- dence of how women won the vote in the western United States

In the following discussion we develop more specific hypotheses concerning passage of suffrage in the West and then use event history analysis to examine the merit of the hypotheses To develop our hypotheses we draw not only on relevant theory and history but also on our data to provide evidence of regional differences in pertinent measures While some of the data used below came from government and other sources many measures were constructed from our extensive content analy- sis of more than 650 secondary accounts of the 48 state suffrage movements in addi- tion to numerous archival sources for six states for which few secondary accounts exist (The six states are Arizona Delaware Maine New Hampshire New Mexico and North Dakota) Unless other sources are noted below the reader can assume that the data came from this extensive collection process

EXPLANATIONS OF HOW WOMEN WON THE VOTE

Alan Grimess Puritan Ethos

In his now classic explanation of how woman suffrage came to the West Grimes (1967) gives responsibility to a primarily native white male constituency that not

58 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

only had the legislative and electoral power to confer the vote upon women but also had an interest in doing so Grimes theorizes that this segment of the western popu- lation reacted to the social instabilities of frontier life and set about to build a more orderly community Granting women voting rights was simply one step in this over- all agenda Female voters would bring Puritan norms of behavior into public life Grimes states that women were for law and order and opposed to vice and the starting place of vice was the saloon (p 70) By supporting laws restricting saloons and other venues of gambling and prostitution women would provide a civilized reaction to frontier rowdiness (p 76)

The desire to impose this vision of social order on emerging frontier communi- ties was also motivated by ethnocentric views According to Grimes some native- born residents were threatened by an influx of foreign-born settlers-for example in South Dakota the Russians Poles and Scandinavians in California the Chi- nese in Iowa the Germans in Wyoming the Irish and Chinese (Berman 1987 Grimes 1967) Particularly threatening were the concentrations of these groups in the growing urban areas of the West Interestingly the West did not lag much behind the East in terms of the presence of urban immigrants While in the East between 1870 and 1920 an average of 24 percent of urban residents were foreign- born in the West 22 percent of urban residents were born outside US borders (Lee et al 1957) (In the South the figure was only 7 percent)

This native-born constituency also argued that giving women voting rights wouldeffectively double the vote of stable manied men many of whom according to Grimes (1967) were proponents of the Puritan ethos (p 53) In addition where sex ratios were skewed toward men as they often were on the western frontier native whites argued that voting rights for women would help to lure greater num- bers of women-with their keener sense of moral behavior-to the West (p 58)

While a number of researchers have examined the empirical support for Grimess theory the results have been mixed at best Most of these studies have focused on native-born and foreign-born votes on suffrage referenda to discern whether an eth- nic difference in support for woman suffrage existed Berman (1987) for instance found that in the 1912 Arizona constitutional referendum on woman suffrage both native- and foreign-born male voters supported giving women the vote McDonagh and Price (1985 428-29) in analyses of referenda in California Oregon and Washington found little evidence of ethnic differences in support for woman suf- frage One study that does provide support for Grimess thesis is early work by Riessen Reed (1958) on South Dakota where German Americans resisted suf- frage primarily because of the assumption that female voters would support prohi- bition legislation

However Grimes (1967) was not as concerned with ethnic differences in sup- port of woman suffrage as he was with the circumstances in which the native-born population was likely to support woman suffrage Grimes posited that support for woman suffrage would be most pronounced where the social problems of the West (in particular drunkenness gambling and prostitution) were pervasive where a high concentration of urban immigrants resided and where a high male-to-female

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 59

population ratio existed Below we explore whether empirical support exists for Grimess hypotheses First however we discuss an alternative explanation of the Wests early adoption of woman suffrage

Movement Mobilization and Opportunity Structures

We propose an alternative understanding of suffrage success in the West Ours is an explanation rooted in three dynamics theorized in the social movements litera- ture to be important in winning significant changes in political policy (1) the ways in which the western suffrage movements mobilized (2) political opportunities in the West and (3) gendered opportunities that also existed in the West We discuss each of these in turn

Resource Mobilization and Ideological Framing

A number of researchers including Grimes (1967) who have explored the inci- dence of early suffrage in the West ignore the role of the state suffrage movements in bringing about voting rights for women (see eg Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) This is an odd oversight given that suffrage movements were active at some point in every state except Wyoming the very first state to grant suffrage Sociologists (eg Gamson 1975) on the other hand have pointed to the impor- tance of movements mobilizing key resources as they attempt to achieve signifi- cant political change Thus we explore the role of the state suffrage movements in winning full voting rights in the West

Resource mobilization theorists (eg McCarthy and Zald 1977) argue that movement organization and key strategies are crucial resources as movements seek social change And in the West there were active suffrage associations in all but two cases No organized movement existed in Wyoming although a few individuals demanded the vote before suffrage was won there Also no movement existed in Utah before 1870 when suffrage was first granted there (see Figure 1) But when the franchise was later granted again in 1895 there was a sizable suffrage movement in Utah On the other hand every state outside the West also had an organized suffrage movement yet few states outside the West enacted suffrage For instance suffra- gists first organized the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 (Cady Stanton Anthony and Gage [I8861 1985 321) one of the earliest state associa- tions It lasted until the end of the movement in 1920 But prior to the 19th Amend- ment Connecticut did not grant woman suffrage While the presence of suffragists mattered in that they were instrumental in putting woman suffrage on the legislative and electoral agendas the presence of a movement organization alone did not guar- antee success at the state level

It is also unclear how important the extent of organizing was for political suc- cess While some western states had sizable suffrage movements not all of them did and moreover a number of states outside the West had large movements For instance some states had multiple types of suffrage organizations such as Mens

60 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

TABLE 1 Average Membership in NAWSA-Affiliated State Suffrage Associations for Years of Suffrage Activity 1892-1919 (members per 10000 in states population)

State Members per 10000 State Members per 10000

Utah 4070 Vermont 246 Nevada 3343 Tennessee 241 New Hampshire 985 West Virginia 241 Connecticut 953 Illinois 231 Massachusetts 760 Texas 21 8 Delaware 682 Oregon 217 Maryland 623 South Dakota 206 Rhode Island 608 Ohio 199 Montana 593 Washington 190 North Dakota 565 Alabama 187 Virginia 531 Kansas 164 Nebraska 528 Wisconsin 159 Iowa 452 Arkansas 148 Indiana 451 Michigan 131 New York 430 Missouri 108 New Jersey 391 Oklahoma 107 Louisiana 369 Georgia 101 Kentucky 345 Colorado 067 California 334 Mississippi 062 Minnesota 333 North Carolina 060 Florida 310 New Mexico 058 Maine 292 South Carolina 031 Pennsylvania 267 Idaho 000 Arizona 266

NOTE NAWSA = National American Woman Suffrage Association No data are available for Wyoming Data on membership are only available beginning in 1892 (NAWSA 1893-1 91 7 191 9)

Suffrage Leagues or College Womens Equal Suffrage Leagues and more than one state organization But the western states generally lagged behind the eastern and southern states in the number of suffrage organizations While roughly half of the eastern and southern states had three or more suffrage organizations in existence at one time at the height of their movements only one-third of the western states did so A large number of suffrage organizations then probably was not a key factor in the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

The extent of organizing can also be considered in terms of movement member- ship Data on membership appear in Table 1 and show that the top two states in terms of average membership were Utah and Nevada each of which had extremely large memberships in state suffrage associations just prior to winning the vote in those states (the second time suffrage was won in Utah) Yet on the other hand North Dakota and Nebraska also had relatively large memberships and neither granted suffrage Furthermore the South and the West seem to compete in terms

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 61

of states with the smallest memberships Of the six states with the smallest member- ships three are southern (Mississippi North and South Carolina) and three are western (Colorado Idaho and New Mexico) and two of the western states (Colo- rado and Idaho) enacted suffrage Thus while the ability of some of the western movements to recruit sizable memberships may help explain why woman suffrage came early to those states (eg in Utah Nevada and Montana) the more frequent occurrence appears to be that large memberships did not translate into suffrage suc- cess Some western states with large memberships did not pass suffrage (Nebraska and North Dakota) and the eastern states with the largest memberships (New Hampshire Connecticut and Massachusetts) also did not grant suffrage Other aspects of the movements besides organization are likely to be more important in the passage of suffrage

In particular the strategies used by the movements in the West may help explain early suffrage there Suffragists in general engaged in a variety of tactics to con- vince lawmakers and the general public that women ought to have the vote We con- sider four types of activities The first two concern what political scientists refer to as insider and outsider strategies (Hunter Graham 1996 xv-xvi) Insider strate- gies involve activities used by movement activists to persuade political insiders- effectively lawmakers or politicians-that movement demands ought to be met The state suffragists used a variety of insider strategies including personally lobby- ing state legislators writing them letters giving speeches in state legislatures and gathering signatures on petitions to present to state legislatures Outsider strategies on the other hand involved suffragist attempts to recruit new members along with efforts to alter public opinion on woman suffrage effectively strategies designed to target political outsiders or at least nonpoliticians The suffragists engaged in a variety of such activities To build membership suffragists held regular state suf- frage conventions organized various social events and put trained organizers in the field To persuade the general public that women should be given the right to vote suffragists gave public speeches distributed handbills advertised in newspapers held suffrage parades and set up booths at local fairs

A preliminary look at regional differences in the overall use of insider and out- sider strategies reveals that the West differed from the other areas in terms of out- sider strategies Table 2 presents figures on the average use of these strategies in the different regions from 1866 to 1919 for the years of suffrage activity The West did not engage in insider strategies more or less so than did the South and East (see col- umn 1 including t-statistics) But western movements did use outsider strategies significantly less frequently than the other two regions (column 2) At first this might seem counterintuitive One would expect that greater use of outsider strate- gies would aid the suffragists in winning the vote but some western movements worked to keep a low profile advertising their message less to the general public to minimize backlash against the movements Abigail Scott Duniway a prominent leader in the Idaho Oregon and Washington campaigns preferred what she called the still hunt whereby the suffragists would quietly appeal to sympathetic

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 63

legislators for their support avoiding highly public demands for the vote (Moynihan 1983) Ultimately perhaps this quiet campaign style helped the suf- frage cause in the West by failing to arouse opposition to the movements

The suffragists used another strategy as they worked for voting rights They crafted their public arguments for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs in society in this case particularly beliefs about womens appropriate roles Snow et al (1986) refer to this activity as frame bridging Over time the suffra- gists became more savvy to the kinds of arguments for the vote that were likely to be accepted by the public The suffragists came to realize that arguments asserting womens right to equal suffrage-what Kraditor (1965) calls justice argumentsw-- met with resistance in the larger population (Baker 1984 634) Justice arguments tended to call for a basic redefinition of womens roles arguing that it was appropri- ate for women to participate in the political arena as equals Widely held beliefs at the time however defined womens appropriate roles as domestic such as caring for children and running households These were quite different from the roles defined for men in the public domains of business and politics (Kerber 1997) Jus- tice arguments about equality presented a direct challenge to such assumptions of male and female differences and separate spheres

Thus increasingly over time suffragists began to rely on another type of argu- ment As Kraditor (1965) points out and as our data indicate the suffragists began to use expediency arguments (although as our data also show and as Buechler [I9861 notes the suffragists did not abandon the justice arguments) Expediency arguments posited that women should have the vote to bring their special skills and insights to the political arena what Baker (1984635) calls a public motherhood role for women whereby women with their nurturing qualities would care for and improve public life by reducing corruption in government helping the poor im- proving public education and so on The different character of women would be an asset to politics and effectively the private sphere of womanhood would be expanded to include aspects of political or public life Expediency arguments thus framed the rationale for woman suffrage in ways that did not pose the same sort of challenge to accepted beliefs about womens roles and the differences between women and men as did the justice arguments

Table 2 shows that western suffragists were significantly more likely than suffra- gists outside the West to use expediency arguments (column 3) In Washington State for instance in the 1909 suffrage campaign participants called it a womanly campaign emphasizing the home interests (Husted Harper [I9221 1985 677) Perhaps this more frequent use in the West of an argument that was likely to reso- nate with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate place in society boosted the efforts of the suffragists in the West The West also was a region as Grimes (1 967) makes clear with numerous social problems For this reason as well expedi- ency arguments extolling womens ability to remedy social ills might have reso- nated among western legislators and voters Thus while Grimes (1967) argues that the problems of the West themselves resulted in support for voting rights for women we hypothesize that the suffragists brought about this support by shaping

64 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

their arguments to emphasize the contribution women voters could make in reme- dying such conditions

Finally we consider a fourth strategy used by the suffragists fund-raising Rais- ing funds to sustain movement activities is a crucial ingredient to successful activ- ism (McCammon et al forthcoming) Making trips to the state capitol to lobby law- makers and spreading the suffrage message through newspapers and other literature all held costs for the suffragists The movements raised funds in a variety of ways charging admission to suffrage speeches and plays soliciting outright contribu- tions to the movement and holding a variety of types of sales and other events For instance in 1909 in Washington suffragists sold a suffrage cookbook and in Montana in 1914 they held dances to raise funds (Husted Harper [I9221 1985365 677)

But the figures in column 4 of Table 2 show that the western movements were not different from the eastern and southern movements in the amount of their fund- raising activity However we examine an additional measure the amount of money the state associations were able to contribute to the National American Woman Suf- frage Association (NAWSA) divided by the size of the states population (NAWSA 1893-1917 1919 US Bureau of the Census 1975 col 5)-in large part an out- come of the movements fund-raising activities While the western and eastern regions were not significantly different from one another the western movements contributed significantly greater funds to NAWSA than did the southern suffrage movements Perhaps this financial advantage experienced by the West (and also the East) but not the South helps in part at least to explain the early suffrage successes in the West The western movements in fact may have had a greater need for funds than the eastern (or southern) movements given the greater geographic distances they had to cover to spread their message and the travel costs this entailed

Political and Gendered Opportunity Structures

A number of researchers who study movements have noted that success hinges not only on the movements ability to mobilize key resources but also on contextual circumstances that provide opportunities for movement success (eg McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996 McCammon et al forthcoming) While Grimes (1967) in his theorizing ignored the role of the state suffrage movements in the West he did attend to cultural beliefs and ethnic relations that provided in his thinking a con- text in which suffrage was possible Here we consider additional contextual cir- cumstances in the western frontier that may have provided opportunities for the success of the suffrage movements

Various researchers have theorized the importance of political opportunity structures for movement emergence and success opportunities that tend to reside in formal state structures or in shifts in electoral politics (McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996) A political opportunity that may have eased the way for the passage of woman suffrage in the West concerns the nature of state and territorial procedures for reform of voting rights While almost all states required a public referendum on

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 65

woman suffrage in addition to a legislative vote the territories did not The territo- ries could enact woman suffrage simply with a favorable legislative vote and dur- ing the years of suffrage activity all of the territories in existence were in the West (They were Arizona Colorado Idaho Montana Nebraska New Mexico North Dakota Oklahoma South Dakota Utah Washington and Wyoming) The ease offered by a less complex procedure for reform of voting rights such as that which existed in the territories suggests that a political opportunity for policy change can help explain why suffrage came to the West earlier than elsewhere

On the other hand although the territories had a less complex procedure for enacting suffrage only 3 of the 12 states that were territories during the suffrage years passed woman suffrage during their territorial years (Utah Washington [only in 18831 and Wyoming) The other western states that enacted suffrage along with Michigan and New York did so as states But the procedural ease or difficulty of expanding voting rights varied between the states as well While all states except Delaware required a referendum vote on woman suffrage some states such as Michigan required only a single legislative vote prior to a referendum Other states had far more complex procedures Illinois in fact first required a positive vote in the state legislature then a favorable vote by a constitutional convention and then finally public approval in a referendum Constitutional conventions however could be called only every 20 years in Illinois and this in particular severely hin- dered the suffragists chances of winning full voting rights in Illinois (Buechler 1986103) It is likely then that reform procedures in both territories and states mat- tered for sufiage In fact overall the states granting full suffrage to women had simpler reform procedures on average than did states not granting voting rights to women

Another circumstance that can provide a political opportunity for groups to bring about political change is when such groups win the support of political elites (Tarrow 1998) Such elites then can become allies in the quest for political change The suffragists routinely sought the support of political parties not only the Demo- cratic and Republican Parties but third parties-the Populists Progressives Prohi- bitionists and Socialists-as well The suffragists regularly attended state party conventions and appealed for party endorsements of woman suffrage In 11 out of the 15 states in which suffrage was won either the Democrats or the Republicans had recently endorsed woman suffrage-and in 8 of these states both parties did so In addition in 9 out of the 15 suffrage states the suffragists received endorsements from third parties just before winning suffrage (and in every case this was in addi- tion to support from at least one of the two major parties)

On the other hand in states where woman suffrage was not adopted by the final decade of the suffrage movement suffrage movements in only 8 (out of 33) states had solid support (ie an endorsement lasting four or more years) from at least one of the two major parties and in only 4 states had solid support from one of the third parties The lack of support particularly among the Democrats and Republicans in states outside the West is due both to the opposition to woman suffrage by the politi- cal machines in many large eastern industrial cities that lasted until the late 1910s

66 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

(Buenker 1971) and the opposition of southern Democrats who feared woman suf- frage would mean Negro (woman) suffrage (Spruill Wheeler 1993 17- 18) The lack of such entrenched political interests in the West then suggests another politi- cal opportunity for suffrage in that region

Just as political opportunities mattered for woman suffrage we theorize that gendered opportunities also are important in explaining early suffrage in the West Gendered opportunities can emerge from shifts in gender relations and from changes in beliefs about these relations (McCammon et al forthcoming) In the late 19th century as noted a widely accepted belief was that men should inhabit the public sphere of business and politics while women were thought to be fit both biologically and socially for only the private sphere of the home (Kerber 1997) Such beliefs worked to exclude women from activities in business and politics including exercising the franchise However in various ways where the boundary between the two spheres became blurred we argue it became more acceptable for women to have a formal voice in the polity and thus a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage emerged

The boundary between the public and private spheres tended to blur where women were moving into areas previously occupied by men and interestingly this pattern was more pronounced in a number of ways in the western states during the years of suffrage activity than in the eastern and southern states Columns 67 and 8 in Table 2 show that in terms of womens enrollment in higher education and employment in the professions of law and medicine during the years of suffrage activity the West for the most part led the rest of the nation Column 6 provides regional means for the percentage of all college and university students who were women The figures show that there were proportionately more women in colleges and universities in the West than in the East or the South Table 2 also shows that among lawyers and physicians proportionately more women tended to be in these occupations in the West during this period than in the East or South (columns 7 and 8) The figures in the table represent the number of female lawyers and doctors per 1000 lawyers and doctors respectively While the numbers particularly for women lawyers are quite small the West had significantly more women in the occupation of lawyer than the East or South and had significantly more women in the occupation of physician than the South (the mean is slightly higher for the West compared with the East but they are not significantly different) Moreover in 1910 while 11 percent of the overall US female population lived in the West the West was home to 21 percent of all female lawyers and 22 percent of all female doctors (US Bureau of the Census 1914) Clearly women in the West had made greater inroads into these male spheres of activity than had women in other regions

Another indicator of womens presence in a traditionally male arena is lobbying and other political efforts on the part of womens groups as they attempted to shape social policy A number of such womens groups existed during these years includ- ing (1) the Consumers League which lobbied legislatures to enact protective legis- lation for women and child laborers (McCammon 1995) (2) the General Federa- tion of Womens Clubs which worked not only on protective laws but numerous

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 67

other types of legislation such as school library and food reform (Blair 1980) (3) the National Congress of Mothers which also advocated for a variety of legislative reforms (Cott 1987 87) (4) the National Womens Trade Union League which also pushed for protective legislation for women (Schrom Dye 1980) and (5) the Womans Christian Temperance Union which played a role in winning prohibi- tion reforms and in some states woman suffrage as well (Epstein 1981) In terms of the number of such organizations in a state (divided by the size of the female population) the West outpaced the East and South (column 9) While the western states had about one womens organization for every 100000 women in thepopula- tion the eastern states had approximately one organization for every 250000 women (or 039 per 100000) and the southern states had one organization for every 400000 women (or 025 per 100000) We argue that the prevalence of politically active womens organizations in the West also provided a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage

Others as well have noted the Wests progressiveness in terms of womens move- ment into male domains (eg Cole 1990 Myres 1982 Patterson-Black 1976) For instance Matsuda (1985) finds that women owned more property in the West than elsewhere largely because of the Homestead Act of 1862 and its role in allowing thousands of single divorced and widowed women (but not married women living with their husbands [Muhn 19941) to claim property in the western region Patterson-Black (197668) in fact estimates that across the West between the late 19th and early 20th centuries about 12 percent of homestead entrants were women with the percentage starting small but increasing over time By 1913 one estimate of the proportion of female homesteaders put the figure at one-third (Stuart 19 13)

The reasons for the Wests leadership are not entirely clear Some have followed Frederick Jackson Turners (1972 Cole 1990) reasoning by claiming that a liberat- ing culture of frontier egalitarianism prevailed on the western frontier This argu- ment holds that the arduousness of life on the frontier caused women and men to work and struggle side by side often at the same tasks This allowed Westerners to innovate and hold more egalitarian beliefs about gender relations which then per- mitted women easier access to traditionally male arenas of activity

But other explanations of the Wests early acceptance of women in male domains are probably also useful For instance womens early presence in institu- tions of higher education in the West in all likelihood was tied to the fact that the West unlike many parts of the East and South was far more likely to have public land grant universities provisioned for under the Morill Act of 1862 (Goldin and Katz 1999) and public universities were typically less resistant to womens enroll- ments than were privately funded colleges and universities (Albjerg Graham 1978 767) The fact that women were more common in institutions of higher education in the West may also have helped pave the way for their greater presence in the profes- sions in that region Another circumstance unique to the West was that the average age of the population was younger in the West than in other regions (Larson 1974 8) and this also may have contributed both to higher enrollments in colleges and universities and to womens presence in law and medicine Younger women are

68 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

typically more willing and likely to move into traditionally male fields (Beller 1984) Finally the Homestead Act itself may have contributed to altered gender relations in the West The law did not exclude women from claiming land stating that Any person [emphasis added] who is the head of a family or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years is entitled to stake a claim (Muhn 1994 285) While this was interpreted to mean that married women living with their husbands could not make an independent entry it did give some women access to the economic power of property ownership and this provided a circumstance unique to the West that helped women step across the boundary separating the public and private spheres

Whether the primary cause underlying womens greater presence in male arenas of activity in the West stemmed from frontier egalitarianism or from a coincidental confluence of demographic and legal circumstances in that region in the end we argue that womens greater inroads into these male spheres in education the profes- sions voluntaristic politics and property ownership helped structure a gendered opportunity for the adoption of woman suffrage in the West Because women had already begun crossing gender boundaries in these other spheres male legislators and the male electorates of the West were more willing or tolerant of the idea of women participating formally in politics Thus in addition to the activities of the western suffrage movements and political opportunities in the West gendered opportunities we argue also helped to create an environment in which women were more likely to win voting rights

DATA AND METHOD

We use discrete methods in event history analysis to analyze the circumstances resulting in woman suffrage at the state level prior to passage of the 19th Amend- ment (McCammon 1998) All of our data are annual state-level measures and all 48 states are included in our analysis (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii due to a lack of data) Unless a data source is listed below one can assume data came from our con- tent analysis of documents describing the state suffrage movements (McCammon et al forthcoming) Our dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of the pas- sage of woman suffrage and is equal to 0 for years prior to the passage of full suf- frage in a state and 1 for the year in which suffrage was enacted (NAWSA 1940) If suffrage was not enacted in a state the dependent variable remains equal to 0 Years following the adoption of suffrage are not included in the analysis because a state is no longer at risk of passing suffrage3

We use three measures to assess Grimess (1967) theory (1) the number of bar- keeps and saloon keepers per capita (US Bureau of the Census 186418721883 1897 1902 1914 1923 1975)4 (2) the percentage of the population that was urban foreign-born (Lee et al 1957 US Bureau of the Census 1975) and (3) the ratio of the size of the male population to the size of the female population (US Bureau of the Census 1975) In the analyses including the saloon variable we also

McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

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Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

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The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -

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McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 57

most detailed explanation of western suffrage Alan Grimes (1967) in The Puritan Ethic and Woman Suffrage argues that women won the vote earlier in the West because of the belief particularly among many native whites of the region that Puritan values and the resultant lifestyle would more readily take hold on the fron- tier if women could vote According to Grimes native white male legislators and electorates that endorsed woman suffrage did so because they believed that women would support laws regulating the social problems of the region particularly drunk- enness gambling and prostitution These behaviors were typically associated with the young single transient and often immigrant male population of the West

While many historians since Dee Browns (1958) The Gentle Tamers have pointed to womens role on the frontier as that of social civilizers (eg Bartlett 1974 Roy Jeffrey 1998) we offer an alternative to Grimess explanation of why the West led the way in establishing womens voting rights Our explanation is grounded in sociological theories of social movement success As we elaborate below we argue that gendered and political opportunities worked together with the ways in which the suffragists mobilized to convince male lawmakers and male elec- torates to extend democracy to women While such explanations are prominent in sociological studies of social movement success (McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996) and some historians have developed aspects of these theories in their treat- ments of suffrage in particular states (eg Goldberg 1994 Stefanco 1993) they have not been used to offer a general explanation of the adoption of woman suffrage in the West In fact Grimess general explanation continues to shape debates about woman suffrage (Berman 1987 Marshall 1998) We demonstrate in analyses pre- sented here that an explanation rooted in social movement theory better fits the evi- dence of how women won the vote in the western United States

In the following discussion we develop more specific hypotheses concerning passage of suffrage in the West and then use event history analysis to examine the merit of the hypotheses To develop our hypotheses we draw not only on relevant theory and history but also on our data to provide evidence of regional differences in pertinent measures While some of the data used below came from government and other sources many measures were constructed from our extensive content analy- sis of more than 650 secondary accounts of the 48 state suffrage movements in addi- tion to numerous archival sources for six states for which few secondary accounts exist (The six states are Arizona Delaware Maine New Hampshire New Mexico and North Dakota) Unless other sources are noted below the reader can assume that the data came from this extensive collection process

EXPLANATIONS OF HOW WOMEN WON THE VOTE

Alan Grimess Puritan Ethos

In his now classic explanation of how woman suffrage came to the West Grimes (1967) gives responsibility to a primarily native white male constituency that not

58 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

only had the legislative and electoral power to confer the vote upon women but also had an interest in doing so Grimes theorizes that this segment of the western popu- lation reacted to the social instabilities of frontier life and set about to build a more orderly community Granting women voting rights was simply one step in this over- all agenda Female voters would bring Puritan norms of behavior into public life Grimes states that women were for law and order and opposed to vice and the starting place of vice was the saloon (p 70) By supporting laws restricting saloons and other venues of gambling and prostitution women would provide a civilized reaction to frontier rowdiness (p 76)

The desire to impose this vision of social order on emerging frontier communi- ties was also motivated by ethnocentric views According to Grimes some native- born residents were threatened by an influx of foreign-born settlers-for example in South Dakota the Russians Poles and Scandinavians in California the Chi- nese in Iowa the Germans in Wyoming the Irish and Chinese (Berman 1987 Grimes 1967) Particularly threatening were the concentrations of these groups in the growing urban areas of the West Interestingly the West did not lag much behind the East in terms of the presence of urban immigrants While in the East between 1870 and 1920 an average of 24 percent of urban residents were foreign- born in the West 22 percent of urban residents were born outside US borders (Lee et al 1957) (In the South the figure was only 7 percent)

This native-born constituency also argued that giving women voting rights wouldeffectively double the vote of stable manied men many of whom according to Grimes (1967) were proponents of the Puritan ethos (p 53) In addition where sex ratios were skewed toward men as they often were on the western frontier native whites argued that voting rights for women would help to lure greater num- bers of women-with their keener sense of moral behavior-to the West (p 58)

While a number of researchers have examined the empirical support for Grimess theory the results have been mixed at best Most of these studies have focused on native-born and foreign-born votes on suffrage referenda to discern whether an eth- nic difference in support for woman suffrage existed Berman (1987) for instance found that in the 1912 Arizona constitutional referendum on woman suffrage both native- and foreign-born male voters supported giving women the vote McDonagh and Price (1985 428-29) in analyses of referenda in California Oregon and Washington found little evidence of ethnic differences in support for woman suf- frage One study that does provide support for Grimess thesis is early work by Riessen Reed (1958) on South Dakota where German Americans resisted suf- frage primarily because of the assumption that female voters would support prohi- bition legislation

However Grimes (1967) was not as concerned with ethnic differences in sup- port of woman suffrage as he was with the circumstances in which the native-born population was likely to support woman suffrage Grimes posited that support for woman suffrage would be most pronounced where the social problems of the West (in particular drunkenness gambling and prostitution) were pervasive where a high concentration of urban immigrants resided and where a high male-to-female

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 59

population ratio existed Below we explore whether empirical support exists for Grimess hypotheses First however we discuss an alternative explanation of the Wests early adoption of woman suffrage

Movement Mobilization and Opportunity Structures

We propose an alternative understanding of suffrage success in the West Ours is an explanation rooted in three dynamics theorized in the social movements litera- ture to be important in winning significant changes in political policy (1) the ways in which the western suffrage movements mobilized (2) political opportunities in the West and (3) gendered opportunities that also existed in the West We discuss each of these in turn

Resource Mobilization and Ideological Framing

A number of researchers including Grimes (1967) who have explored the inci- dence of early suffrage in the West ignore the role of the state suffrage movements in bringing about voting rights for women (see eg Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) This is an odd oversight given that suffrage movements were active at some point in every state except Wyoming the very first state to grant suffrage Sociologists (eg Gamson 1975) on the other hand have pointed to the impor- tance of movements mobilizing key resources as they attempt to achieve signifi- cant political change Thus we explore the role of the state suffrage movements in winning full voting rights in the West

Resource mobilization theorists (eg McCarthy and Zald 1977) argue that movement organization and key strategies are crucial resources as movements seek social change And in the West there were active suffrage associations in all but two cases No organized movement existed in Wyoming although a few individuals demanded the vote before suffrage was won there Also no movement existed in Utah before 1870 when suffrage was first granted there (see Figure 1) But when the franchise was later granted again in 1895 there was a sizable suffrage movement in Utah On the other hand every state outside the West also had an organized suffrage movement yet few states outside the West enacted suffrage For instance suffra- gists first organized the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 (Cady Stanton Anthony and Gage [I8861 1985 321) one of the earliest state associa- tions It lasted until the end of the movement in 1920 But prior to the 19th Amend- ment Connecticut did not grant woman suffrage While the presence of suffragists mattered in that they were instrumental in putting woman suffrage on the legislative and electoral agendas the presence of a movement organization alone did not guar- antee success at the state level

It is also unclear how important the extent of organizing was for political suc- cess While some western states had sizable suffrage movements not all of them did and moreover a number of states outside the West had large movements For instance some states had multiple types of suffrage organizations such as Mens

60 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

TABLE 1 Average Membership in NAWSA-Affiliated State Suffrage Associations for Years of Suffrage Activity 1892-1919 (members per 10000 in states population)

State Members per 10000 State Members per 10000

Utah 4070 Vermont 246 Nevada 3343 Tennessee 241 New Hampshire 985 West Virginia 241 Connecticut 953 Illinois 231 Massachusetts 760 Texas 21 8 Delaware 682 Oregon 217 Maryland 623 South Dakota 206 Rhode Island 608 Ohio 199 Montana 593 Washington 190 North Dakota 565 Alabama 187 Virginia 531 Kansas 164 Nebraska 528 Wisconsin 159 Iowa 452 Arkansas 148 Indiana 451 Michigan 131 New York 430 Missouri 108 New Jersey 391 Oklahoma 107 Louisiana 369 Georgia 101 Kentucky 345 Colorado 067 California 334 Mississippi 062 Minnesota 333 North Carolina 060 Florida 310 New Mexico 058 Maine 292 South Carolina 031 Pennsylvania 267 Idaho 000 Arizona 266

NOTE NAWSA = National American Woman Suffrage Association No data are available for Wyoming Data on membership are only available beginning in 1892 (NAWSA 1893-1 91 7 191 9)

Suffrage Leagues or College Womens Equal Suffrage Leagues and more than one state organization But the western states generally lagged behind the eastern and southern states in the number of suffrage organizations While roughly half of the eastern and southern states had three or more suffrage organizations in existence at one time at the height of their movements only one-third of the western states did so A large number of suffrage organizations then probably was not a key factor in the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

The extent of organizing can also be considered in terms of movement member- ship Data on membership appear in Table 1 and show that the top two states in terms of average membership were Utah and Nevada each of which had extremely large memberships in state suffrage associations just prior to winning the vote in those states (the second time suffrage was won in Utah) Yet on the other hand North Dakota and Nebraska also had relatively large memberships and neither granted suffrage Furthermore the South and the West seem to compete in terms

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 61

of states with the smallest memberships Of the six states with the smallest member- ships three are southern (Mississippi North and South Carolina) and three are western (Colorado Idaho and New Mexico) and two of the western states (Colo- rado and Idaho) enacted suffrage Thus while the ability of some of the western movements to recruit sizable memberships may help explain why woman suffrage came early to those states (eg in Utah Nevada and Montana) the more frequent occurrence appears to be that large memberships did not translate into suffrage suc- cess Some western states with large memberships did not pass suffrage (Nebraska and North Dakota) and the eastern states with the largest memberships (New Hampshire Connecticut and Massachusetts) also did not grant suffrage Other aspects of the movements besides organization are likely to be more important in the passage of suffrage

In particular the strategies used by the movements in the West may help explain early suffrage there Suffragists in general engaged in a variety of tactics to con- vince lawmakers and the general public that women ought to have the vote We con- sider four types of activities The first two concern what political scientists refer to as insider and outsider strategies (Hunter Graham 1996 xv-xvi) Insider strate- gies involve activities used by movement activists to persuade political insiders- effectively lawmakers or politicians-that movement demands ought to be met The state suffragists used a variety of insider strategies including personally lobby- ing state legislators writing them letters giving speeches in state legislatures and gathering signatures on petitions to present to state legislatures Outsider strategies on the other hand involved suffragist attempts to recruit new members along with efforts to alter public opinion on woman suffrage effectively strategies designed to target political outsiders or at least nonpoliticians The suffragists engaged in a variety of such activities To build membership suffragists held regular state suf- frage conventions organized various social events and put trained organizers in the field To persuade the general public that women should be given the right to vote suffragists gave public speeches distributed handbills advertised in newspapers held suffrage parades and set up booths at local fairs

A preliminary look at regional differences in the overall use of insider and out- sider strategies reveals that the West differed from the other areas in terms of out- sider strategies Table 2 presents figures on the average use of these strategies in the different regions from 1866 to 1919 for the years of suffrage activity The West did not engage in insider strategies more or less so than did the South and East (see col- umn 1 including t-statistics) But western movements did use outsider strategies significantly less frequently than the other two regions (column 2) At first this might seem counterintuitive One would expect that greater use of outsider strate- gies would aid the suffragists in winning the vote but some western movements worked to keep a low profile advertising their message less to the general public to minimize backlash against the movements Abigail Scott Duniway a prominent leader in the Idaho Oregon and Washington campaigns preferred what she called the still hunt whereby the suffragists would quietly appeal to sympathetic

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 63

legislators for their support avoiding highly public demands for the vote (Moynihan 1983) Ultimately perhaps this quiet campaign style helped the suf- frage cause in the West by failing to arouse opposition to the movements

The suffragists used another strategy as they worked for voting rights They crafted their public arguments for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs in society in this case particularly beliefs about womens appropriate roles Snow et al (1986) refer to this activity as frame bridging Over time the suffra- gists became more savvy to the kinds of arguments for the vote that were likely to be accepted by the public The suffragists came to realize that arguments asserting womens right to equal suffrage-what Kraditor (1965) calls justice argumentsw-- met with resistance in the larger population (Baker 1984 634) Justice arguments tended to call for a basic redefinition of womens roles arguing that it was appropri- ate for women to participate in the political arena as equals Widely held beliefs at the time however defined womens appropriate roles as domestic such as caring for children and running households These were quite different from the roles defined for men in the public domains of business and politics (Kerber 1997) Jus- tice arguments about equality presented a direct challenge to such assumptions of male and female differences and separate spheres

Thus increasingly over time suffragists began to rely on another type of argu- ment As Kraditor (1965) points out and as our data indicate the suffragists began to use expediency arguments (although as our data also show and as Buechler [I9861 notes the suffragists did not abandon the justice arguments) Expediency arguments posited that women should have the vote to bring their special skills and insights to the political arena what Baker (1984635) calls a public motherhood role for women whereby women with their nurturing qualities would care for and improve public life by reducing corruption in government helping the poor im- proving public education and so on The different character of women would be an asset to politics and effectively the private sphere of womanhood would be expanded to include aspects of political or public life Expediency arguments thus framed the rationale for woman suffrage in ways that did not pose the same sort of challenge to accepted beliefs about womens roles and the differences between women and men as did the justice arguments

Table 2 shows that western suffragists were significantly more likely than suffra- gists outside the West to use expediency arguments (column 3) In Washington State for instance in the 1909 suffrage campaign participants called it a womanly campaign emphasizing the home interests (Husted Harper [I9221 1985 677) Perhaps this more frequent use in the West of an argument that was likely to reso- nate with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate place in society boosted the efforts of the suffragists in the West The West also was a region as Grimes (1 967) makes clear with numerous social problems For this reason as well expedi- ency arguments extolling womens ability to remedy social ills might have reso- nated among western legislators and voters Thus while Grimes (1967) argues that the problems of the West themselves resulted in support for voting rights for women we hypothesize that the suffragists brought about this support by shaping

64 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

their arguments to emphasize the contribution women voters could make in reme- dying such conditions

Finally we consider a fourth strategy used by the suffragists fund-raising Rais- ing funds to sustain movement activities is a crucial ingredient to successful activ- ism (McCammon et al forthcoming) Making trips to the state capitol to lobby law- makers and spreading the suffrage message through newspapers and other literature all held costs for the suffragists The movements raised funds in a variety of ways charging admission to suffrage speeches and plays soliciting outright contribu- tions to the movement and holding a variety of types of sales and other events For instance in 1909 in Washington suffragists sold a suffrage cookbook and in Montana in 1914 they held dances to raise funds (Husted Harper [I9221 1985365 677)

But the figures in column 4 of Table 2 show that the western movements were not different from the eastern and southern movements in the amount of their fund- raising activity However we examine an additional measure the amount of money the state associations were able to contribute to the National American Woman Suf- frage Association (NAWSA) divided by the size of the states population (NAWSA 1893-1917 1919 US Bureau of the Census 1975 col 5)-in large part an out- come of the movements fund-raising activities While the western and eastern regions were not significantly different from one another the western movements contributed significantly greater funds to NAWSA than did the southern suffrage movements Perhaps this financial advantage experienced by the West (and also the East) but not the South helps in part at least to explain the early suffrage successes in the West The western movements in fact may have had a greater need for funds than the eastern (or southern) movements given the greater geographic distances they had to cover to spread their message and the travel costs this entailed

Political and Gendered Opportunity Structures

A number of researchers who study movements have noted that success hinges not only on the movements ability to mobilize key resources but also on contextual circumstances that provide opportunities for movement success (eg McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996 McCammon et al forthcoming) While Grimes (1967) in his theorizing ignored the role of the state suffrage movements in the West he did attend to cultural beliefs and ethnic relations that provided in his thinking a con- text in which suffrage was possible Here we consider additional contextual cir- cumstances in the western frontier that may have provided opportunities for the success of the suffrage movements

Various researchers have theorized the importance of political opportunity structures for movement emergence and success opportunities that tend to reside in formal state structures or in shifts in electoral politics (McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996) A political opportunity that may have eased the way for the passage of woman suffrage in the West concerns the nature of state and territorial procedures for reform of voting rights While almost all states required a public referendum on

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 65

woman suffrage in addition to a legislative vote the territories did not The territo- ries could enact woman suffrage simply with a favorable legislative vote and dur- ing the years of suffrage activity all of the territories in existence were in the West (They were Arizona Colorado Idaho Montana Nebraska New Mexico North Dakota Oklahoma South Dakota Utah Washington and Wyoming) The ease offered by a less complex procedure for reform of voting rights such as that which existed in the territories suggests that a political opportunity for policy change can help explain why suffrage came to the West earlier than elsewhere

On the other hand although the territories had a less complex procedure for enacting suffrage only 3 of the 12 states that were territories during the suffrage years passed woman suffrage during their territorial years (Utah Washington [only in 18831 and Wyoming) The other western states that enacted suffrage along with Michigan and New York did so as states But the procedural ease or difficulty of expanding voting rights varied between the states as well While all states except Delaware required a referendum vote on woman suffrage some states such as Michigan required only a single legislative vote prior to a referendum Other states had far more complex procedures Illinois in fact first required a positive vote in the state legislature then a favorable vote by a constitutional convention and then finally public approval in a referendum Constitutional conventions however could be called only every 20 years in Illinois and this in particular severely hin- dered the suffragists chances of winning full voting rights in Illinois (Buechler 1986103) It is likely then that reform procedures in both territories and states mat- tered for sufiage In fact overall the states granting full suffrage to women had simpler reform procedures on average than did states not granting voting rights to women

Another circumstance that can provide a political opportunity for groups to bring about political change is when such groups win the support of political elites (Tarrow 1998) Such elites then can become allies in the quest for political change The suffragists routinely sought the support of political parties not only the Demo- cratic and Republican Parties but third parties-the Populists Progressives Prohi- bitionists and Socialists-as well The suffragists regularly attended state party conventions and appealed for party endorsements of woman suffrage In 11 out of the 15 states in which suffrage was won either the Democrats or the Republicans had recently endorsed woman suffrage-and in 8 of these states both parties did so In addition in 9 out of the 15 suffrage states the suffragists received endorsements from third parties just before winning suffrage (and in every case this was in addi- tion to support from at least one of the two major parties)

On the other hand in states where woman suffrage was not adopted by the final decade of the suffrage movement suffrage movements in only 8 (out of 33) states had solid support (ie an endorsement lasting four or more years) from at least one of the two major parties and in only 4 states had solid support from one of the third parties The lack of support particularly among the Democrats and Republicans in states outside the West is due both to the opposition to woman suffrage by the politi- cal machines in many large eastern industrial cities that lasted until the late 1910s

66 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

(Buenker 1971) and the opposition of southern Democrats who feared woman suf- frage would mean Negro (woman) suffrage (Spruill Wheeler 1993 17- 18) The lack of such entrenched political interests in the West then suggests another politi- cal opportunity for suffrage in that region

Just as political opportunities mattered for woman suffrage we theorize that gendered opportunities also are important in explaining early suffrage in the West Gendered opportunities can emerge from shifts in gender relations and from changes in beliefs about these relations (McCammon et al forthcoming) In the late 19th century as noted a widely accepted belief was that men should inhabit the public sphere of business and politics while women were thought to be fit both biologically and socially for only the private sphere of the home (Kerber 1997) Such beliefs worked to exclude women from activities in business and politics including exercising the franchise However in various ways where the boundary between the two spheres became blurred we argue it became more acceptable for women to have a formal voice in the polity and thus a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage emerged

The boundary between the public and private spheres tended to blur where women were moving into areas previously occupied by men and interestingly this pattern was more pronounced in a number of ways in the western states during the years of suffrage activity than in the eastern and southern states Columns 67 and 8 in Table 2 show that in terms of womens enrollment in higher education and employment in the professions of law and medicine during the years of suffrage activity the West for the most part led the rest of the nation Column 6 provides regional means for the percentage of all college and university students who were women The figures show that there were proportionately more women in colleges and universities in the West than in the East or the South Table 2 also shows that among lawyers and physicians proportionately more women tended to be in these occupations in the West during this period than in the East or South (columns 7 and 8) The figures in the table represent the number of female lawyers and doctors per 1000 lawyers and doctors respectively While the numbers particularly for women lawyers are quite small the West had significantly more women in the occupation of lawyer than the East or South and had significantly more women in the occupation of physician than the South (the mean is slightly higher for the West compared with the East but they are not significantly different) Moreover in 1910 while 11 percent of the overall US female population lived in the West the West was home to 21 percent of all female lawyers and 22 percent of all female doctors (US Bureau of the Census 1914) Clearly women in the West had made greater inroads into these male spheres of activity than had women in other regions

Another indicator of womens presence in a traditionally male arena is lobbying and other political efforts on the part of womens groups as they attempted to shape social policy A number of such womens groups existed during these years includ- ing (1) the Consumers League which lobbied legislatures to enact protective legis- lation for women and child laborers (McCammon 1995) (2) the General Federa- tion of Womens Clubs which worked not only on protective laws but numerous

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 67

other types of legislation such as school library and food reform (Blair 1980) (3) the National Congress of Mothers which also advocated for a variety of legislative reforms (Cott 1987 87) (4) the National Womens Trade Union League which also pushed for protective legislation for women (Schrom Dye 1980) and (5) the Womans Christian Temperance Union which played a role in winning prohibi- tion reforms and in some states woman suffrage as well (Epstein 1981) In terms of the number of such organizations in a state (divided by the size of the female population) the West outpaced the East and South (column 9) While the western states had about one womens organization for every 100000 women in thepopula- tion the eastern states had approximately one organization for every 250000 women (or 039 per 100000) and the southern states had one organization for every 400000 women (or 025 per 100000) We argue that the prevalence of politically active womens organizations in the West also provided a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage

Others as well have noted the Wests progressiveness in terms of womens move- ment into male domains (eg Cole 1990 Myres 1982 Patterson-Black 1976) For instance Matsuda (1985) finds that women owned more property in the West than elsewhere largely because of the Homestead Act of 1862 and its role in allowing thousands of single divorced and widowed women (but not married women living with their husbands [Muhn 19941) to claim property in the western region Patterson-Black (197668) in fact estimates that across the West between the late 19th and early 20th centuries about 12 percent of homestead entrants were women with the percentage starting small but increasing over time By 1913 one estimate of the proportion of female homesteaders put the figure at one-third (Stuart 19 13)

The reasons for the Wests leadership are not entirely clear Some have followed Frederick Jackson Turners (1972 Cole 1990) reasoning by claiming that a liberat- ing culture of frontier egalitarianism prevailed on the western frontier This argu- ment holds that the arduousness of life on the frontier caused women and men to work and struggle side by side often at the same tasks This allowed Westerners to innovate and hold more egalitarian beliefs about gender relations which then per- mitted women easier access to traditionally male arenas of activity

But other explanations of the Wests early acceptance of women in male domains are probably also useful For instance womens early presence in institu- tions of higher education in the West in all likelihood was tied to the fact that the West unlike many parts of the East and South was far more likely to have public land grant universities provisioned for under the Morill Act of 1862 (Goldin and Katz 1999) and public universities were typically less resistant to womens enroll- ments than were privately funded colleges and universities (Albjerg Graham 1978 767) The fact that women were more common in institutions of higher education in the West may also have helped pave the way for their greater presence in the profes- sions in that region Another circumstance unique to the West was that the average age of the population was younger in the West than in other regions (Larson 1974 8) and this also may have contributed both to higher enrollments in colleges and universities and to womens presence in law and medicine Younger women are

68 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

typically more willing and likely to move into traditionally male fields (Beller 1984) Finally the Homestead Act itself may have contributed to altered gender relations in the West The law did not exclude women from claiming land stating that Any person [emphasis added] who is the head of a family or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years is entitled to stake a claim (Muhn 1994 285) While this was interpreted to mean that married women living with their husbands could not make an independent entry it did give some women access to the economic power of property ownership and this provided a circumstance unique to the West that helped women step across the boundary separating the public and private spheres

Whether the primary cause underlying womens greater presence in male arenas of activity in the West stemmed from frontier egalitarianism or from a coincidental confluence of demographic and legal circumstances in that region in the end we argue that womens greater inroads into these male spheres in education the profes- sions voluntaristic politics and property ownership helped structure a gendered opportunity for the adoption of woman suffrage in the West Because women had already begun crossing gender boundaries in these other spheres male legislators and the male electorates of the West were more willing or tolerant of the idea of women participating formally in politics Thus in addition to the activities of the western suffrage movements and political opportunities in the West gendered opportunities we argue also helped to create an environment in which women were more likely to win voting rights

DATA AND METHOD

We use discrete methods in event history analysis to analyze the circumstances resulting in woman suffrage at the state level prior to passage of the 19th Amend- ment (McCammon 1998) All of our data are annual state-level measures and all 48 states are included in our analysis (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii due to a lack of data) Unless a data source is listed below one can assume data came from our con- tent analysis of documents describing the state suffrage movements (McCammon et al forthcoming) Our dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of the pas- sage of woman suffrage and is equal to 0 for years prior to the passage of full suf- frage in a state and 1 for the year in which suffrage was enacted (NAWSA 1940) If suffrage was not enacted in a state the dependent variable remains equal to 0 Years following the adoption of suffrage are not included in the analysis because a state is no longer at risk of passing suffrage3

We use three measures to assess Grimess (1967) theory (1) the number of bar- keeps and saloon keepers per capita (US Bureau of the Census 186418721883 1897 1902 1914 1923 1975)4 (2) the percentage of the population that was urban foreign-born (Lee et al 1957 US Bureau of the Census 1975) and (3) the ratio of the size of the male population to the size of the female population (US Bureau of the Census 1975) In the analyses including the saloon variable we also

McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

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Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

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58 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

only had the legislative and electoral power to confer the vote upon women but also had an interest in doing so Grimes theorizes that this segment of the western popu- lation reacted to the social instabilities of frontier life and set about to build a more orderly community Granting women voting rights was simply one step in this over- all agenda Female voters would bring Puritan norms of behavior into public life Grimes states that women were for law and order and opposed to vice and the starting place of vice was the saloon (p 70) By supporting laws restricting saloons and other venues of gambling and prostitution women would provide a civilized reaction to frontier rowdiness (p 76)

The desire to impose this vision of social order on emerging frontier communi- ties was also motivated by ethnocentric views According to Grimes some native- born residents were threatened by an influx of foreign-born settlers-for example in South Dakota the Russians Poles and Scandinavians in California the Chi- nese in Iowa the Germans in Wyoming the Irish and Chinese (Berman 1987 Grimes 1967) Particularly threatening were the concentrations of these groups in the growing urban areas of the West Interestingly the West did not lag much behind the East in terms of the presence of urban immigrants While in the East between 1870 and 1920 an average of 24 percent of urban residents were foreign- born in the West 22 percent of urban residents were born outside US borders (Lee et al 1957) (In the South the figure was only 7 percent)

This native-born constituency also argued that giving women voting rights wouldeffectively double the vote of stable manied men many of whom according to Grimes (1967) were proponents of the Puritan ethos (p 53) In addition where sex ratios were skewed toward men as they often were on the western frontier native whites argued that voting rights for women would help to lure greater num- bers of women-with their keener sense of moral behavior-to the West (p 58)

While a number of researchers have examined the empirical support for Grimess theory the results have been mixed at best Most of these studies have focused on native-born and foreign-born votes on suffrage referenda to discern whether an eth- nic difference in support for woman suffrage existed Berman (1987) for instance found that in the 1912 Arizona constitutional referendum on woman suffrage both native- and foreign-born male voters supported giving women the vote McDonagh and Price (1985 428-29) in analyses of referenda in California Oregon and Washington found little evidence of ethnic differences in support for woman suf- frage One study that does provide support for Grimess thesis is early work by Riessen Reed (1958) on South Dakota where German Americans resisted suf- frage primarily because of the assumption that female voters would support prohi- bition legislation

However Grimes (1967) was not as concerned with ethnic differences in sup- port of woman suffrage as he was with the circumstances in which the native-born population was likely to support woman suffrage Grimes posited that support for woman suffrage would be most pronounced where the social problems of the West (in particular drunkenness gambling and prostitution) were pervasive where a high concentration of urban immigrants resided and where a high male-to-female

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 59

population ratio existed Below we explore whether empirical support exists for Grimess hypotheses First however we discuss an alternative explanation of the Wests early adoption of woman suffrage

Movement Mobilization and Opportunity Structures

We propose an alternative understanding of suffrage success in the West Ours is an explanation rooted in three dynamics theorized in the social movements litera- ture to be important in winning significant changes in political policy (1) the ways in which the western suffrage movements mobilized (2) political opportunities in the West and (3) gendered opportunities that also existed in the West We discuss each of these in turn

Resource Mobilization and Ideological Framing

A number of researchers including Grimes (1967) who have explored the inci- dence of early suffrage in the West ignore the role of the state suffrage movements in bringing about voting rights for women (see eg Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) This is an odd oversight given that suffrage movements were active at some point in every state except Wyoming the very first state to grant suffrage Sociologists (eg Gamson 1975) on the other hand have pointed to the impor- tance of movements mobilizing key resources as they attempt to achieve signifi- cant political change Thus we explore the role of the state suffrage movements in winning full voting rights in the West

Resource mobilization theorists (eg McCarthy and Zald 1977) argue that movement organization and key strategies are crucial resources as movements seek social change And in the West there were active suffrage associations in all but two cases No organized movement existed in Wyoming although a few individuals demanded the vote before suffrage was won there Also no movement existed in Utah before 1870 when suffrage was first granted there (see Figure 1) But when the franchise was later granted again in 1895 there was a sizable suffrage movement in Utah On the other hand every state outside the West also had an organized suffrage movement yet few states outside the West enacted suffrage For instance suffra- gists first organized the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 (Cady Stanton Anthony and Gage [I8861 1985 321) one of the earliest state associa- tions It lasted until the end of the movement in 1920 But prior to the 19th Amend- ment Connecticut did not grant woman suffrage While the presence of suffragists mattered in that they were instrumental in putting woman suffrage on the legislative and electoral agendas the presence of a movement organization alone did not guar- antee success at the state level

It is also unclear how important the extent of organizing was for political suc- cess While some western states had sizable suffrage movements not all of them did and moreover a number of states outside the West had large movements For instance some states had multiple types of suffrage organizations such as Mens

60 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

TABLE 1 Average Membership in NAWSA-Affiliated State Suffrage Associations for Years of Suffrage Activity 1892-1919 (members per 10000 in states population)

State Members per 10000 State Members per 10000

Utah 4070 Vermont 246 Nevada 3343 Tennessee 241 New Hampshire 985 West Virginia 241 Connecticut 953 Illinois 231 Massachusetts 760 Texas 21 8 Delaware 682 Oregon 217 Maryland 623 South Dakota 206 Rhode Island 608 Ohio 199 Montana 593 Washington 190 North Dakota 565 Alabama 187 Virginia 531 Kansas 164 Nebraska 528 Wisconsin 159 Iowa 452 Arkansas 148 Indiana 451 Michigan 131 New York 430 Missouri 108 New Jersey 391 Oklahoma 107 Louisiana 369 Georgia 101 Kentucky 345 Colorado 067 California 334 Mississippi 062 Minnesota 333 North Carolina 060 Florida 310 New Mexico 058 Maine 292 South Carolina 031 Pennsylvania 267 Idaho 000 Arizona 266

NOTE NAWSA = National American Woman Suffrage Association No data are available for Wyoming Data on membership are only available beginning in 1892 (NAWSA 1893-1 91 7 191 9)

Suffrage Leagues or College Womens Equal Suffrage Leagues and more than one state organization But the western states generally lagged behind the eastern and southern states in the number of suffrage organizations While roughly half of the eastern and southern states had three or more suffrage organizations in existence at one time at the height of their movements only one-third of the western states did so A large number of suffrage organizations then probably was not a key factor in the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

The extent of organizing can also be considered in terms of movement member- ship Data on membership appear in Table 1 and show that the top two states in terms of average membership were Utah and Nevada each of which had extremely large memberships in state suffrage associations just prior to winning the vote in those states (the second time suffrage was won in Utah) Yet on the other hand North Dakota and Nebraska also had relatively large memberships and neither granted suffrage Furthermore the South and the West seem to compete in terms

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 61

of states with the smallest memberships Of the six states with the smallest member- ships three are southern (Mississippi North and South Carolina) and three are western (Colorado Idaho and New Mexico) and two of the western states (Colo- rado and Idaho) enacted suffrage Thus while the ability of some of the western movements to recruit sizable memberships may help explain why woman suffrage came early to those states (eg in Utah Nevada and Montana) the more frequent occurrence appears to be that large memberships did not translate into suffrage suc- cess Some western states with large memberships did not pass suffrage (Nebraska and North Dakota) and the eastern states with the largest memberships (New Hampshire Connecticut and Massachusetts) also did not grant suffrage Other aspects of the movements besides organization are likely to be more important in the passage of suffrage

In particular the strategies used by the movements in the West may help explain early suffrage there Suffragists in general engaged in a variety of tactics to con- vince lawmakers and the general public that women ought to have the vote We con- sider four types of activities The first two concern what political scientists refer to as insider and outsider strategies (Hunter Graham 1996 xv-xvi) Insider strate- gies involve activities used by movement activists to persuade political insiders- effectively lawmakers or politicians-that movement demands ought to be met The state suffragists used a variety of insider strategies including personally lobby- ing state legislators writing them letters giving speeches in state legislatures and gathering signatures on petitions to present to state legislatures Outsider strategies on the other hand involved suffragist attempts to recruit new members along with efforts to alter public opinion on woman suffrage effectively strategies designed to target political outsiders or at least nonpoliticians The suffragists engaged in a variety of such activities To build membership suffragists held regular state suf- frage conventions organized various social events and put trained organizers in the field To persuade the general public that women should be given the right to vote suffragists gave public speeches distributed handbills advertised in newspapers held suffrage parades and set up booths at local fairs

A preliminary look at regional differences in the overall use of insider and out- sider strategies reveals that the West differed from the other areas in terms of out- sider strategies Table 2 presents figures on the average use of these strategies in the different regions from 1866 to 1919 for the years of suffrage activity The West did not engage in insider strategies more or less so than did the South and East (see col- umn 1 including t-statistics) But western movements did use outsider strategies significantly less frequently than the other two regions (column 2) At first this might seem counterintuitive One would expect that greater use of outsider strate- gies would aid the suffragists in winning the vote but some western movements worked to keep a low profile advertising their message less to the general public to minimize backlash against the movements Abigail Scott Duniway a prominent leader in the Idaho Oregon and Washington campaigns preferred what she called the still hunt whereby the suffragists would quietly appeal to sympathetic

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 63

legislators for their support avoiding highly public demands for the vote (Moynihan 1983) Ultimately perhaps this quiet campaign style helped the suf- frage cause in the West by failing to arouse opposition to the movements

The suffragists used another strategy as they worked for voting rights They crafted their public arguments for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs in society in this case particularly beliefs about womens appropriate roles Snow et al (1986) refer to this activity as frame bridging Over time the suffra- gists became more savvy to the kinds of arguments for the vote that were likely to be accepted by the public The suffragists came to realize that arguments asserting womens right to equal suffrage-what Kraditor (1965) calls justice argumentsw-- met with resistance in the larger population (Baker 1984 634) Justice arguments tended to call for a basic redefinition of womens roles arguing that it was appropri- ate for women to participate in the political arena as equals Widely held beliefs at the time however defined womens appropriate roles as domestic such as caring for children and running households These were quite different from the roles defined for men in the public domains of business and politics (Kerber 1997) Jus- tice arguments about equality presented a direct challenge to such assumptions of male and female differences and separate spheres

Thus increasingly over time suffragists began to rely on another type of argu- ment As Kraditor (1965) points out and as our data indicate the suffragists began to use expediency arguments (although as our data also show and as Buechler [I9861 notes the suffragists did not abandon the justice arguments) Expediency arguments posited that women should have the vote to bring their special skills and insights to the political arena what Baker (1984635) calls a public motherhood role for women whereby women with their nurturing qualities would care for and improve public life by reducing corruption in government helping the poor im- proving public education and so on The different character of women would be an asset to politics and effectively the private sphere of womanhood would be expanded to include aspects of political or public life Expediency arguments thus framed the rationale for woman suffrage in ways that did not pose the same sort of challenge to accepted beliefs about womens roles and the differences between women and men as did the justice arguments

Table 2 shows that western suffragists were significantly more likely than suffra- gists outside the West to use expediency arguments (column 3) In Washington State for instance in the 1909 suffrage campaign participants called it a womanly campaign emphasizing the home interests (Husted Harper [I9221 1985 677) Perhaps this more frequent use in the West of an argument that was likely to reso- nate with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate place in society boosted the efforts of the suffragists in the West The West also was a region as Grimes (1 967) makes clear with numerous social problems For this reason as well expedi- ency arguments extolling womens ability to remedy social ills might have reso- nated among western legislators and voters Thus while Grimes (1967) argues that the problems of the West themselves resulted in support for voting rights for women we hypothesize that the suffragists brought about this support by shaping

64 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

their arguments to emphasize the contribution women voters could make in reme- dying such conditions

Finally we consider a fourth strategy used by the suffragists fund-raising Rais- ing funds to sustain movement activities is a crucial ingredient to successful activ- ism (McCammon et al forthcoming) Making trips to the state capitol to lobby law- makers and spreading the suffrage message through newspapers and other literature all held costs for the suffragists The movements raised funds in a variety of ways charging admission to suffrage speeches and plays soliciting outright contribu- tions to the movement and holding a variety of types of sales and other events For instance in 1909 in Washington suffragists sold a suffrage cookbook and in Montana in 1914 they held dances to raise funds (Husted Harper [I9221 1985365 677)

But the figures in column 4 of Table 2 show that the western movements were not different from the eastern and southern movements in the amount of their fund- raising activity However we examine an additional measure the amount of money the state associations were able to contribute to the National American Woman Suf- frage Association (NAWSA) divided by the size of the states population (NAWSA 1893-1917 1919 US Bureau of the Census 1975 col 5)-in large part an out- come of the movements fund-raising activities While the western and eastern regions were not significantly different from one another the western movements contributed significantly greater funds to NAWSA than did the southern suffrage movements Perhaps this financial advantage experienced by the West (and also the East) but not the South helps in part at least to explain the early suffrage successes in the West The western movements in fact may have had a greater need for funds than the eastern (or southern) movements given the greater geographic distances they had to cover to spread their message and the travel costs this entailed

Political and Gendered Opportunity Structures

A number of researchers who study movements have noted that success hinges not only on the movements ability to mobilize key resources but also on contextual circumstances that provide opportunities for movement success (eg McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996 McCammon et al forthcoming) While Grimes (1967) in his theorizing ignored the role of the state suffrage movements in the West he did attend to cultural beliefs and ethnic relations that provided in his thinking a con- text in which suffrage was possible Here we consider additional contextual cir- cumstances in the western frontier that may have provided opportunities for the success of the suffrage movements

Various researchers have theorized the importance of political opportunity structures for movement emergence and success opportunities that tend to reside in formal state structures or in shifts in electoral politics (McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996) A political opportunity that may have eased the way for the passage of woman suffrage in the West concerns the nature of state and territorial procedures for reform of voting rights While almost all states required a public referendum on

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 65

woman suffrage in addition to a legislative vote the territories did not The territo- ries could enact woman suffrage simply with a favorable legislative vote and dur- ing the years of suffrage activity all of the territories in existence were in the West (They were Arizona Colorado Idaho Montana Nebraska New Mexico North Dakota Oklahoma South Dakota Utah Washington and Wyoming) The ease offered by a less complex procedure for reform of voting rights such as that which existed in the territories suggests that a political opportunity for policy change can help explain why suffrage came to the West earlier than elsewhere

On the other hand although the territories had a less complex procedure for enacting suffrage only 3 of the 12 states that were territories during the suffrage years passed woman suffrage during their territorial years (Utah Washington [only in 18831 and Wyoming) The other western states that enacted suffrage along with Michigan and New York did so as states But the procedural ease or difficulty of expanding voting rights varied between the states as well While all states except Delaware required a referendum vote on woman suffrage some states such as Michigan required only a single legislative vote prior to a referendum Other states had far more complex procedures Illinois in fact first required a positive vote in the state legislature then a favorable vote by a constitutional convention and then finally public approval in a referendum Constitutional conventions however could be called only every 20 years in Illinois and this in particular severely hin- dered the suffragists chances of winning full voting rights in Illinois (Buechler 1986103) It is likely then that reform procedures in both territories and states mat- tered for sufiage In fact overall the states granting full suffrage to women had simpler reform procedures on average than did states not granting voting rights to women

Another circumstance that can provide a political opportunity for groups to bring about political change is when such groups win the support of political elites (Tarrow 1998) Such elites then can become allies in the quest for political change The suffragists routinely sought the support of political parties not only the Demo- cratic and Republican Parties but third parties-the Populists Progressives Prohi- bitionists and Socialists-as well The suffragists regularly attended state party conventions and appealed for party endorsements of woman suffrage In 11 out of the 15 states in which suffrage was won either the Democrats or the Republicans had recently endorsed woman suffrage-and in 8 of these states both parties did so In addition in 9 out of the 15 suffrage states the suffragists received endorsements from third parties just before winning suffrage (and in every case this was in addi- tion to support from at least one of the two major parties)

On the other hand in states where woman suffrage was not adopted by the final decade of the suffrage movement suffrage movements in only 8 (out of 33) states had solid support (ie an endorsement lasting four or more years) from at least one of the two major parties and in only 4 states had solid support from one of the third parties The lack of support particularly among the Democrats and Republicans in states outside the West is due both to the opposition to woman suffrage by the politi- cal machines in many large eastern industrial cities that lasted until the late 1910s

66 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

(Buenker 1971) and the opposition of southern Democrats who feared woman suf- frage would mean Negro (woman) suffrage (Spruill Wheeler 1993 17- 18) The lack of such entrenched political interests in the West then suggests another politi- cal opportunity for suffrage in that region

Just as political opportunities mattered for woman suffrage we theorize that gendered opportunities also are important in explaining early suffrage in the West Gendered opportunities can emerge from shifts in gender relations and from changes in beliefs about these relations (McCammon et al forthcoming) In the late 19th century as noted a widely accepted belief was that men should inhabit the public sphere of business and politics while women were thought to be fit both biologically and socially for only the private sphere of the home (Kerber 1997) Such beliefs worked to exclude women from activities in business and politics including exercising the franchise However in various ways where the boundary between the two spheres became blurred we argue it became more acceptable for women to have a formal voice in the polity and thus a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage emerged

The boundary between the public and private spheres tended to blur where women were moving into areas previously occupied by men and interestingly this pattern was more pronounced in a number of ways in the western states during the years of suffrage activity than in the eastern and southern states Columns 67 and 8 in Table 2 show that in terms of womens enrollment in higher education and employment in the professions of law and medicine during the years of suffrage activity the West for the most part led the rest of the nation Column 6 provides regional means for the percentage of all college and university students who were women The figures show that there were proportionately more women in colleges and universities in the West than in the East or the South Table 2 also shows that among lawyers and physicians proportionately more women tended to be in these occupations in the West during this period than in the East or South (columns 7 and 8) The figures in the table represent the number of female lawyers and doctors per 1000 lawyers and doctors respectively While the numbers particularly for women lawyers are quite small the West had significantly more women in the occupation of lawyer than the East or South and had significantly more women in the occupation of physician than the South (the mean is slightly higher for the West compared with the East but they are not significantly different) Moreover in 1910 while 11 percent of the overall US female population lived in the West the West was home to 21 percent of all female lawyers and 22 percent of all female doctors (US Bureau of the Census 1914) Clearly women in the West had made greater inroads into these male spheres of activity than had women in other regions

Another indicator of womens presence in a traditionally male arena is lobbying and other political efforts on the part of womens groups as they attempted to shape social policy A number of such womens groups existed during these years includ- ing (1) the Consumers League which lobbied legislatures to enact protective legis- lation for women and child laborers (McCammon 1995) (2) the General Federa- tion of Womens Clubs which worked not only on protective laws but numerous

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 67

other types of legislation such as school library and food reform (Blair 1980) (3) the National Congress of Mothers which also advocated for a variety of legislative reforms (Cott 1987 87) (4) the National Womens Trade Union League which also pushed for protective legislation for women (Schrom Dye 1980) and (5) the Womans Christian Temperance Union which played a role in winning prohibi- tion reforms and in some states woman suffrage as well (Epstein 1981) In terms of the number of such organizations in a state (divided by the size of the female population) the West outpaced the East and South (column 9) While the western states had about one womens organization for every 100000 women in thepopula- tion the eastern states had approximately one organization for every 250000 women (or 039 per 100000) and the southern states had one organization for every 400000 women (or 025 per 100000) We argue that the prevalence of politically active womens organizations in the West also provided a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage

Others as well have noted the Wests progressiveness in terms of womens move- ment into male domains (eg Cole 1990 Myres 1982 Patterson-Black 1976) For instance Matsuda (1985) finds that women owned more property in the West than elsewhere largely because of the Homestead Act of 1862 and its role in allowing thousands of single divorced and widowed women (but not married women living with their husbands [Muhn 19941) to claim property in the western region Patterson-Black (197668) in fact estimates that across the West between the late 19th and early 20th centuries about 12 percent of homestead entrants were women with the percentage starting small but increasing over time By 1913 one estimate of the proportion of female homesteaders put the figure at one-third (Stuart 19 13)

The reasons for the Wests leadership are not entirely clear Some have followed Frederick Jackson Turners (1972 Cole 1990) reasoning by claiming that a liberat- ing culture of frontier egalitarianism prevailed on the western frontier This argu- ment holds that the arduousness of life on the frontier caused women and men to work and struggle side by side often at the same tasks This allowed Westerners to innovate and hold more egalitarian beliefs about gender relations which then per- mitted women easier access to traditionally male arenas of activity

But other explanations of the Wests early acceptance of women in male domains are probably also useful For instance womens early presence in institu- tions of higher education in the West in all likelihood was tied to the fact that the West unlike many parts of the East and South was far more likely to have public land grant universities provisioned for under the Morill Act of 1862 (Goldin and Katz 1999) and public universities were typically less resistant to womens enroll- ments than were privately funded colleges and universities (Albjerg Graham 1978 767) The fact that women were more common in institutions of higher education in the West may also have helped pave the way for their greater presence in the profes- sions in that region Another circumstance unique to the West was that the average age of the population was younger in the West than in other regions (Larson 1974 8) and this also may have contributed both to higher enrollments in colleges and universities and to womens presence in law and medicine Younger women are

68 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

typically more willing and likely to move into traditionally male fields (Beller 1984) Finally the Homestead Act itself may have contributed to altered gender relations in the West The law did not exclude women from claiming land stating that Any person [emphasis added] who is the head of a family or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years is entitled to stake a claim (Muhn 1994 285) While this was interpreted to mean that married women living with their husbands could not make an independent entry it did give some women access to the economic power of property ownership and this provided a circumstance unique to the West that helped women step across the boundary separating the public and private spheres

Whether the primary cause underlying womens greater presence in male arenas of activity in the West stemmed from frontier egalitarianism or from a coincidental confluence of demographic and legal circumstances in that region in the end we argue that womens greater inroads into these male spheres in education the profes- sions voluntaristic politics and property ownership helped structure a gendered opportunity for the adoption of woman suffrage in the West Because women had already begun crossing gender boundaries in these other spheres male legislators and the male electorates of the West were more willing or tolerant of the idea of women participating formally in politics Thus in addition to the activities of the western suffrage movements and political opportunities in the West gendered opportunities we argue also helped to create an environment in which women were more likely to win voting rights

DATA AND METHOD

We use discrete methods in event history analysis to analyze the circumstances resulting in woman suffrage at the state level prior to passage of the 19th Amend- ment (McCammon 1998) All of our data are annual state-level measures and all 48 states are included in our analysis (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii due to a lack of data) Unless a data source is listed below one can assume data came from our con- tent analysis of documents describing the state suffrage movements (McCammon et al forthcoming) Our dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of the pas- sage of woman suffrage and is equal to 0 for years prior to the passage of full suf- frage in a state and 1 for the year in which suffrage was enacted (NAWSA 1940) If suffrage was not enacted in a state the dependent variable remains equal to 0 Years following the adoption of suffrage are not included in the analysis because a state is no longer at risk of passing suffrage3

We use three measures to assess Grimess (1967) theory (1) the number of bar- keeps and saloon keepers per capita (US Bureau of the Census 186418721883 1897 1902 1914 1923 1975)4 (2) the percentage of the population that was urban foreign-born (Lee et al 1957 US Bureau of the Census 1975) and (3) the ratio of the size of the male population to the size of the female population (US Bureau of the Census 1975) In the analyses including the saloon variable we also

McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Goldin Claudia and Lawrence FKatz 1999 The shaping of higher education The formative years in the United States 1890-1940 Journal of Economic Perspectives 1337-62

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Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

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Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

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McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 59

population ratio existed Below we explore whether empirical support exists for Grimess hypotheses First however we discuss an alternative explanation of the Wests early adoption of woman suffrage

Movement Mobilization and Opportunity Structures

We propose an alternative understanding of suffrage success in the West Ours is an explanation rooted in three dynamics theorized in the social movements litera- ture to be important in winning significant changes in political policy (1) the ways in which the western suffrage movements mobilized (2) political opportunities in the West and (3) gendered opportunities that also existed in the West We discuss each of these in turn

Resource Mobilization and Ideological Framing

A number of researchers including Grimes (1967) who have explored the inci- dence of early suffrage in the West ignore the role of the state suffrage movements in bringing about voting rights for women (see eg Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) This is an odd oversight given that suffrage movements were active at some point in every state except Wyoming the very first state to grant suffrage Sociologists (eg Gamson 1975) on the other hand have pointed to the impor- tance of movements mobilizing key resources as they attempt to achieve signifi- cant political change Thus we explore the role of the state suffrage movements in winning full voting rights in the West

Resource mobilization theorists (eg McCarthy and Zald 1977) argue that movement organization and key strategies are crucial resources as movements seek social change And in the West there were active suffrage associations in all but two cases No organized movement existed in Wyoming although a few individuals demanded the vote before suffrage was won there Also no movement existed in Utah before 1870 when suffrage was first granted there (see Figure 1) But when the franchise was later granted again in 1895 there was a sizable suffrage movement in Utah On the other hand every state outside the West also had an organized suffrage movement yet few states outside the West enacted suffrage For instance suffra- gists first organized the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association in 1869 (Cady Stanton Anthony and Gage [I8861 1985 321) one of the earliest state associa- tions It lasted until the end of the movement in 1920 But prior to the 19th Amend- ment Connecticut did not grant woman suffrage While the presence of suffragists mattered in that they were instrumental in putting woman suffrage on the legislative and electoral agendas the presence of a movement organization alone did not guar- antee success at the state level

It is also unclear how important the extent of organizing was for political suc- cess While some western states had sizable suffrage movements not all of them did and moreover a number of states outside the West had large movements For instance some states had multiple types of suffrage organizations such as Mens

60 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

TABLE 1 Average Membership in NAWSA-Affiliated State Suffrage Associations for Years of Suffrage Activity 1892-1919 (members per 10000 in states population)

State Members per 10000 State Members per 10000

Utah 4070 Vermont 246 Nevada 3343 Tennessee 241 New Hampshire 985 West Virginia 241 Connecticut 953 Illinois 231 Massachusetts 760 Texas 21 8 Delaware 682 Oregon 217 Maryland 623 South Dakota 206 Rhode Island 608 Ohio 199 Montana 593 Washington 190 North Dakota 565 Alabama 187 Virginia 531 Kansas 164 Nebraska 528 Wisconsin 159 Iowa 452 Arkansas 148 Indiana 451 Michigan 131 New York 430 Missouri 108 New Jersey 391 Oklahoma 107 Louisiana 369 Georgia 101 Kentucky 345 Colorado 067 California 334 Mississippi 062 Minnesota 333 North Carolina 060 Florida 310 New Mexico 058 Maine 292 South Carolina 031 Pennsylvania 267 Idaho 000 Arizona 266

NOTE NAWSA = National American Woman Suffrage Association No data are available for Wyoming Data on membership are only available beginning in 1892 (NAWSA 1893-1 91 7 191 9)

Suffrage Leagues or College Womens Equal Suffrage Leagues and more than one state organization But the western states generally lagged behind the eastern and southern states in the number of suffrage organizations While roughly half of the eastern and southern states had three or more suffrage organizations in existence at one time at the height of their movements only one-third of the western states did so A large number of suffrage organizations then probably was not a key factor in the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

The extent of organizing can also be considered in terms of movement member- ship Data on membership appear in Table 1 and show that the top two states in terms of average membership were Utah and Nevada each of which had extremely large memberships in state suffrage associations just prior to winning the vote in those states (the second time suffrage was won in Utah) Yet on the other hand North Dakota and Nebraska also had relatively large memberships and neither granted suffrage Furthermore the South and the West seem to compete in terms

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 61

of states with the smallest memberships Of the six states with the smallest member- ships three are southern (Mississippi North and South Carolina) and three are western (Colorado Idaho and New Mexico) and two of the western states (Colo- rado and Idaho) enacted suffrage Thus while the ability of some of the western movements to recruit sizable memberships may help explain why woman suffrage came early to those states (eg in Utah Nevada and Montana) the more frequent occurrence appears to be that large memberships did not translate into suffrage suc- cess Some western states with large memberships did not pass suffrage (Nebraska and North Dakota) and the eastern states with the largest memberships (New Hampshire Connecticut and Massachusetts) also did not grant suffrage Other aspects of the movements besides organization are likely to be more important in the passage of suffrage

In particular the strategies used by the movements in the West may help explain early suffrage there Suffragists in general engaged in a variety of tactics to con- vince lawmakers and the general public that women ought to have the vote We con- sider four types of activities The first two concern what political scientists refer to as insider and outsider strategies (Hunter Graham 1996 xv-xvi) Insider strate- gies involve activities used by movement activists to persuade political insiders- effectively lawmakers or politicians-that movement demands ought to be met The state suffragists used a variety of insider strategies including personally lobby- ing state legislators writing them letters giving speeches in state legislatures and gathering signatures on petitions to present to state legislatures Outsider strategies on the other hand involved suffragist attempts to recruit new members along with efforts to alter public opinion on woman suffrage effectively strategies designed to target political outsiders or at least nonpoliticians The suffragists engaged in a variety of such activities To build membership suffragists held regular state suf- frage conventions organized various social events and put trained organizers in the field To persuade the general public that women should be given the right to vote suffragists gave public speeches distributed handbills advertised in newspapers held suffrage parades and set up booths at local fairs

A preliminary look at regional differences in the overall use of insider and out- sider strategies reveals that the West differed from the other areas in terms of out- sider strategies Table 2 presents figures on the average use of these strategies in the different regions from 1866 to 1919 for the years of suffrage activity The West did not engage in insider strategies more or less so than did the South and East (see col- umn 1 including t-statistics) But western movements did use outsider strategies significantly less frequently than the other two regions (column 2) At first this might seem counterintuitive One would expect that greater use of outsider strate- gies would aid the suffragists in winning the vote but some western movements worked to keep a low profile advertising their message less to the general public to minimize backlash against the movements Abigail Scott Duniway a prominent leader in the Idaho Oregon and Washington campaigns preferred what she called the still hunt whereby the suffragists would quietly appeal to sympathetic

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 63

legislators for their support avoiding highly public demands for the vote (Moynihan 1983) Ultimately perhaps this quiet campaign style helped the suf- frage cause in the West by failing to arouse opposition to the movements

The suffragists used another strategy as they worked for voting rights They crafted their public arguments for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs in society in this case particularly beliefs about womens appropriate roles Snow et al (1986) refer to this activity as frame bridging Over time the suffra- gists became more savvy to the kinds of arguments for the vote that were likely to be accepted by the public The suffragists came to realize that arguments asserting womens right to equal suffrage-what Kraditor (1965) calls justice argumentsw-- met with resistance in the larger population (Baker 1984 634) Justice arguments tended to call for a basic redefinition of womens roles arguing that it was appropri- ate for women to participate in the political arena as equals Widely held beliefs at the time however defined womens appropriate roles as domestic such as caring for children and running households These were quite different from the roles defined for men in the public domains of business and politics (Kerber 1997) Jus- tice arguments about equality presented a direct challenge to such assumptions of male and female differences and separate spheres

Thus increasingly over time suffragists began to rely on another type of argu- ment As Kraditor (1965) points out and as our data indicate the suffragists began to use expediency arguments (although as our data also show and as Buechler [I9861 notes the suffragists did not abandon the justice arguments) Expediency arguments posited that women should have the vote to bring their special skills and insights to the political arena what Baker (1984635) calls a public motherhood role for women whereby women with their nurturing qualities would care for and improve public life by reducing corruption in government helping the poor im- proving public education and so on The different character of women would be an asset to politics and effectively the private sphere of womanhood would be expanded to include aspects of political or public life Expediency arguments thus framed the rationale for woman suffrage in ways that did not pose the same sort of challenge to accepted beliefs about womens roles and the differences between women and men as did the justice arguments

Table 2 shows that western suffragists were significantly more likely than suffra- gists outside the West to use expediency arguments (column 3) In Washington State for instance in the 1909 suffrage campaign participants called it a womanly campaign emphasizing the home interests (Husted Harper [I9221 1985 677) Perhaps this more frequent use in the West of an argument that was likely to reso- nate with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate place in society boosted the efforts of the suffragists in the West The West also was a region as Grimes (1 967) makes clear with numerous social problems For this reason as well expedi- ency arguments extolling womens ability to remedy social ills might have reso- nated among western legislators and voters Thus while Grimes (1967) argues that the problems of the West themselves resulted in support for voting rights for women we hypothesize that the suffragists brought about this support by shaping

64 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

their arguments to emphasize the contribution women voters could make in reme- dying such conditions

Finally we consider a fourth strategy used by the suffragists fund-raising Rais- ing funds to sustain movement activities is a crucial ingredient to successful activ- ism (McCammon et al forthcoming) Making trips to the state capitol to lobby law- makers and spreading the suffrage message through newspapers and other literature all held costs for the suffragists The movements raised funds in a variety of ways charging admission to suffrage speeches and plays soliciting outright contribu- tions to the movement and holding a variety of types of sales and other events For instance in 1909 in Washington suffragists sold a suffrage cookbook and in Montana in 1914 they held dances to raise funds (Husted Harper [I9221 1985365 677)

But the figures in column 4 of Table 2 show that the western movements were not different from the eastern and southern movements in the amount of their fund- raising activity However we examine an additional measure the amount of money the state associations were able to contribute to the National American Woman Suf- frage Association (NAWSA) divided by the size of the states population (NAWSA 1893-1917 1919 US Bureau of the Census 1975 col 5)-in large part an out- come of the movements fund-raising activities While the western and eastern regions were not significantly different from one another the western movements contributed significantly greater funds to NAWSA than did the southern suffrage movements Perhaps this financial advantage experienced by the West (and also the East) but not the South helps in part at least to explain the early suffrage successes in the West The western movements in fact may have had a greater need for funds than the eastern (or southern) movements given the greater geographic distances they had to cover to spread their message and the travel costs this entailed

Political and Gendered Opportunity Structures

A number of researchers who study movements have noted that success hinges not only on the movements ability to mobilize key resources but also on contextual circumstances that provide opportunities for movement success (eg McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996 McCammon et al forthcoming) While Grimes (1967) in his theorizing ignored the role of the state suffrage movements in the West he did attend to cultural beliefs and ethnic relations that provided in his thinking a con- text in which suffrage was possible Here we consider additional contextual cir- cumstances in the western frontier that may have provided opportunities for the success of the suffrage movements

Various researchers have theorized the importance of political opportunity structures for movement emergence and success opportunities that tend to reside in formal state structures or in shifts in electoral politics (McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996) A political opportunity that may have eased the way for the passage of woman suffrage in the West concerns the nature of state and territorial procedures for reform of voting rights While almost all states required a public referendum on

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 65

woman suffrage in addition to a legislative vote the territories did not The territo- ries could enact woman suffrage simply with a favorable legislative vote and dur- ing the years of suffrage activity all of the territories in existence were in the West (They were Arizona Colorado Idaho Montana Nebraska New Mexico North Dakota Oklahoma South Dakota Utah Washington and Wyoming) The ease offered by a less complex procedure for reform of voting rights such as that which existed in the territories suggests that a political opportunity for policy change can help explain why suffrage came to the West earlier than elsewhere

On the other hand although the territories had a less complex procedure for enacting suffrage only 3 of the 12 states that were territories during the suffrage years passed woman suffrage during their territorial years (Utah Washington [only in 18831 and Wyoming) The other western states that enacted suffrage along with Michigan and New York did so as states But the procedural ease or difficulty of expanding voting rights varied between the states as well While all states except Delaware required a referendum vote on woman suffrage some states such as Michigan required only a single legislative vote prior to a referendum Other states had far more complex procedures Illinois in fact first required a positive vote in the state legislature then a favorable vote by a constitutional convention and then finally public approval in a referendum Constitutional conventions however could be called only every 20 years in Illinois and this in particular severely hin- dered the suffragists chances of winning full voting rights in Illinois (Buechler 1986103) It is likely then that reform procedures in both territories and states mat- tered for sufiage In fact overall the states granting full suffrage to women had simpler reform procedures on average than did states not granting voting rights to women

Another circumstance that can provide a political opportunity for groups to bring about political change is when such groups win the support of political elites (Tarrow 1998) Such elites then can become allies in the quest for political change The suffragists routinely sought the support of political parties not only the Demo- cratic and Republican Parties but third parties-the Populists Progressives Prohi- bitionists and Socialists-as well The suffragists regularly attended state party conventions and appealed for party endorsements of woman suffrage In 11 out of the 15 states in which suffrage was won either the Democrats or the Republicans had recently endorsed woman suffrage-and in 8 of these states both parties did so In addition in 9 out of the 15 suffrage states the suffragists received endorsements from third parties just before winning suffrage (and in every case this was in addi- tion to support from at least one of the two major parties)

On the other hand in states where woman suffrage was not adopted by the final decade of the suffrage movement suffrage movements in only 8 (out of 33) states had solid support (ie an endorsement lasting four or more years) from at least one of the two major parties and in only 4 states had solid support from one of the third parties The lack of support particularly among the Democrats and Republicans in states outside the West is due both to the opposition to woman suffrage by the politi- cal machines in many large eastern industrial cities that lasted until the late 1910s

66 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

(Buenker 1971) and the opposition of southern Democrats who feared woman suf- frage would mean Negro (woman) suffrage (Spruill Wheeler 1993 17- 18) The lack of such entrenched political interests in the West then suggests another politi- cal opportunity for suffrage in that region

Just as political opportunities mattered for woman suffrage we theorize that gendered opportunities also are important in explaining early suffrage in the West Gendered opportunities can emerge from shifts in gender relations and from changes in beliefs about these relations (McCammon et al forthcoming) In the late 19th century as noted a widely accepted belief was that men should inhabit the public sphere of business and politics while women were thought to be fit both biologically and socially for only the private sphere of the home (Kerber 1997) Such beliefs worked to exclude women from activities in business and politics including exercising the franchise However in various ways where the boundary between the two spheres became blurred we argue it became more acceptable for women to have a formal voice in the polity and thus a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage emerged

The boundary between the public and private spheres tended to blur where women were moving into areas previously occupied by men and interestingly this pattern was more pronounced in a number of ways in the western states during the years of suffrage activity than in the eastern and southern states Columns 67 and 8 in Table 2 show that in terms of womens enrollment in higher education and employment in the professions of law and medicine during the years of suffrage activity the West for the most part led the rest of the nation Column 6 provides regional means for the percentage of all college and university students who were women The figures show that there were proportionately more women in colleges and universities in the West than in the East or the South Table 2 also shows that among lawyers and physicians proportionately more women tended to be in these occupations in the West during this period than in the East or South (columns 7 and 8) The figures in the table represent the number of female lawyers and doctors per 1000 lawyers and doctors respectively While the numbers particularly for women lawyers are quite small the West had significantly more women in the occupation of lawyer than the East or South and had significantly more women in the occupation of physician than the South (the mean is slightly higher for the West compared with the East but they are not significantly different) Moreover in 1910 while 11 percent of the overall US female population lived in the West the West was home to 21 percent of all female lawyers and 22 percent of all female doctors (US Bureau of the Census 1914) Clearly women in the West had made greater inroads into these male spheres of activity than had women in other regions

Another indicator of womens presence in a traditionally male arena is lobbying and other political efforts on the part of womens groups as they attempted to shape social policy A number of such womens groups existed during these years includ- ing (1) the Consumers League which lobbied legislatures to enact protective legis- lation for women and child laborers (McCammon 1995) (2) the General Federa- tion of Womens Clubs which worked not only on protective laws but numerous

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 67

other types of legislation such as school library and food reform (Blair 1980) (3) the National Congress of Mothers which also advocated for a variety of legislative reforms (Cott 1987 87) (4) the National Womens Trade Union League which also pushed for protective legislation for women (Schrom Dye 1980) and (5) the Womans Christian Temperance Union which played a role in winning prohibi- tion reforms and in some states woman suffrage as well (Epstein 1981) In terms of the number of such organizations in a state (divided by the size of the female population) the West outpaced the East and South (column 9) While the western states had about one womens organization for every 100000 women in thepopula- tion the eastern states had approximately one organization for every 250000 women (or 039 per 100000) and the southern states had one organization for every 400000 women (or 025 per 100000) We argue that the prevalence of politically active womens organizations in the West also provided a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage

Others as well have noted the Wests progressiveness in terms of womens move- ment into male domains (eg Cole 1990 Myres 1982 Patterson-Black 1976) For instance Matsuda (1985) finds that women owned more property in the West than elsewhere largely because of the Homestead Act of 1862 and its role in allowing thousands of single divorced and widowed women (but not married women living with their husbands [Muhn 19941) to claim property in the western region Patterson-Black (197668) in fact estimates that across the West between the late 19th and early 20th centuries about 12 percent of homestead entrants were women with the percentage starting small but increasing over time By 1913 one estimate of the proportion of female homesteaders put the figure at one-third (Stuart 19 13)

The reasons for the Wests leadership are not entirely clear Some have followed Frederick Jackson Turners (1972 Cole 1990) reasoning by claiming that a liberat- ing culture of frontier egalitarianism prevailed on the western frontier This argu- ment holds that the arduousness of life on the frontier caused women and men to work and struggle side by side often at the same tasks This allowed Westerners to innovate and hold more egalitarian beliefs about gender relations which then per- mitted women easier access to traditionally male arenas of activity

But other explanations of the Wests early acceptance of women in male domains are probably also useful For instance womens early presence in institu- tions of higher education in the West in all likelihood was tied to the fact that the West unlike many parts of the East and South was far more likely to have public land grant universities provisioned for under the Morill Act of 1862 (Goldin and Katz 1999) and public universities were typically less resistant to womens enroll- ments than were privately funded colleges and universities (Albjerg Graham 1978 767) The fact that women were more common in institutions of higher education in the West may also have helped pave the way for their greater presence in the profes- sions in that region Another circumstance unique to the West was that the average age of the population was younger in the West than in other regions (Larson 1974 8) and this also may have contributed both to higher enrollments in colleges and universities and to womens presence in law and medicine Younger women are

68 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

typically more willing and likely to move into traditionally male fields (Beller 1984) Finally the Homestead Act itself may have contributed to altered gender relations in the West The law did not exclude women from claiming land stating that Any person [emphasis added] who is the head of a family or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years is entitled to stake a claim (Muhn 1994 285) While this was interpreted to mean that married women living with their husbands could not make an independent entry it did give some women access to the economic power of property ownership and this provided a circumstance unique to the West that helped women step across the boundary separating the public and private spheres

Whether the primary cause underlying womens greater presence in male arenas of activity in the West stemmed from frontier egalitarianism or from a coincidental confluence of demographic and legal circumstances in that region in the end we argue that womens greater inroads into these male spheres in education the profes- sions voluntaristic politics and property ownership helped structure a gendered opportunity for the adoption of woman suffrage in the West Because women had already begun crossing gender boundaries in these other spheres male legislators and the male electorates of the West were more willing or tolerant of the idea of women participating formally in politics Thus in addition to the activities of the western suffrage movements and political opportunities in the West gendered opportunities we argue also helped to create an environment in which women were more likely to win voting rights

DATA AND METHOD

We use discrete methods in event history analysis to analyze the circumstances resulting in woman suffrage at the state level prior to passage of the 19th Amend- ment (McCammon 1998) All of our data are annual state-level measures and all 48 states are included in our analysis (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii due to a lack of data) Unless a data source is listed below one can assume data came from our con- tent analysis of documents describing the state suffrage movements (McCammon et al forthcoming) Our dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of the pas- sage of woman suffrage and is equal to 0 for years prior to the passage of full suf- frage in a state and 1 for the year in which suffrage was enacted (NAWSA 1940) If suffrage was not enacted in a state the dependent variable remains equal to 0 Years following the adoption of suffrage are not included in the analysis because a state is no longer at risk of passing suffrage3

We use three measures to assess Grimess (1967) theory (1) the number of bar- keeps and saloon keepers per capita (US Bureau of the Census 186418721883 1897 1902 1914 1923 1975)4 (2) the percentage of the population that was urban foreign-born (Lee et al 1957 US Bureau of the Census 1975) and (3) the ratio of the size of the male population to the size of the female population (US Bureau of the Census 1975) In the analyses including the saloon variable we also

McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Goldin Claudia and Lawrence FKatz 1999 The shaping of higher education The formative years in the United States 1890-1940 Journal of Economic Perspectives 1337-62

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Marshall Susan E 1998 The gender gap in voting behavior Evidence from a referendum on woman suffrage Research in Political Sociology 8 189-207

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McAdam Doug John D McCarthy and Mayer N Zald eds 1996 Comparative perspectives on social movements Political opportunities mobilizing structures and cultural framings New York Carn- bridge University Press

McCammon Holly J 1995 The politics of protection State minimum wage and maximum hours laws for women in the United States Sociological Quarterly 36217-49

1998 Using event history analysis in historical research With illustrations from a study of the passage of womens protective legislation International Review of Social History 4333-55

McCarnmon Holly I Karen E Campbell Ellen M Granberg and Christine Mowery Forthcoming How movements win Gendered opportunity structures and the state womens suffrage movements 1866-1 919 American Sociological Review

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Tarrow Sidney 1998 Power in movemenr Social movemenrs collective action and politics 2d ed New York Cambridge University Press

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Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

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Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

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60 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

TABLE 1 Average Membership in NAWSA-Affiliated State Suffrage Associations for Years of Suffrage Activity 1892-1919 (members per 10000 in states population)

State Members per 10000 State Members per 10000

Utah 4070 Vermont 246 Nevada 3343 Tennessee 241 New Hampshire 985 West Virginia 241 Connecticut 953 Illinois 231 Massachusetts 760 Texas 21 8 Delaware 682 Oregon 217 Maryland 623 South Dakota 206 Rhode Island 608 Ohio 199 Montana 593 Washington 190 North Dakota 565 Alabama 187 Virginia 531 Kansas 164 Nebraska 528 Wisconsin 159 Iowa 452 Arkansas 148 Indiana 451 Michigan 131 New York 430 Missouri 108 New Jersey 391 Oklahoma 107 Louisiana 369 Georgia 101 Kentucky 345 Colorado 067 California 334 Mississippi 062 Minnesota 333 North Carolina 060 Florida 310 New Mexico 058 Maine 292 South Carolina 031 Pennsylvania 267 Idaho 000 Arizona 266

NOTE NAWSA = National American Woman Suffrage Association No data are available for Wyoming Data on membership are only available beginning in 1892 (NAWSA 1893-1 91 7 191 9)

Suffrage Leagues or College Womens Equal Suffrage Leagues and more than one state organization But the western states generally lagged behind the eastern and southern states in the number of suffrage organizations While roughly half of the eastern and southern states had three or more suffrage organizations in existence at one time at the height of their movements only one-third of the western states did so A large number of suffrage organizations then probably was not a key factor in the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

The extent of organizing can also be considered in terms of movement member- ship Data on membership appear in Table 1 and show that the top two states in terms of average membership were Utah and Nevada each of which had extremely large memberships in state suffrage associations just prior to winning the vote in those states (the second time suffrage was won in Utah) Yet on the other hand North Dakota and Nebraska also had relatively large memberships and neither granted suffrage Furthermore the South and the West seem to compete in terms

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 61

of states with the smallest memberships Of the six states with the smallest member- ships three are southern (Mississippi North and South Carolina) and three are western (Colorado Idaho and New Mexico) and two of the western states (Colo- rado and Idaho) enacted suffrage Thus while the ability of some of the western movements to recruit sizable memberships may help explain why woman suffrage came early to those states (eg in Utah Nevada and Montana) the more frequent occurrence appears to be that large memberships did not translate into suffrage suc- cess Some western states with large memberships did not pass suffrage (Nebraska and North Dakota) and the eastern states with the largest memberships (New Hampshire Connecticut and Massachusetts) also did not grant suffrage Other aspects of the movements besides organization are likely to be more important in the passage of suffrage

In particular the strategies used by the movements in the West may help explain early suffrage there Suffragists in general engaged in a variety of tactics to con- vince lawmakers and the general public that women ought to have the vote We con- sider four types of activities The first two concern what political scientists refer to as insider and outsider strategies (Hunter Graham 1996 xv-xvi) Insider strate- gies involve activities used by movement activists to persuade political insiders- effectively lawmakers or politicians-that movement demands ought to be met The state suffragists used a variety of insider strategies including personally lobby- ing state legislators writing them letters giving speeches in state legislatures and gathering signatures on petitions to present to state legislatures Outsider strategies on the other hand involved suffragist attempts to recruit new members along with efforts to alter public opinion on woman suffrage effectively strategies designed to target political outsiders or at least nonpoliticians The suffragists engaged in a variety of such activities To build membership suffragists held regular state suf- frage conventions organized various social events and put trained organizers in the field To persuade the general public that women should be given the right to vote suffragists gave public speeches distributed handbills advertised in newspapers held suffrage parades and set up booths at local fairs

A preliminary look at regional differences in the overall use of insider and out- sider strategies reveals that the West differed from the other areas in terms of out- sider strategies Table 2 presents figures on the average use of these strategies in the different regions from 1866 to 1919 for the years of suffrage activity The West did not engage in insider strategies more or less so than did the South and East (see col- umn 1 including t-statistics) But western movements did use outsider strategies significantly less frequently than the other two regions (column 2) At first this might seem counterintuitive One would expect that greater use of outsider strate- gies would aid the suffragists in winning the vote but some western movements worked to keep a low profile advertising their message less to the general public to minimize backlash against the movements Abigail Scott Duniway a prominent leader in the Idaho Oregon and Washington campaigns preferred what she called the still hunt whereby the suffragists would quietly appeal to sympathetic

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 63

legislators for their support avoiding highly public demands for the vote (Moynihan 1983) Ultimately perhaps this quiet campaign style helped the suf- frage cause in the West by failing to arouse opposition to the movements

The suffragists used another strategy as they worked for voting rights They crafted their public arguments for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs in society in this case particularly beliefs about womens appropriate roles Snow et al (1986) refer to this activity as frame bridging Over time the suffra- gists became more savvy to the kinds of arguments for the vote that were likely to be accepted by the public The suffragists came to realize that arguments asserting womens right to equal suffrage-what Kraditor (1965) calls justice argumentsw-- met with resistance in the larger population (Baker 1984 634) Justice arguments tended to call for a basic redefinition of womens roles arguing that it was appropri- ate for women to participate in the political arena as equals Widely held beliefs at the time however defined womens appropriate roles as domestic such as caring for children and running households These were quite different from the roles defined for men in the public domains of business and politics (Kerber 1997) Jus- tice arguments about equality presented a direct challenge to such assumptions of male and female differences and separate spheres

Thus increasingly over time suffragists began to rely on another type of argu- ment As Kraditor (1965) points out and as our data indicate the suffragists began to use expediency arguments (although as our data also show and as Buechler [I9861 notes the suffragists did not abandon the justice arguments) Expediency arguments posited that women should have the vote to bring their special skills and insights to the political arena what Baker (1984635) calls a public motherhood role for women whereby women with their nurturing qualities would care for and improve public life by reducing corruption in government helping the poor im- proving public education and so on The different character of women would be an asset to politics and effectively the private sphere of womanhood would be expanded to include aspects of political or public life Expediency arguments thus framed the rationale for woman suffrage in ways that did not pose the same sort of challenge to accepted beliefs about womens roles and the differences between women and men as did the justice arguments

Table 2 shows that western suffragists were significantly more likely than suffra- gists outside the West to use expediency arguments (column 3) In Washington State for instance in the 1909 suffrage campaign participants called it a womanly campaign emphasizing the home interests (Husted Harper [I9221 1985 677) Perhaps this more frequent use in the West of an argument that was likely to reso- nate with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate place in society boosted the efforts of the suffragists in the West The West also was a region as Grimes (1 967) makes clear with numerous social problems For this reason as well expedi- ency arguments extolling womens ability to remedy social ills might have reso- nated among western legislators and voters Thus while Grimes (1967) argues that the problems of the West themselves resulted in support for voting rights for women we hypothesize that the suffragists brought about this support by shaping

64 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

their arguments to emphasize the contribution women voters could make in reme- dying such conditions

Finally we consider a fourth strategy used by the suffragists fund-raising Rais- ing funds to sustain movement activities is a crucial ingredient to successful activ- ism (McCammon et al forthcoming) Making trips to the state capitol to lobby law- makers and spreading the suffrage message through newspapers and other literature all held costs for the suffragists The movements raised funds in a variety of ways charging admission to suffrage speeches and plays soliciting outright contribu- tions to the movement and holding a variety of types of sales and other events For instance in 1909 in Washington suffragists sold a suffrage cookbook and in Montana in 1914 they held dances to raise funds (Husted Harper [I9221 1985365 677)

But the figures in column 4 of Table 2 show that the western movements were not different from the eastern and southern movements in the amount of their fund- raising activity However we examine an additional measure the amount of money the state associations were able to contribute to the National American Woman Suf- frage Association (NAWSA) divided by the size of the states population (NAWSA 1893-1917 1919 US Bureau of the Census 1975 col 5)-in large part an out- come of the movements fund-raising activities While the western and eastern regions were not significantly different from one another the western movements contributed significantly greater funds to NAWSA than did the southern suffrage movements Perhaps this financial advantage experienced by the West (and also the East) but not the South helps in part at least to explain the early suffrage successes in the West The western movements in fact may have had a greater need for funds than the eastern (or southern) movements given the greater geographic distances they had to cover to spread their message and the travel costs this entailed

Political and Gendered Opportunity Structures

A number of researchers who study movements have noted that success hinges not only on the movements ability to mobilize key resources but also on contextual circumstances that provide opportunities for movement success (eg McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996 McCammon et al forthcoming) While Grimes (1967) in his theorizing ignored the role of the state suffrage movements in the West he did attend to cultural beliefs and ethnic relations that provided in his thinking a con- text in which suffrage was possible Here we consider additional contextual cir- cumstances in the western frontier that may have provided opportunities for the success of the suffrage movements

Various researchers have theorized the importance of political opportunity structures for movement emergence and success opportunities that tend to reside in formal state structures or in shifts in electoral politics (McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996) A political opportunity that may have eased the way for the passage of woman suffrage in the West concerns the nature of state and territorial procedures for reform of voting rights While almost all states required a public referendum on

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 65

woman suffrage in addition to a legislative vote the territories did not The territo- ries could enact woman suffrage simply with a favorable legislative vote and dur- ing the years of suffrage activity all of the territories in existence were in the West (They were Arizona Colorado Idaho Montana Nebraska New Mexico North Dakota Oklahoma South Dakota Utah Washington and Wyoming) The ease offered by a less complex procedure for reform of voting rights such as that which existed in the territories suggests that a political opportunity for policy change can help explain why suffrage came to the West earlier than elsewhere

On the other hand although the territories had a less complex procedure for enacting suffrage only 3 of the 12 states that were territories during the suffrage years passed woman suffrage during their territorial years (Utah Washington [only in 18831 and Wyoming) The other western states that enacted suffrage along with Michigan and New York did so as states But the procedural ease or difficulty of expanding voting rights varied between the states as well While all states except Delaware required a referendum vote on woman suffrage some states such as Michigan required only a single legislative vote prior to a referendum Other states had far more complex procedures Illinois in fact first required a positive vote in the state legislature then a favorable vote by a constitutional convention and then finally public approval in a referendum Constitutional conventions however could be called only every 20 years in Illinois and this in particular severely hin- dered the suffragists chances of winning full voting rights in Illinois (Buechler 1986103) It is likely then that reform procedures in both territories and states mat- tered for sufiage In fact overall the states granting full suffrage to women had simpler reform procedures on average than did states not granting voting rights to women

Another circumstance that can provide a political opportunity for groups to bring about political change is when such groups win the support of political elites (Tarrow 1998) Such elites then can become allies in the quest for political change The suffragists routinely sought the support of political parties not only the Demo- cratic and Republican Parties but third parties-the Populists Progressives Prohi- bitionists and Socialists-as well The suffragists regularly attended state party conventions and appealed for party endorsements of woman suffrage In 11 out of the 15 states in which suffrage was won either the Democrats or the Republicans had recently endorsed woman suffrage-and in 8 of these states both parties did so In addition in 9 out of the 15 suffrage states the suffragists received endorsements from third parties just before winning suffrage (and in every case this was in addi- tion to support from at least one of the two major parties)

On the other hand in states where woman suffrage was not adopted by the final decade of the suffrage movement suffrage movements in only 8 (out of 33) states had solid support (ie an endorsement lasting four or more years) from at least one of the two major parties and in only 4 states had solid support from one of the third parties The lack of support particularly among the Democrats and Republicans in states outside the West is due both to the opposition to woman suffrage by the politi- cal machines in many large eastern industrial cities that lasted until the late 1910s

66 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

(Buenker 1971) and the opposition of southern Democrats who feared woman suf- frage would mean Negro (woman) suffrage (Spruill Wheeler 1993 17- 18) The lack of such entrenched political interests in the West then suggests another politi- cal opportunity for suffrage in that region

Just as political opportunities mattered for woman suffrage we theorize that gendered opportunities also are important in explaining early suffrage in the West Gendered opportunities can emerge from shifts in gender relations and from changes in beliefs about these relations (McCammon et al forthcoming) In the late 19th century as noted a widely accepted belief was that men should inhabit the public sphere of business and politics while women were thought to be fit both biologically and socially for only the private sphere of the home (Kerber 1997) Such beliefs worked to exclude women from activities in business and politics including exercising the franchise However in various ways where the boundary between the two spheres became blurred we argue it became more acceptable for women to have a formal voice in the polity and thus a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage emerged

The boundary between the public and private spheres tended to blur where women were moving into areas previously occupied by men and interestingly this pattern was more pronounced in a number of ways in the western states during the years of suffrage activity than in the eastern and southern states Columns 67 and 8 in Table 2 show that in terms of womens enrollment in higher education and employment in the professions of law and medicine during the years of suffrage activity the West for the most part led the rest of the nation Column 6 provides regional means for the percentage of all college and university students who were women The figures show that there were proportionately more women in colleges and universities in the West than in the East or the South Table 2 also shows that among lawyers and physicians proportionately more women tended to be in these occupations in the West during this period than in the East or South (columns 7 and 8) The figures in the table represent the number of female lawyers and doctors per 1000 lawyers and doctors respectively While the numbers particularly for women lawyers are quite small the West had significantly more women in the occupation of lawyer than the East or South and had significantly more women in the occupation of physician than the South (the mean is slightly higher for the West compared with the East but they are not significantly different) Moreover in 1910 while 11 percent of the overall US female population lived in the West the West was home to 21 percent of all female lawyers and 22 percent of all female doctors (US Bureau of the Census 1914) Clearly women in the West had made greater inroads into these male spheres of activity than had women in other regions

Another indicator of womens presence in a traditionally male arena is lobbying and other political efforts on the part of womens groups as they attempted to shape social policy A number of such womens groups existed during these years includ- ing (1) the Consumers League which lobbied legislatures to enact protective legis- lation for women and child laborers (McCammon 1995) (2) the General Federa- tion of Womens Clubs which worked not only on protective laws but numerous

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 67

other types of legislation such as school library and food reform (Blair 1980) (3) the National Congress of Mothers which also advocated for a variety of legislative reforms (Cott 1987 87) (4) the National Womens Trade Union League which also pushed for protective legislation for women (Schrom Dye 1980) and (5) the Womans Christian Temperance Union which played a role in winning prohibi- tion reforms and in some states woman suffrage as well (Epstein 1981) In terms of the number of such organizations in a state (divided by the size of the female population) the West outpaced the East and South (column 9) While the western states had about one womens organization for every 100000 women in thepopula- tion the eastern states had approximately one organization for every 250000 women (or 039 per 100000) and the southern states had one organization for every 400000 women (or 025 per 100000) We argue that the prevalence of politically active womens organizations in the West also provided a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage

Others as well have noted the Wests progressiveness in terms of womens move- ment into male domains (eg Cole 1990 Myres 1982 Patterson-Black 1976) For instance Matsuda (1985) finds that women owned more property in the West than elsewhere largely because of the Homestead Act of 1862 and its role in allowing thousands of single divorced and widowed women (but not married women living with their husbands [Muhn 19941) to claim property in the western region Patterson-Black (197668) in fact estimates that across the West between the late 19th and early 20th centuries about 12 percent of homestead entrants were women with the percentage starting small but increasing over time By 1913 one estimate of the proportion of female homesteaders put the figure at one-third (Stuart 19 13)

The reasons for the Wests leadership are not entirely clear Some have followed Frederick Jackson Turners (1972 Cole 1990) reasoning by claiming that a liberat- ing culture of frontier egalitarianism prevailed on the western frontier This argu- ment holds that the arduousness of life on the frontier caused women and men to work and struggle side by side often at the same tasks This allowed Westerners to innovate and hold more egalitarian beliefs about gender relations which then per- mitted women easier access to traditionally male arenas of activity

But other explanations of the Wests early acceptance of women in male domains are probably also useful For instance womens early presence in institu- tions of higher education in the West in all likelihood was tied to the fact that the West unlike many parts of the East and South was far more likely to have public land grant universities provisioned for under the Morill Act of 1862 (Goldin and Katz 1999) and public universities were typically less resistant to womens enroll- ments than were privately funded colleges and universities (Albjerg Graham 1978 767) The fact that women were more common in institutions of higher education in the West may also have helped pave the way for their greater presence in the profes- sions in that region Another circumstance unique to the West was that the average age of the population was younger in the West than in other regions (Larson 1974 8) and this also may have contributed both to higher enrollments in colleges and universities and to womens presence in law and medicine Younger women are

68 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

typically more willing and likely to move into traditionally male fields (Beller 1984) Finally the Homestead Act itself may have contributed to altered gender relations in the West The law did not exclude women from claiming land stating that Any person [emphasis added] who is the head of a family or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years is entitled to stake a claim (Muhn 1994 285) While this was interpreted to mean that married women living with their husbands could not make an independent entry it did give some women access to the economic power of property ownership and this provided a circumstance unique to the West that helped women step across the boundary separating the public and private spheres

Whether the primary cause underlying womens greater presence in male arenas of activity in the West stemmed from frontier egalitarianism or from a coincidental confluence of demographic and legal circumstances in that region in the end we argue that womens greater inroads into these male spheres in education the profes- sions voluntaristic politics and property ownership helped structure a gendered opportunity for the adoption of woman suffrage in the West Because women had already begun crossing gender boundaries in these other spheres male legislators and the male electorates of the West were more willing or tolerant of the idea of women participating formally in politics Thus in addition to the activities of the western suffrage movements and political opportunities in the West gendered opportunities we argue also helped to create an environment in which women were more likely to win voting rights

DATA AND METHOD

We use discrete methods in event history analysis to analyze the circumstances resulting in woman suffrage at the state level prior to passage of the 19th Amend- ment (McCammon 1998) All of our data are annual state-level measures and all 48 states are included in our analysis (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii due to a lack of data) Unless a data source is listed below one can assume data came from our con- tent analysis of documents describing the state suffrage movements (McCammon et al forthcoming) Our dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of the pas- sage of woman suffrage and is equal to 0 for years prior to the passage of full suf- frage in a state and 1 for the year in which suffrage was enacted (NAWSA 1940) If suffrage was not enacted in a state the dependent variable remains equal to 0 Years following the adoption of suffrage are not included in the analysis because a state is no longer at risk of passing suffrage3

We use three measures to assess Grimess (1967) theory (1) the number of bar- keeps and saloon keepers per capita (US Bureau of the Census 186418721883 1897 1902 1914 1923 1975)4 (2) the percentage of the population that was urban foreign-born (Lee et al 1957 US Bureau of the Census 1975) and (3) the ratio of the size of the male population to the size of the female population (US Bureau of the Census 1975) In the analyses including the saloon variable we also

McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Goldin Claudia and Lawrence FKatz 1999 The shaping of higher education The formative years in the United States 1890-1940 Journal of Economic Perspectives 1337-62

Grimes Alan P 1967 The puritan ethic and woman suffrage New York Oxford University Press Hunter Graham Sara 1996 Woman suffrage and the new democracy New Haven CT Yale University

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1998 Using event history analysis in historical research With illustrations from a study of the passage of womens protective legislation International Review of Social History 4333-55

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Nathan Maud 1926 The story of an epoch-making movement Garden City NJ Doubleday

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82 GENDER amp SOCIETY 1February 2001

1920Sfatistical abstract of the Unired Stares Washington DC Government Printing Office

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Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

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The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

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McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 61

of states with the smallest memberships Of the six states with the smallest member- ships three are southern (Mississippi North and South Carolina) and three are western (Colorado Idaho and New Mexico) and two of the western states (Colo- rado and Idaho) enacted suffrage Thus while the ability of some of the western movements to recruit sizable memberships may help explain why woman suffrage came early to those states (eg in Utah Nevada and Montana) the more frequent occurrence appears to be that large memberships did not translate into suffrage suc- cess Some western states with large memberships did not pass suffrage (Nebraska and North Dakota) and the eastern states with the largest memberships (New Hampshire Connecticut and Massachusetts) also did not grant suffrage Other aspects of the movements besides organization are likely to be more important in the passage of suffrage

In particular the strategies used by the movements in the West may help explain early suffrage there Suffragists in general engaged in a variety of tactics to con- vince lawmakers and the general public that women ought to have the vote We con- sider four types of activities The first two concern what political scientists refer to as insider and outsider strategies (Hunter Graham 1996 xv-xvi) Insider strate- gies involve activities used by movement activists to persuade political insiders- effectively lawmakers or politicians-that movement demands ought to be met The state suffragists used a variety of insider strategies including personally lobby- ing state legislators writing them letters giving speeches in state legislatures and gathering signatures on petitions to present to state legislatures Outsider strategies on the other hand involved suffragist attempts to recruit new members along with efforts to alter public opinion on woman suffrage effectively strategies designed to target political outsiders or at least nonpoliticians The suffragists engaged in a variety of such activities To build membership suffragists held regular state suf- frage conventions organized various social events and put trained organizers in the field To persuade the general public that women should be given the right to vote suffragists gave public speeches distributed handbills advertised in newspapers held suffrage parades and set up booths at local fairs

A preliminary look at regional differences in the overall use of insider and out- sider strategies reveals that the West differed from the other areas in terms of out- sider strategies Table 2 presents figures on the average use of these strategies in the different regions from 1866 to 1919 for the years of suffrage activity The West did not engage in insider strategies more or less so than did the South and East (see col- umn 1 including t-statistics) But western movements did use outsider strategies significantly less frequently than the other two regions (column 2) At first this might seem counterintuitive One would expect that greater use of outsider strate- gies would aid the suffragists in winning the vote but some western movements worked to keep a low profile advertising their message less to the general public to minimize backlash against the movements Abigail Scott Duniway a prominent leader in the Idaho Oregon and Washington campaigns preferred what she called the still hunt whereby the suffragists would quietly appeal to sympathetic

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 63

legislators for their support avoiding highly public demands for the vote (Moynihan 1983) Ultimately perhaps this quiet campaign style helped the suf- frage cause in the West by failing to arouse opposition to the movements

The suffragists used another strategy as they worked for voting rights They crafted their public arguments for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs in society in this case particularly beliefs about womens appropriate roles Snow et al (1986) refer to this activity as frame bridging Over time the suffra- gists became more savvy to the kinds of arguments for the vote that were likely to be accepted by the public The suffragists came to realize that arguments asserting womens right to equal suffrage-what Kraditor (1965) calls justice argumentsw-- met with resistance in the larger population (Baker 1984 634) Justice arguments tended to call for a basic redefinition of womens roles arguing that it was appropri- ate for women to participate in the political arena as equals Widely held beliefs at the time however defined womens appropriate roles as domestic such as caring for children and running households These were quite different from the roles defined for men in the public domains of business and politics (Kerber 1997) Jus- tice arguments about equality presented a direct challenge to such assumptions of male and female differences and separate spheres

Thus increasingly over time suffragists began to rely on another type of argu- ment As Kraditor (1965) points out and as our data indicate the suffragists began to use expediency arguments (although as our data also show and as Buechler [I9861 notes the suffragists did not abandon the justice arguments) Expediency arguments posited that women should have the vote to bring their special skills and insights to the political arena what Baker (1984635) calls a public motherhood role for women whereby women with their nurturing qualities would care for and improve public life by reducing corruption in government helping the poor im- proving public education and so on The different character of women would be an asset to politics and effectively the private sphere of womanhood would be expanded to include aspects of political or public life Expediency arguments thus framed the rationale for woman suffrage in ways that did not pose the same sort of challenge to accepted beliefs about womens roles and the differences between women and men as did the justice arguments

Table 2 shows that western suffragists were significantly more likely than suffra- gists outside the West to use expediency arguments (column 3) In Washington State for instance in the 1909 suffrage campaign participants called it a womanly campaign emphasizing the home interests (Husted Harper [I9221 1985 677) Perhaps this more frequent use in the West of an argument that was likely to reso- nate with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate place in society boosted the efforts of the suffragists in the West The West also was a region as Grimes (1 967) makes clear with numerous social problems For this reason as well expedi- ency arguments extolling womens ability to remedy social ills might have reso- nated among western legislators and voters Thus while Grimes (1967) argues that the problems of the West themselves resulted in support for voting rights for women we hypothesize that the suffragists brought about this support by shaping

64 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

their arguments to emphasize the contribution women voters could make in reme- dying such conditions

Finally we consider a fourth strategy used by the suffragists fund-raising Rais- ing funds to sustain movement activities is a crucial ingredient to successful activ- ism (McCammon et al forthcoming) Making trips to the state capitol to lobby law- makers and spreading the suffrage message through newspapers and other literature all held costs for the suffragists The movements raised funds in a variety of ways charging admission to suffrage speeches and plays soliciting outright contribu- tions to the movement and holding a variety of types of sales and other events For instance in 1909 in Washington suffragists sold a suffrage cookbook and in Montana in 1914 they held dances to raise funds (Husted Harper [I9221 1985365 677)

But the figures in column 4 of Table 2 show that the western movements were not different from the eastern and southern movements in the amount of their fund- raising activity However we examine an additional measure the amount of money the state associations were able to contribute to the National American Woman Suf- frage Association (NAWSA) divided by the size of the states population (NAWSA 1893-1917 1919 US Bureau of the Census 1975 col 5)-in large part an out- come of the movements fund-raising activities While the western and eastern regions were not significantly different from one another the western movements contributed significantly greater funds to NAWSA than did the southern suffrage movements Perhaps this financial advantage experienced by the West (and also the East) but not the South helps in part at least to explain the early suffrage successes in the West The western movements in fact may have had a greater need for funds than the eastern (or southern) movements given the greater geographic distances they had to cover to spread their message and the travel costs this entailed

Political and Gendered Opportunity Structures

A number of researchers who study movements have noted that success hinges not only on the movements ability to mobilize key resources but also on contextual circumstances that provide opportunities for movement success (eg McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996 McCammon et al forthcoming) While Grimes (1967) in his theorizing ignored the role of the state suffrage movements in the West he did attend to cultural beliefs and ethnic relations that provided in his thinking a con- text in which suffrage was possible Here we consider additional contextual cir- cumstances in the western frontier that may have provided opportunities for the success of the suffrage movements

Various researchers have theorized the importance of political opportunity structures for movement emergence and success opportunities that tend to reside in formal state structures or in shifts in electoral politics (McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996) A political opportunity that may have eased the way for the passage of woman suffrage in the West concerns the nature of state and territorial procedures for reform of voting rights While almost all states required a public referendum on

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 65

woman suffrage in addition to a legislative vote the territories did not The territo- ries could enact woman suffrage simply with a favorable legislative vote and dur- ing the years of suffrage activity all of the territories in existence were in the West (They were Arizona Colorado Idaho Montana Nebraska New Mexico North Dakota Oklahoma South Dakota Utah Washington and Wyoming) The ease offered by a less complex procedure for reform of voting rights such as that which existed in the territories suggests that a political opportunity for policy change can help explain why suffrage came to the West earlier than elsewhere

On the other hand although the territories had a less complex procedure for enacting suffrage only 3 of the 12 states that were territories during the suffrage years passed woman suffrage during their territorial years (Utah Washington [only in 18831 and Wyoming) The other western states that enacted suffrage along with Michigan and New York did so as states But the procedural ease or difficulty of expanding voting rights varied between the states as well While all states except Delaware required a referendum vote on woman suffrage some states such as Michigan required only a single legislative vote prior to a referendum Other states had far more complex procedures Illinois in fact first required a positive vote in the state legislature then a favorable vote by a constitutional convention and then finally public approval in a referendum Constitutional conventions however could be called only every 20 years in Illinois and this in particular severely hin- dered the suffragists chances of winning full voting rights in Illinois (Buechler 1986103) It is likely then that reform procedures in both territories and states mat- tered for sufiage In fact overall the states granting full suffrage to women had simpler reform procedures on average than did states not granting voting rights to women

Another circumstance that can provide a political opportunity for groups to bring about political change is when such groups win the support of political elites (Tarrow 1998) Such elites then can become allies in the quest for political change The suffragists routinely sought the support of political parties not only the Demo- cratic and Republican Parties but third parties-the Populists Progressives Prohi- bitionists and Socialists-as well The suffragists regularly attended state party conventions and appealed for party endorsements of woman suffrage In 11 out of the 15 states in which suffrage was won either the Democrats or the Republicans had recently endorsed woman suffrage-and in 8 of these states both parties did so In addition in 9 out of the 15 suffrage states the suffragists received endorsements from third parties just before winning suffrage (and in every case this was in addi- tion to support from at least one of the two major parties)

On the other hand in states where woman suffrage was not adopted by the final decade of the suffrage movement suffrage movements in only 8 (out of 33) states had solid support (ie an endorsement lasting four or more years) from at least one of the two major parties and in only 4 states had solid support from one of the third parties The lack of support particularly among the Democrats and Republicans in states outside the West is due both to the opposition to woman suffrage by the politi- cal machines in many large eastern industrial cities that lasted until the late 1910s

66 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

(Buenker 1971) and the opposition of southern Democrats who feared woman suf- frage would mean Negro (woman) suffrage (Spruill Wheeler 1993 17- 18) The lack of such entrenched political interests in the West then suggests another politi- cal opportunity for suffrage in that region

Just as political opportunities mattered for woman suffrage we theorize that gendered opportunities also are important in explaining early suffrage in the West Gendered opportunities can emerge from shifts in gender relations and from changes in beliefs about these relations (McCammon et al forthcoming) In the late 19th century as noted a widely accepted belief was that men should inhabit the public sphere of business and politics while women were thought to be fit both biologically and socially for only the private sphere of the home (Kerber 1997) Such beliefs worked to exclude women from activities in business and politics including exercising the franchise However in various ways where the boundary between the two spheres became blurred we argue it became more acceptable for women to have a formal voice in the polity and thus a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage emerged

The boundary between the public and private spheres tended to blur where women were moving into areas previously occupied by men and interestingly this pattern was more pronounced in a number of ways in the western states during the years of suffrage activity than in the eastern and southern states Columns 67 and 8 in Table 2 show that in terms of womens enrollment in higher education and employment in the professions of law and medicine during the years of suffrage activity the West for the most part led the rest of the nation Column 6 provides regional means for the percentage of all college and university students who were women The figures show that there were proportionately more women in colleges and universities in the West than in the East or the South Table 2 also shows that among lawyers and physicians proportionately more women tended to be in these occupations in the West during this period than in the East or South (columns 7 and 8) The figures in the table represent the number of female lawyers and doctors per 1000 lawyers and doctors respectively While the numbers particularly for women lawyers are quite small the West had significantly more women in the occupation of lawyer than the East or South and had significantly more women in the occupation of physician than the South (the mean is slightly higher for the West compared with the East but they are not significantly different) Moreover in 1910 while 11 percent of the overall US female population lived in the West the West was home to 21 percent of all female lawyers and 22 percent of all female doctors (US Bureau of the Census 1914) Clearly women in the West had made greater inroads into these male spheres of activity than had women in other regions

Another indicator of womens presence in a traditionally male arena is lobbying and other political efforts on the part of womens groups as they attempted to shape social policy A number of such womens groups existed during these years includ- ing (1) the Consumers League which lobbied legislatures to enact protective legis- lation for women and child laborers (McCammon 1995) (2) the General Federa- tion of Womens Clubs which worked not only on protective laws but numerous

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 67

other types of legislation such as school library and food reform (Blair 1980) (3) the National Congress of Mothers which also advocated for a variety of legislative reforms (Cott 1987 87) (4) the National Womens Trade Union League which also pushed for protective legislation for women (Schrom Dye 1980) and (5) the Womans Christian Temperance Union which played a role in winning prohibi- tion reforms and in some states woman suffrage as well (Epstein 1981) In terms of the number of such organizations in a state (divided by the size of the female population) the West outpaced the East and South (column 9) While the western states had about one womens organization for every 100000 women in thepopula- tion the eastern states had approximately one organization for every 250000 women (or 039 per 100000) and the southern states had one organization for every 400000 women (or 025 per 100000) We argue that the prevalence of politically active womens organizations in the West also provided a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage

Others as well have noted the Wests progressiveness in terms of womens move- ment into male domains (eg Cole 1990 Myres 1982 Patterson-Black 1976) For instance Matsuda (1985) finds that women owned more property in the West than elsewhere largely because of the Homestead Act of 1862 and its role in allowing thousands of single divorced and widowed women (but not married women living with their husbands [Muhn 19941) to claim property in the western region Patterson-Black (197668) in fact estimates that across the West between the late 19th and early 20th centuries about 12 percent of homestead entrants were women with the percentage starting small but increasing over time By 1913 one estimate of the proportion of female homesteaders put the figure at one-third (Stuart 19 13)

The reasons for the Wests leadership are not entirely clear Some have followed Frederick Jackson Turners (1972 Cole 1990) reasoning by claiming that a liberat- ing culture of frontier egalitarianism prevailed on the western frontier This argu- ment holds that the arduousness of life on the frontier caused women and men to work and struggle side by side often at the same tasks This allowed Westerners to innovate and hold more egalitarian beliefs about gender relations which then per- mitted women easier access to traditionally male arenas of activity

But other explanations of the Wests early acceptance of women in male domains are probably also useful For instance womens early presence in institu- tions of higher education in the West in all likelihood was tied to the fact that the West unlike many parts of the East and South was far more likely to have public land grant universities provisioned for under the Morill Act of 1862 (Goldin and Katz 1999) and public universities were typically less resistant to womens enroll- ments than were privately funded colleges and universities (Albjerg Graham 1978 767) The fact that women were more common in institutions of higher education in the West may also have helped pave the way for their greater presence in the profes- sions in that region Another circumstance unique to the West was that the average age of the population was younger in the West than in other regions (Larson 1974 8) and this also may have contributed both to higher enrollments in colleges and universities and to womens presence in law and medicine Younger women are

68 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

typically more willing and likely to move into traditionally male fields (Beller 1984) Finally the Homestead Act itself may have contributed to altered gender relations in the West The law did not exclude women from claiming land stating that Any person [emphasis added] who is the head of a family or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years is entitled to stake a claim (Muhn 1994 285) While this was interpreted to mean that married women living with their husbands could not make an independent entry it did give some women access to the economic power of property ownership and this provided a circumstance unique to the West that helped women step across the boundary separating the public and private spheres

Whether the primary cause underlying womens greater presence in male arenas of activity in the West stemmed from frontier egalitarianism or from a coincidental confluence of demographic and legal circumstances in that region in the end we argue that womens greater inroads into these male spheres in education the profes- sions voluntaristic politics and property ownership helped structure a gendered opportunity for the adoption of woman suffrage in the West Because women had already begun crossing gender boundaries in these other spheres male legislators and the male electorates of the West were more willing or tolerant of the idea of women participating formally in politics Thus in addition to the activities of the western suffrage movements and political opportunities in the West gendered opportunities we argue also helped to create an environment in which women were more likely to win voting rights

DATA AND METHOD

We use discrete methods in event history analysis to analyze the circumstances resulting in woman suffrage at the state level prior to passage of the 19th Amend- ment (McCammon 1998) All of our data are annual state-level measures and all 48 states are included in our analysis (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii due to a lack of data) Unless a data source is listed below one can assume data came from our con- tent analysis of documents describing the state suffrage movements (McCammon et al forthcoming) Our dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of the pas- sage of woman suffrage and is equal to 0 for years prior to the passage of full suf- frage in a state and 1 for the year in which suffrage was enacted (NAWSA 1940) If suffrage was not enacted in a state the dependent variable remains equal to 0 Years following the adoption of suffrage are not included in the analysis because a state is no longer at risk of passing suffrage3

We use three measures to assess Grimess (1967) theory (1) the number of bar- keeps and saloon keepers per capita (US Bureau of the Census 186418721883 1897 1902 1914 1923 1975)4 (2) the percentage of the population that was urban foreign-born (Lee et al 1957 US Bureau of the Census 1975) and (3) the ratio of the size of the male population to the size of the female population (US Bureau of the Census 1975) In the analyses including the saloon variable we also

McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

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McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 63

legislators for their support avoiding highly public demands for the vote (Moynihan 1983) Ultimately perhaps this quiet campaign style helped the suf- frage cause in the West by failing to arouse opposition to the movements

The suffragists used another strategy as they worked for voting rights They crafted their public arguments for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs in society in this case particularly beliefs about womens appropriate roles Snow et al (1986) refer to this activity as frame bridging Over time the suffra- gists became more savvy to the kinds of arguments for the vote that were likely to be accepted by the public The suffragists came to realize that arguments asserting womens right to equal suffrage-what Kraditor (1965) calls justice argumentsw-- met with resistance in the larger population (Baker 1984 634) Justice arguments tended to call for a basic redefinition of womens roles arguing that it was appropri- ate for women to participate in the political arena as equals Widely held beliefs at the time however defined womens appropriate roles as domestic such as caring for children and running households These were quite different from the roles defined for men in the public domains of business and politics (Kerber 1997) Jus- tice arguments about equality presented a direct challenge to such assumptions of male and female differences and separate spheres

Thus increasingly over time suffragists began to rely on another type of argu- ment As Kraditor (1965) points out and as our data indicate the suffragists began to use expediency arguments (although as our data also show and as Buechler [I9861 notes the suffragists did not abandon the justice arguments) Expediency arguments posited that women should have the vote to bring their special skills and insights to the political arena what Baker (1984635) calls a public motherhood role for women whereby women with their nurturing qualities would care for and improve public life by reducing corruption in government helping the poor im- proving public education and so on The different character of women would be an asset to politics and effectively the private sphere of womanhood would be expanded to include aspects of political or public life Expediency arguments thus framed the rationale for woman suffrage in ways that did not pose the same sort of challenge to accepted beliefs about womens roles and the differences between women and men as did the justice arguments

Table 2 shows that western suffragists were significantly more likely than suffra- gists outside the West to use expediency arguments (column 3) In Washington State for instance in the 1909 suffrage campaign participants called it a womanly campaign emphasizing the home interests (Husted Harper [I9221 1985 677) Perhaps this more frequent use in the West of an argument that was likely to reso- nate with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate place in society boosted the efforts of the suffragists in the West The West also was a region as Grimes (1 967) makes clear with numerous social problems For this reason as well expedi- ency arguments extolling womens ability to remedy social ills might have reso- nated among western legislators and voters Thus while Grimes (1967) argues that the problems of the West themselves resulted in support for voting rights for women we hypothesize that the suffragists brought about this support by shaping

64 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

their arguments to emphasize the contribution women voters could make in reme- dying such conditions

Finally we consider a fourth strategy used by the suffragists fund-raising Rais- ing funds to sustain movement activities is a crucial ingredient to successful activ- ism (McCammon et al forthcoming) Making trips to the state capitol to lobby law- makers and spreading the suffrage message through newspapers and other literature all held costs for the suffragists The movements raised funds in a variety of ways charging admission to suffrage speeches and plays soliciting outright contribu- tions to the movement and holding a variety of types of sales and other events For instance in 1909 in Washington suffragists sold a suffrage cookbook and in Montana in 1914 they held dances to raise funds (Husted Harper [I9221 1985365 677)

But the figures in column 4 of Table 2 show that the western movements were not different from the eastern and southern movements in the amount of their fund- raising activity However we examine an additional measure the amount of money the state associations were able to contribute to the National American Woman Suf- frage Association (NAWSA) divided by the size of the states population (NAWSA 1893-1917 1919 US Bureau of the Census 1975 col 5)-in large part an out- come of the movements fund-raising activities While the western and eastern regions were not significantly different from one another the western movements contributed significantly greater funds to NAWSA than did the southern suffrage movements Perhaps this financial advantage experienced by the West (and also the East) but not the South helps in part at least to explain the early suffrage successes in the West The western movements in fact may have had a greater need for funds than the eastern (or southern) movements given the greater geographic distances they had to cover to spread their message and the travel costs this entailed

Political and Gendered Opportunity Structures

A number of researchers who study movements have noted that success hinges not only on the movements ability to mobilize key resources but also on contextual circumstances that provide opportunities for movement success (eg McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996 McCammon et al forthcoming) While Grimes (1967) in his theorizing ignored the role of the state suffrage movements in the West he did attend to cultural beliefs and ethnic relations that provided in his thinking a con- text in which suffrage was possible Here we consider additional contextual cir- cumstances in the western frontier that may have provided opportunities for the success of the suffrage movements

Various researchers have theorized the importance of political opportunity structures for movement emergence and success opportunities that tend to reside in formal state structures or in shifts in electoral politics (McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996) A political opportunity that may have eased the way for the passage of woman suffrage in the West concerns the nature of state and territorial procedures for reform of voting rights While almost all states required a public referendum on

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 65

woman suffrage in addition to a legislative vote the territories did not The territo- ries could enact woman suffrage simply with a favorable legislative vote and dur- ing the years of suffrage activity all of the territories in existence were in the West (They were Arizona Colorado Idaho Montana Nebraska New Mexico North Dakota Oklahoma South Dakota Utah Washington and Wyoming) The ease offered by a less complex procedure for reform of voting rights such as that which existed in the territories suggests that a political opportunity for policy change can help explain why suffrage came to the West earlier than elsewhere

On the other hand although the territories had a less complex procedure for enacting suffrage only 3 of the 12 states that were territories during the suffrage years passed woman suffrage during their territorial years (Utah Washington [only in 18831 and Wyoming) The other western states that enacted suffrage along with Michigan and New York did so as states But the procedural ease or difficulty of expanding voting rights varied between the states as well While all states except Delaware required a referendum vote on woman suffrage some states such as Michigan required only a single legislative vote prior to a referendum Other states had far more complex procedures Illinois in fact first required a positive vote in the state legislature then a favorable vote by a constitutional convention and then finally public approval in a referendum Constitutional conventions however could be called only every 20 years in Illinois and this in particular severely hin- dered the suffragists chances of winning full voting rights in Illinois (Buechler 1986103) It is likely then that reform procedures in both territories and states mat- tered for sufiage In fact overall the states granting full suffrage to women had simpler reform procedures on average than did states not granting voting rights to women

Another circumstance that can provide a political opportunity for groups to bring about political change is when such groups win the support of political elites (Tarrow 1998) Such elites then can become allies in the quest for political change The suffragists routinely sought the support of political parties not only the Demo- cratic and Republican Parties but third parties-the Populists Progressives Prohi- bitionists and Socialists-as well The suffragists regularly attended state party conventions and appealed for party endorsements of woman suffrage In 11 out of the 15 states in which suffrage was won either the Democrats or the Republicans had recently endorsed woman suffrage-and in 8 of these states both parties did so In addition in 9 out of the 15 suffrage states the suffragists received endorsements from third parties just before winning suffrage (and in every case this was in addi- tion to support from at least one of the two major parties)

On the other hand in states where woman suffrage was not adopted by the final decade of the suffrage movement suffrage movements in only 8 (out of 33) states had solid support (ie an endorsement lasting four or more years) from at least one of the two major parties and in only 4 states had solid support from one of the third parties The lack of support particularly among the Democrats and Republicans in states outside the West is due both to the opposition to woman suffrage by the politi- cal machines in many large eastern industrial cities that lasted until the late 1910s

66 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

(Buenker 1971) and the opposition of southern Democrats who feared woman suf- frage would mean Negro (woman) suffrage (Spruill Wheeler 1993 17- 18) The lack of such entrenched political interests in the West then suggests another politi- cal opportunity for suffrage in that region

Just as political opportunities mattered for woman suffrage we theorize that gendered opportunities also are important in explaining early suffrage in the West Gendered opportunities can emerge from shifts in gender relations and from changes in beliefs about these relations (McCammon et al forthcoming) In the late 19th century as noted a widely accepted belief was that men should inhabit the public sphere of business and politics while women were thought to be fit both biologically and socially for only the private sphere of the home (Kerber 1997) Such beliefs worked to exclude women from activities in business and politics including exercising the franchise However in various ways where the boundary between the two spheres became blurred we argue it became more acceptable for women to have a formal voice in the polity and thus a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage emerged

The boundary between the public and private spheres tended to blur where women were moving into areas previously occupied by men and interestingly this pattern was more pronounced in a number of ways in the western states during the years of suffrage activity than in the eastern and southern states Columns 67 and 8 in Table 2 show that in terms of womens enrollment in higher education and employment in the professions of law and medicine during the years of suffrage activity the West for the most part led the rest of the nation Column 6 provides regional means for the percentage of all college and university students who were women The figures show that there were proportionately more women in colleges and universities in the West than in the East or the South Table 2 also shows that among lawyers and physicians proportionately more women tended to be in these occupations in the West during this period than in the East or South (columns 7 and 8) The figures in the table represent the number of female lawyers and doctors per 1000 lawyers and doctors respectively While the numbers particularly for women lawyers are quite small the West had significantly more women in the occupation of lawyer than the East or South and had significantly more women in the occupation of physician than the South (the mean is slightly higher for the West compared with the East but they are not significantly different) Moreover in 1910 while 11 percent of the overall US female population lived in the West the West was home to 21 percent of all female lawyers and 22 percent of all female doctors (US Bureau of the Census 1914) Clearly women in the West had made greater inroads into these male spheres of activity than had women in other regions

Another indicator of womens presence in a traditionally male arena is lobbying and other political efforts on the part of womens groups as they attempted to shape social policy A number of such womens groups existed during these years includ- ing (1) the Consumers League which lobbied legislatures to enact protective legis- lation for women and child laborers (McCammon 1995) (2) the General Federa- tion of Womens Clubs which worked not only on protective laws but numerous

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 67

other types of legislation such as school library and food reform (Blair 1980) (3) the National Congress of Mothers which also advocated for a variety of legislative reforms (Cott 1987 87) (4) the National Womens Trade Union League which also pushed for protective legislation for women (Schrom Dye 1980) and (5) the Womans Christian Temperance Union which played a role in winning prohibi- tion reforms and in some states woman suffrage as well (Epstein 1981) In terms of the number of such organizations in a state (divided by the size of the female population) the West outpaced the East and South (column 9) While the western states had about one womens organization for every 100000 women in thepopula- tion the eastern states had approximately one organization for every 250000 women (or 039 per 100000) and the southern states had one organization for every 400000 women (or 025 per 100000) We argue that the prevalence of politically active womens organizations in the West also provided a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage

Others as well have noted the Wests progressiveness in terms of womens move- ment into male domains (eg Cole 1990 Myres 1982 Patterson-Black 1976) For instance Matsuda (1985) finds that women owned more property in the West than elsewhere largely because of the Homestead Act of 1862 and its role in allowing thousands of single divorced and widowed women (but not married women living with their husbands [Muhn 19941) to claim property in the western region Patterson-Black (197668) in fact estimates that across the West between the late 19th and early 20th centuries about 12 percent of homestead entrants were women with the percentage starting small but increasing over time By 1913 one estimate of the proportion of female homesteaders put the figure at one-third (Stuart 19 13)

The reasons for the Wests leadership are not entirely clear Some have followed Frederick Jackson Turners (1972 Cole 1990) reasoning by claiming that a liberat- ing culture of frontier egalitarianism prevailed on the western frontier This argu- ment holds that the arduousness of life on the frontier caused women and men to work and struggle side by side often at the same tasks This allowed Westerners to innovate and hold more egalitarian beliefs about gender relations which then per- mitted women easier access to traditionally male arenas of activity

But other explanations of the Wests early acceptance of women in male domains are probably also useful For instance womens early presence in institu- tions of higher education in the West in all likelihood was tied to the fact that the West unlike many parts of the East and South was far more likely to have public land grant universities provisioned for under the Morill Act of 1862 (Goldin and Katz 1999) and public universities were typically less resistant to womens enroll- ments than were privately funded colleges and universities (Albjerg Graham 1978 767) The fact that women were more common in institutions of higher education in the West may also have helped pave the way for their greater presence in the profes- sions in that region Another circumstance unique to the West was that the average age of the population was younger in the West than in other regions (Larson 1974 8) and this also may have contributed both to higher enrollments in colleges and universities and to womens presence in law and medicine Younger women are

68 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

typically more willing and likely to move into traditionally male fields (Beller 1984) Finally the Homestead Act itself may have contributed to altered gender relations in the West The law did not exclude women from claiming land stating that Any person [emphasis added] who is the head of a family or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years is entitled to stake a claim (Muhn 1994 285) While this was interpreted to mean that married women living with their husbands could not make an independent entry it did give some women access to the economic power of property ownership and this provided a circumstance unique to the West that helped women step across the boundary separating the public and private spheres

Whether the primary cause underlying womens greater presence in male arenas of activity in the West stemmed from frontier egalitarianism or from a coincidental confluence of demographic and legal circumstances in that region in the end we argue that womens greater inroads into these male spheres in education the profes- sions voluntaristic politics and property ownership helped structure a gendered opportunity for the adoption of woman suffrage in the West Because women had already begun crossing gender boundaries in these other spheres male legislators and the male electorates of the West were more willing or tolerant of the idea of women participating formally in politics Thus in addition to the activities of the western suffrage movements and political opportunities in the West gendered opportunities we argue also helped to create an environment in which women were more likely to win voting rights

DATA AND METHOD

We use discrete methods in event history analysis to analyze the circumstances resulting in woman suffrage at the state level prior to passage of the 19th Amend- ment (McCammon 1998) All of our data are annual state-level measures and all 48 states are included in our analysis (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii due to a lack of data) Unless a data source is listed below one can assume data came from our con- tent analysis of documents describing the state suffrage movements (McCammon et al forthcoming) Our dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of the pas- sage of woman suffrage and is equal to 0 for years prior to the passage of full suf- frage in a state and 1 for the year in which suffrage was enacted (NAWSA 1940) If suffrage was not enacted in a state the dependent variable remains equal to 0 Years following the adoption of suffrage are not included in the analysis because a state is no longer at risk of passing suffrage3

We use three measures to assess Grimess (1967) theory (1) the number of bar- keeps and saloon keepers per capita (US Bureau of the Census 186418721883 1897 1902 1914 1923 1975)4 (2) the percentage of the population that was urban foreign-born (Lee et al 1957 US Bureau of the Census 1975) and (3) the ratio of the size of the male population to the size of the female population (US Bureau of the Census 1975) In the analyses including the saloon variable we also

McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Baker Paula 1984 The domestication of politics Women and American political society 1780-1920 American Historical Review 89620-47

Barnes Moynihan Ruth 1983 Rebel for rights Abigail Scott Duniway New Haven CT Yale Univer- sity Press

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Beller Andrea H 1984 Trends in occupational segregation by sex and race 1960-1981 In Sexsegrega-tion in the worlace Trends explanations remedies edited by Barbara Reskin 11-26 Washing- ton DC National Academy Press

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Blair Karen J 1980 The clubwoman as feminist True womanhood redefined 1868-1914New York Holmes and Meier

Brown Dee A 1958 Thegentle tamers Women of the old west Lincoln University of NebraskaPress Buechler Steven M 1986 The transformation of the woman suffrage movement The case of Illinois

1850-1920New Brunswick Rutgers University Press Buenker John D 197 1 The urban political machine and woman suffrage A study in political adaptabil-

ity The Historian 33264-79 Cady Stanton Elizabeth Susan B Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage eds [I8861 1985 History of

woman suffrage Vol 3 Salem NH Ayer Cashman Sean Dennis 1981 Prohibition The lie of the land New York Free Press Chapman Can Carrie and Nettie Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 Woman suffrage andpolitics The inner

story of the suffrage movement Reprint Seattle University of Washington Press Cole Judith K 1990 A wide field for usefulness Womens civil status and the evolution of womens

suffrage on the Montana frontier 1864-1914 American Journal of Legal History 34262-94 Cott Nancy F 1987 The grounding of modern feminism New Haven CT Yale University Press Deane Glenn E M Beck and Stewart E Tolnay 1998 Incorporating space into social histories How

spatial processes operate and how we observe them International Review of Social History 4357-80

Epstein Barbara Leslie 1981 The politics of domesticity Women evangelism and temperance in nine- teenth century America Middletown CT Wesleyan University Press

Gamson William 1975 The strategy of social protest Homewood IL Dorsey Goldberg Michael L 1994 Non-partisan and all-partisan Rethinking woman suffrage and party poli-

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Goldin Claudia and Lawrence FKatz 1999 The shaping of higher education The formative years in the United States 1890-1940 Journal of Economic Perspectives 1337-62

Grimes Alan P 1967 The puritan ethic and woman suffrage New York Oxford University Press Hunter Graham Sara 1996 Woman suffrage and the new democracy New Haven CT Yale University

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Carlson Kerber Linda K 1997 Separate spheres female worlds womans place The rhetoric of womens his-

tory In Towardan intellectualhistory ofwomen Essays by LindaKerber 159-99 Chapel Hill Uni- versity of North Carolina Press

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Larson T A 197la Emancipating the wests dolls vassals and hopeless drudges The origins ofwoman suffrage in the west In Essays in Western history in honor ofProfessor 7A Larson edited by Roger Daniels 1-16 Vol 37 Laramie University of Wyoming Press

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Lewis Stuart Mabel 1913 The lady honyocker How girls take up claims and make their own homes on the prairie The Independent 75133-37

Marilley Suzanne M 1996 Woman sujji-age and the origins of liberal feminism in the United States 1820-1920Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Marshall Susan E 1998 The gender gap in voting behavior Evidence from a referendum on woman suffrage Research in Political Sociology 8 189-207

Matsuda Mari J 1985 The west and the legal status of women Explanations offrontier feminism Jour-nal of the West 2447-56

McAdam Doug John D McCarthy and Mayer N Zald eds 1996 Comparative perspectives on social movements Political opportunities mobilizing structures and cultural framings New York Carn- bridge University Press

McCammon Holly J 1995 The politics of protection State minimum wage and maximum hours laws for women in the United States Sociological Quarterly 36217-49

1998 Using event history analysis in historical research With illustrations from a study of the passage of womens protective legislation International Review of Social History 4333-55

McCarnmon Holly I Karen E Campbell Ellen M Granberg and Christine Mowery Forthcoming How movements win Gendered opportunity structures and the state womens suffrage movements 1866-1 919 American Sociological Review

McCarthy John and Mayer Zald 1977 Resource mobilization and social movements A partial theory American Journal of Sociology 481212-41

McDonagh Eileen L and H Douglas Price 1985 Woman suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of opposition and support in referenda voting 1910-1918 American Political Science Review 79415-35

Muhn James 1994 Women and the Homestead Act Land Department administration of a legal imbro- glio 1863-1934 Western Legal History 7283-307

Myres SandraL 1982 Westering women andthe frontierexperience 1800-1915Albuquerque Univer- sity of New Mexico Press

Nathan Maud 1926 The story of an epoch-making movement Garden City NJ Doubleday

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National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) 1893-1917 The handbookof rhe National American Woman Sufrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1919 The hand book of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1940 Wcfory How women won i f New York H W Wilson National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 Proceedings of the biennial convention of rhe National

Womens Trade Union League of America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 1 5 Proceedings of the biennial convention of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1917Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

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America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 2 2 Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse Patterson-Black Sheryll 1976 Women homesteaders on the great plains frontier Frontiers 167-88 Riessen Reed Dorinda 1958 The woman suffrage movemenrinSouth Dakota Vermillion Government

Research Bureau State University of South Dakota Roy Jeffrey Julie 1998 Frontier women Civilizing the wesr 1840-1880 2d ed New York Hill and

wang Schrom Dye Nancy 1980 As equals and as sisrers Feminism rhe labor movement and the Womens

Trade Union League of New York Columbia University of Missouri Press Skocpol Theda 1992 Prorecting soldiers and mothers The political origins of social policy in the

United States Cambridge MA Belknap Snow David A E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden and Robert D Benford 1986 Frame align-

ment processes micromobilization and movement participation American Sociological Review 51464-81

Sprague Mason Martha 1928 Parents and reachers A survey of organized cooperarion of home school and community Boston Ginn

Spruill Wheeler Marjorie 1993 New women of fhe new Sourh The leaders of rhe woman suffrage movement in the southern srares New York Oxford University Press

Stefanco Carolyn J 1993 Harvest of discontent The depression of 1893 and the womens vote Colo-rado Heritage Spring 16-2 1

Tarrow Sidney 1998 Power in movemenr Social movemenrs collective action and politics 2d ed New York Cambridge University Press

Turner Frederick Jackson 1972 The significance of the frontier in American history In The Turner the- sis Concerning the role of the frontier in American history edited by George R Taylor 1-18 Lexington MA D C Heath

US Bureau of the Census 1864 Census of rhe Unitedstates Popularion Washington DC Govern- ment Printing Office

1872 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 8 8 3 Census of rhe UnitedSrares Population Washington DC Government Printingoffice 1 8 9 7 Census offhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1902Census ofrhe UniredStares Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 9 1 4 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923 Census of rhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1975 Historical sfatistics of the UnitedStates colonial rimes to 1970 Bicentennial ed Pt 1

Washington DC Government Printing Office US Department of Commerce 1919 Statisrical absrracr of the United States Washington DC Gov-

ernment Printing Office

82 GENDER amp SOCIETY 1February 2001

1920Sfatistical abstract of the Unired Stares Washington DC Government Printing Office

1922Sratisricalabstractof the UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923Sratisricalabstractof rhe UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office

USOffice of Education 1872-1900 1902-1914 1916 1917 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1902-14Annual report of the Commissioner of Educarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

1 9 16 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1917Annual report ofthe CommissionerofEducarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

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The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

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64 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

their arguments to emphasize the contribution women voters could make in reme- dying such conditions

Finally we consider a fourth strategy used by the suffragists fund-raising Rais- ing funds to sustain movement activities is a crucial ingredient to successful activ- ism (McCammon et al forthcoming) Making trips to the state capitol to lobby law- makers and spreading the suffrage message through newspapers and other literature all held costs for the suffragists The movements raised funds in a variety of ways charging admission to suffrage speeches and plays soliciting outright contribu- tions to the movement and holding a variety of types of sales and other events For instance in 1909 in Washington suffragists sold a suffrage cookbook and in Montana in 1914 they held dances to raise funds (Husted Harper [I9221 1985365 677)

But the figures in column 4 of Table 2 show that the western movements were not different from the eastern and southern movements in the amount of their fund- raising activity However we examine an additional measure the amount of money the state associations were able to contribute to the National American Woman Suf- frage Association (NAWSA) divided by the size of the states population (NAWSA 1893-1917 1919 US Bureau of the Census 1975 col 5)-in large part an out- come of the movements fund-raising activities While the western and eastern regions were not significantly different from one another the western movements contributed significantly greater funds to NAWSA than did the southern suffrage movements Perhaps this financial advantage experienced by the West (and also the East) but not the South helps in part at least to explain the early suffrage successes in the West The western movements in fact may have had a greater need for funds than the eastern (or southern) movements given the greater geographic distances they had to cover to spread their message and the travel costs this entailed

Political and Gendered Opportunity Structures

A number of researchers who study movements have noted that success hinges not only on the movements ability to mobilize key resources but also on contextual circumstances that provide opportunities for movement success (eg McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996 McCammon et al forthcoming) While Grimes (1967) in his theorizing ignored the role of the state suffrage movements in the West he did attend to cultural beliefs and ethnic relations that provided in his thinking a con- text in which suffrage was possible Here we consider additional contextual cir- cumstances in the western frontier that may have provided opportunities for the success of the suffrage movements

Various researchers have theorized the importance of political opportunity structures for movement emergence and success opportunities that tend to reside in formal state structures or in shifts in electoral politics (McAdam McCarthy and Zald 1996) A political opportunity that may have eased the way for the passage of woman suffrage in the West concerns the nature of state and territorial procedures for reform of voting rights While almost all states required a public referendum on

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 65

woman suffrage in addition to a legislative vote the territories did not The territo- ries could enact woman suffrage simply with a favorable legislative vote and dur- ing the years of suffrage activity all of the territories in existence were in the West (They were Arizona Colorado Idaho Montana Nebraska New Mexico North Dakota Oklahoma South Dakota Utah Washington and Wyoming) The ease offered by a less complex procedure for reform of voting rights such as that which existed in the territories suggests that a political opportunity for policy change can help explain why suffrage came to the West earlier than elsewhere

On the other hand although the territories had a less complex procedure for enacting suffrage only 3 of the 12 states that were territories during the suffrage years passed woman suffrage during their territorial years (Utah Washington [only in 18831 and Wyoming) The other western states that enacted suffrage along with Michigan and New York did so as states But the procedural ease or difficulty of expanding voting rights varied between the states as well While all states except Delaware required a referendum vote on woman suffrage some states such as Michigan required only a single legislative vote prior to a referendum Other states had far more complex procedures Illinois in fact first required a positive vote in the state legislature then a favorable vote by a constitutional convention and then finally public approval in a referendum Constitutional conventions however could be called only every 20 years in Illinois and this in particular severely hin- dered the suffragists chances of winning full voting rights in Illinois (Buechler 1986103) It is likely then that reform procedures in both territories and states mat- tered for sufiage In fact overall the states granting full suffrage to women had simpler reform procedures on average than did states not granting voting rights to women

Another circumstance that can provide a political opportunity for groups to bring about political change is when such groups win the support of political elites (Tarrow 1998) Such elites then can become allies in the quest for political change The suffragists routinely sought the support of political parties not only the Demo- cratic and Republican Parties but third parties-the Populists Progressives Prohi- bitionists and Socialists-as well The suffragists regularly attended state party conventions and appealed for party endorsements of woman suffrage In 11 out of the 15 states in which suffrage was won either the Democrats or the Republicans had recently endorsed woman suffrage-and in 8 of these states both parties did so In addition in 9 out of the 15 suffrage states the suffragists received endorsements from third parties just before winning suffrage (and in every case this was in addi- tion to support from at least one of the two major parties)

On the other hand in states where woman suffrage was not adopted by the final decade of the suffrage movement suffrage movements in only 8 (out of 33) states had solid support (ie an endorsement lasting four or more years) from at least one of the two major parties and in only 4 states had solid support from one of the third parties The lack of support particularly among the Democrats and Republicans in states outside the West is due both to the opposition to woman suffrage by the politi- cal machines in many large eastern industrial cities that lasted until the late 1910s

66 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

(Buenker 1971) and the opposition of southern Democrats who feared woman suf- frage would mean Negro (woman) suffrage (Spruill Wheeler 1993 17- 18) The lack of such entrenched political interests in the West then suggests another politi- cal opportunity for suffrage in that region

Just as political opportunities mattered for woman suffrage we theorize that gendered opportunities also are important in explaining early suffrage in the West Gendered opportunities can emerge from shifts in gender relations and from changes in beliefs about these relations (McCammon et al forthcoming) In the late 19th century as noted a widely accepted belief was that men should inhabit the public sphere of business and politics while women were thought to be fit both biologically and socially for only the private sphere of the home (Kerber 1997) Such beliefs worked to exclude women from activities in business and politics including exercising the franchise However in various ways where the boundary between the two spheres became blurred we argue it became more acceptable for women to have a formal voice in the polity and thus a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage emerged

The boundary between the public and private spheres tended to blur where women were moving into areas previously occupied by men and interestingly this pattern was more pronounced in a number of ways in the western states during the years of suffrage activity than in the eastern and southern states Columns 67 and 8 in Table 2 show that in terms of womens enrollment in higher education and employment in the professions of law and medicine during the years of suffrage activity the West for the most part led the rest of the nation Column 6 provides regional means for the percentage of all college and university students who were women The figures show that there were proportionately more women in colleges and universities in the West than in the East or the South Table 2 also shows that among lawyers and physicians proportionately more women tended to be in these occupations in the West during this period than in the East or South (columns 7 and 8) The figures in the table represent the number of female lawyers and doctors per 1000 lawyers and doctors respectively While the numbers particularly for women lawyers are quite small the West had significantly more women in the occupation of lawyer than the East or South and had significantly more women in the occupation of physician than the South (the mean is slightly higher for the West compared with the East but they are not significantly different) Moreover in 1910 while 11 percent of the overall US female population lived in the West the West was home to 21 percent of all female lawyers and 22 percent of all female doctors (US Bureau of the Census 1914) Clearly women in the West had made greater inroads into these male spheres of activity than had women in other regions

Another indicator of womens presence in a traditionally male arena is lobbying and other political efforts on the part of womens groups as they attempted to shape social policy A number of such womens groups existed during these years includ- ing (1) the Consumers League which lobbied legislatures to enact protective legis- lation for women and child laborers (McCammon 1995) (2) the General Federa- tion of Womens Clubs which worked not only on protective laws but numerous

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 67

other types of legislation such as school library and food reform (Blair 1980) (3) the National Congress of Mothers which also advocated for a variety of legislative reforms (Cott 1987 87) (4) the National Womens Trade Union League which also pushed for protective legislation for women (Schrom Dye 1980) and (5) the Womans Christian Temperance Union which played a role in winning prohibi- tion reforms and in some states woman suffrage as well (Epstein 1981) In terms of the number of such organizations in a state (divided by the size of the female population) the West outpaced the East and South (column 9) While the western states had about one womens organization for every 100000 women in thepopula- tion the eastern states had approximately one organization for every 250000 women (or 039 per 100000) and the southern states had one organization for every 400000 women (or 025 per 100000) We argue that the prevalence of politically active womens organizations in the West also provided a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage

Others as well have noted the Wests progressiveness in terms of womens move- ment into male domains (eg Cole 1990 Myres 1982 Patterson-Black 1976) For instance Matsuda (1985) finds that women owned more property in the West than elsewhere largely because of the Homestead Act of 1862 and its role in allowing thousands of single divorced and widowed women (but not married women living with their husbands [Muhn 19941) to claim property in the western region Patterson-Black (197668) in fact estimates that across the West between the late 19th and early 20th centuries about 12 percent of homestead entrants were women with the percentage starting small but increasing over time By 1913 one estimate of the proportion of female homesteaders put the figure at one-third (Stuart 19 13)

The reasons for the Wests leadership are not entirely clear Some have followed Frederick Jackson Turners (1972 Cole 1990) reasoning by claiming that a liberat- ing culture of frontier egalitarianism prevailed on the western frontier This argu- ment holds that the arduousness of life on the frontier caused women and men to work and struggle side by side often at the same tasks This allowed Westerners to innovate and hold more egalitarian beliefs about gender relations which then per- mitted women easier access to traditionally male arenas of activity

But other explanations of the Wests early acceptance of women in male domains are probably also useful For instance womens early presence in institu- tions of higher education in the West in all likelihood was tied to the fact that the West unlike many parts of the East and South was far more likely to have public land grant universities provisioned for under the Morill Act of 1862 (Goldin and Katz 1999) and public universities were typically less resistant to womens enroll- ments than were privately funded colleges and universities (Albjerg Graham 1978 767) The fact that women were more common in institutions of higher education in the West may also have helped pave the way for their greater presence in the profes- sions in that region Another circumstance unique to the West was that the average age of the population was younger in the West than in other regions (Larson 1974 8) and this also may have contributed both to higher enrollments in colleges and universities and to womens presence in law and medicine Younger women are

68 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

typically more willing and likely to move into traditionally male fields (Beller 1984) Finally the Homestead Act itself may have contributed to altered gender relations in the West The law did not exclude women from claiming land stating that Any person [emphasis added] who is the head of a family or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years is entitled to stake a claim (Muhn 1994 285) While this was interpreted to mean that married women living with their husbands could not make an independent entry it did give some women access to the economic power of property ownership and this provided a circumstance unique to the West that helped women step across the boundary separating the public and private spheres

Whether the primary cause underlying womens greater presence in male arenas of activity in the West stemmed from frontier egalitarianism or from a coincidental confluence of demographic and legal circumstances in that region in the end we argue that womens greater inroads into these male spheres in education the profes- sions voluntaristic politics and property ownership helped structure a gendered opportunity for the adoption of woman suffrage in the West Because women had already begun crossing gender boundaries in these other spheres male legislators and the male electorates of the West were more willing or tolerant of the idea of women participating formally in politics Thus in addition to the activities of the western suffrage movements and political opportunities in the West gendered opportunities we argue also helped to create an environment in which women were more likely to win voting rights

DATA AND METHOD

We use discrete methods in event history analysis to analyze the circumstances resulting in woman suffrage at the state level prior to passage of the 19th Amend- ment (McCammon 1998) All of our data are annual state-level measures and all 48 states are included in our analysis (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii due to a lack of data) Unless a data source is listed below one can assume data came from our con- tent analysis of documents describing the state suffrage movements (McCammon et al forthcoming) Our dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of the pas- sage of woman suffrage and is equal to 0 for years prior to the passage of full suf- frage in a state and 1 for the year in which suffrage was enacted (NAWSA 1940) If suffrage was not enacted in a state the dependent variable remains equal to 0 Years following the adoption of suffrage are not included in the analysis because a state is no longer at risk of passing suffrage3

We use three measures to assess Grimess (1967) theory (1) the number of bar- keeps and saloon keepers per capita (US Bureau of the Census 186418721883 1897 1902 1914 1923 1975)4 (2) the percentage of the population that was urban foreign-born (Lee et al 1957 US Bureau of the Census 1975) and (3) the ratio of the size of the male population to the size of the female population (US Bureau of the Census 1975) In the analyses including the saloon variable we also

McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

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Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -

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McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 65

woman suffrage in addition to a legislative vote the territories did not The territo- ries could enact woman suffrage simply with a favorable legislative vote and dur- ing the years of suffrage activity all of the territories in existence were in the West (They were Arizona Colorado Idaho Montana Nebraska New Mexico North Dakota Oklahoma South Dakota Utah Washington and Wyoming) The ease offered by a less complex procedure for reform of voting rights such as that which existed in the territories suggests that a political opportunity for policy change can help explain why suffrage came to the West earlier than elsewhere

On the other hand although the territories had a less complex procedure for enacting suffrage only 3 of the 12 states that were territories during the suffrage years passed woman suffrage during their territorial years (Utah Washington [only in 18831 and Wyoming) The other western states that enacted suffrage along with Michigan and New York did so as states But the procedural ease or difficulty of expanding voting rights varied between the states as well While all states except Delaware required a referendum vote on woman suffrage some states such as Michigan required only a single legislative vote prior to a referendum Other states had far more complex procedures Illinois in fact first required a positive vote in the state legislature then a favorable vote by a constitutional convention and then finally public approval in a referendum Constitutional conventions however could be called only every 20 years in Illinois and this in particular severely hin- dered the suffragists chances of winning full voting rights in Illinois (Buechler 1986103) It is likely then that reform procedures in both territories and states mat- tered for sufiage In fact overall the states granting full suffrage to women had simpler reform procedures on average than did states not granting voting rights to women

Another circumstance that can provide a political opportunity for groups to bring about political change is when such groups win the support of political elites (Tarrow 1998) Such elites then can become allies in the quest for political change The suffragists routinely sought the support of political parties not only the Demo- cratic and Republican Parties but third parties-the Populists Progressives Prohi- bitionists and Socialists-as well The suffragists regularly attended state party conventions and appealed for party endorsements of woman suffrage In 11 out of the 15 states in which suffrage was won either the Democrats or the Republicans had recently endorsed woman suffrage-and in 8 of these states both parties did so In addition in 9 out of the 15 suffrage states the suffragists received endorsements from third parties just before winning suffrage (and in every case this was in addi- tion to support from at least one of the two major parties)

On the other hand in states where woman suffrage was not adopted by the final decade of the suffrage movement suffrage movements in only 8 (out of 33) states had solid support (ie an endorsement lasting four or more years) from at least one of the two major parties and in only 4 states had solid support from one of the third parties The lack of support particularly among the Democrats and Republicans in states outside the West is due both to the opposition to woman suffrage by the politi- cal machines in many large eastern industrial cities that lasted until the late 1910s

66 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

(Buenker 1971) and the opposition of southern Democrats who feared woman suf- frage would mean Negro (woman) suffrage (Spruill Wheeler 1993 17- 18) The lack of such entrenched political interests in the West then suggests another politi- cal opportunity for suffrage in that region

Just as political opportunities mattered for woman suffrage we theorize that gendered opportunities also are important in explaining early suffrage in the West Gendered opportunities can emerge from shifts in gender relations and from changes in beliefs about these relations (McCammon et al forthcoming) In the late 19th century as noted a widely accepted belief was that men should inhabit the public sphere of business and politics while women were thought to be fit both biologically and socially for only the private sphere of the home (Kerber 1997) Such beliefs worked to exclude women from activities in business and politics including exercising the franchise However in various ways where the boundary between the two spheres became blurred we argue it became more acceptable for women to have a formal voice in the polity and thus a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage emerged

The boundary between the public and private spheres tended to blur where women were moving into areas previously occupied by men and interestingly this pattern was more pronounced in a number of ways in the western states during the years of suffrage activity than in the eastern and southern states Columns 67 and 8 in Table 2 show that in terms of womens enrollment in higher education and employment in the professions of law and medicine during the years of suffrage activity the West for the most part led the rest of the nation Column 6 provides regional means for the percentage of all college and university students who were women The figures show that there were proportionately more women in colleges and universities in the West than in the East or the South Table 2 also shows that among lawyers and physicians proportionately more women tended to be in these occupations in the West during this period than in the East or South (columns 7 and 8) The figures in the table represent the number of female lawyers and doctors per 1000 lawyers and doctors respectively While the numbers particularly for women lawyers are quite small the West had significantly more women in the occupation of lawyer than the East or South and had significantly more women in the occupation of physician than the South (the mean is slightly higher for the West compared with the East but they are not significantly different) Moreover in 1910 while 11 percent of the overall US female population lived in the West the West was home to 21 percent of all female lawyers and 22 percent of all female doctors (US Bureau of the Census 1914) Clearly women in the West had made greater inroads into these male spheres of activity than had women in other regions

Another indicator of womens presence in a traditionally male arena is lobbying and other political efforts on the part of womens groups as they attempted to shape social policy A number of such womens groups existed during these years includ- ing (1) the Consumers League which lobbied legislatures to enact protective legis- lation for women and child laborers (McCammon 1995) (2) the General Federa- tion of Womens Clubs which worked not only on protective laws but numerous

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 67

other types of legislation such as school library and food reform (Blair 1980) (3) the National Congress of Mothers which also advocated for a variety of legislative reforms (Cott 1987 87) (4) the National Womens Trade Union League which also pushed for protective legislation for women (Schrom Dye 1980) and (5) the Womans Christian Temperance Union which played a role in winning prohibi- tion reforms and in some states woman suffrage as well (Epstein 1981) In terms of the number of such organizations in a state (divided by the size of the female population) the West outpaced the East and South (column 9) While the western states had about one womens organization for every 100000 women in thepopula- tion the eastern states had approximately one organization for every 250000 women (or 039 per 100000) and the southern states had one organization for every 400000 women (or 025 per 100000) We argue that the prevalence of politically active womens organizations in the West also provided a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage

Others as well have noted the Wests progressiveness in terms of womens move- ment into male domains (eg Cole 1990 Myres 1982 Patterson-Black 1976) For instance Matsuda (1985) finds that women owned more property in the West than elsewhere largely because of the Homestead Act of 1862 and its role in allowing thousands of single divorced and widowed women (but not married women living with their husbands [Muhn 19941) to claim property in the western region Patterson-Black (197668) in fact estimates that across the West between the late 19th and early 20th centuries about 12 percent of homestead entrants were women with the percentage starting small but increasing over time By 1913 one estimate of the proportion of female homesteaders put the figure at one-third (Stuart 19 13)

The reasons for the Wests leadership are not entirely clear Some have followed Frederick Jackson Turners (1972 Cole 1990) reasoning by claiming that a liberat- ing culture of frontier egalitarianism prevailed on the western frontier This argu- ment holds that the arduousness of life on the frontier caused women and men to work and struggle side by side often at the same tasks This allowed Westerners to innovate and hold more egalitarian beliefs about gender relations which then per- mitted women easier access to traditionally male arenas of activity

But other explanations of the Wests early acceptance of women in male domains are probably also useful For instance womens early presence in institu- tions of higher education in the West in all likelihood was tied to the fact that the West unlike many parts of the East and South was far more likely to have public land grant universities provisioned for under the Morill Act of 1862 (Goldin and Katz 1999) and public universities were typically less resistant to womens enroll- ments than were privately funded colleges and universities (Albjerg Graham 1978 767) The fact that women were more common in institutions of higher education in the West may also have helped pave the way for their greater presence in the profes- sions in that region Another circumstance unique to the West was that the average age of the population was younger in the West than in other regions (Larson 1974 8) and this also may have contributed both to higher enrollments in colleges and universities and to womens presence in law and medicine Younger women are

68 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

typically more willing and likely to move into traditionally male fields (Beller 1984) Finally the Homestead Act itself may have contributed to altered gender relations in the West The law did not exclude women from claiming land stating that Any person [emphasis added] who is the head of a family or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years is entitled to stake a claim (Muhn 1994 285) While this was interpreted to mean that married women living with their husbands could not make an independent entry it did give some women access to the economic power of property ownership and this provided a circumstance unique to the West that helped women step across the boundary separating the public and private spheres

Whether the primary cause underlying womens greater presence in male arenas of activity in the West stemmed from frontier egalitarianism or from a coincidental confluence of demographic and legal circumstances in that region in the end we argue that womens greater inroads into these male spheres in education the profes- sions voluntaristic politics and property ownership helped structure a gendered opportunity for the adoption of woman suffrage in the West Because women had already begun crossing gender boundaries in these other spheres male legislators and the male electorates of the West were more willing or tolerant of the idea of women participating formally in politics Thus in addition to the activities of the western suffrage movements and political opportunities in the West gendered opportunities we argue also helped to create an environment in which women were more likely to win voting rights

DATA AND METHOD

We use discrete methods in event history analysis to analyze the circumstances resulting in woman suffrage at the state level prior to passage of the 19th Amend- ment (McCammon 1998) All of our data are annual state-level measures and all 48 states are included in our analysis (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii due to a lack of data) Unless a data source is listed below one can assume data came from our con- tent analysis of documents describing the state suffrage movements (McCammon et al forthcoming) Our dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of the pas- sage of woman suffrage and is equal to 0 for years prior to the passage of full suf- frage in a state and 1 for the year in which suffrage was enacted (NAWSA 1940) If suffrage was not enacted in a state the dependent variable remains equal to 0 Years following the adoption of suffrage are not included in the analysis because a state is no longer at risk of passing suffrage3

We use three measures to assess Grimess (1967) theory (1) the number of bar- keeps and saloon keepers per capita (US Bureau of the Census 186418721883 1897 1902 1914 1923 1975)4 (2) the percentage of the population that was urban foreign-born (Lee et al 1957 US Bureau of the Census 1975) and (3) the ratio of the size of the male population to the size of the female population (US Bureau of the Census 1975) In the analyses including the saloon variable we also

McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Albjerg Graham Patricia 1978 Expansion and exclusion A history of women in American higher edu- cation Signs Journal of Women in Culture and Society 3759-73

Baker Paula 1984 The domestication of politics Women and American political society 1780-1920 American Historical Review 89620-47

Barnes Moynihan Ruth 1983 Rebel for rights Abigail Scott Duniway New Haven CT Yale Univer- sity Press

Bartlett Richard A 1974 New country A social history of the American frontiec 1776-1890 New York Oxford University Press

Beeton Beverly 1986 Women vote in the west The woman suffrage movement 1869-1896New York Garland

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story of the suffrage movement Reprint Seattle University of Washington Press Cole Judith K 1990 A wide field for usefulness Womens civil status and the evolution of womens

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1872 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 8 8 3 Census of rhe UnitedSrares Population Washington DC Government Printingoffice 1 8 9 7 Census offhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1902Census ofrhe UniredStares Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 9 1 4 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923 Census of rhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1975 Historical sfatistics of the UnitedStates colonial rimes to 1970 Bicentennial ed Pt 1

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82 GENDER amp SOCIETY 1February 2001

1920Sfatistical abstract of the Unired Stares Washington DC Government Printing Office

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Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

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Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

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Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

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66 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

(Buenker 1971) and the opposition of southern Democrats who feared woman suf- frage would mean Negro (woman) suffrage (Spruill Wheeler 1993 17- 18) The lack of such entrenched political interests in the West then suggests another politi- cal opportunity for suffrage in that region

Just as political opportunities mattered for woman suffrage we theorize that gendered opportunities also are important in explaining early suffrage in the West Gendered opportunities can emerge from shifts in gender relations and from changes in beliefs about these relations (McCammon et al forthcoming) In the late 19th century as noted a widely accepted belief was that men should inhabit the public sphere of business and politics while women were thought to be fit both biologically and socially for only the private sphere of the home (Kerber 1997) Such beliefs worked to exclude women from activities in business and politics including exercising the franchise However in various ways where the boundary between the two spheres became blurred we argue it became more acceptable for women to have a formal voice in the polity and thus a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage emerged

The boundary between the public and private spheres tended to blur where women were moving into areas previously occupied by men and interestingly this pattern was more pronounced in a number of ways in the western states during the years of suffrage activity than in the eastern and southern states Columns 67 and 8 in Table 2 show that in terms of womens enrollment in higher education and employment in the professions of law and medicine during the years of suffrage activity the West for the most part led the rest of the nation Column 6 provides regional means for the percentage of all college and university students who were women The figures show that there were proportionately more women in colleges and universities in the West than in the East or the South Table 2 also shows that among lawyers and physicians proportionately more women tended to be in these occupations in the West during this period than in the East or South (columns 7 and 8) The figures in the table represent the number of female lawyers and doctors per 1000 lawyers and doctors respectively While the numbers particularly for women lawyers are quite small the West had significantly more women in the occupation of lawyer than the East or South and had significantly more women in the occupation of physician than the South (the mean is slightly higher for the West compared with the East but they are not significantly different) Moreover in 1910 while 11 percent of the overall US female population lived in the West the West was home to 21 percent of all female lawyers and 22 percent of all female doctors (US Bureau of the Census 1914) Clearly women in the West had made greater inroads into these male spheres of activity than had women in other regions

Another indicator of womens presence in a traditionally male arena is lobbying and other political efforts on the part of womens groups as they attempted to shape social policy A number of such womens groups existed during these years includ- ing (1) the Consumers League which lobbied legislatures to enact protective legis- lation for women and child laborers (McCammon 1995) (2) the General Federa- tion of Womens Clubs which worked not only on protective laws but numerous

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 67

other types of legislation such as school library and food reform (Blair 1980) (3) the National Congress of Mothers which also advocated for a variety of legislative reforms (Cott 1987 87) (4) the National Womens Trade Union League which also pushed for protective legislation for women (Schrom Dye 1980) and (5) the Womans Christian Temperance Union which played a role in winning prohibi- tion reforms and in some states woman suffrage as well (Epstein 1981) In terms of the number of such organizations in a state (divided by the size of the female population) the West outpaced the East and South (column 9) While the western states had about one womens organization for every 100000 women in thepopula- tion the eastern states had approximately one organization for every 250000 women (or 039 per 100000) and the southern states had one organization for every 400000 women (or 025 per 100000) We argue that the prevalence of politically active womens organizations in the West also provided a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage

Others as well have noted the Wests progressiveness in terms of womens move- ment into male domains (eg Cole 1990 Myres 1982 Patterson-Black 1976) For instance Matsuda (1985) finds that women owned more property in the West than elsewhere largely because of the Homestead Act of 1862 and its role in allowing thousands of single divorced and widowed women (but not married women living with their husbands [Muhn 19941) to claim property in the western region Patterson-Black (197668) in fact estimates that across the West between the late 19th and early 20th centuries about 12 percent of homestead entrants were women with the percentage starting small but increasing over time By 1913 one estimate of the proportion of female homesteaders put the figure at one-third (Stuart 19 13)

The reasons for the Wests leadership are not entirely clear Some have followed Frederick Jackson Turners (1972 Cole 1990) reasoning by claiming that a liberat- ing culture of frontier egalitarianism prevailed on the western frontier This argu- ment holds that the arduousness of life on the frontier caused women and men to work and struggle side by side often at the same tasks This allowed Westerners to innovate and hold more egalitarian beliefs about gender relations which then per- mitted women easier access to traditionally male arenas of activity

But other explanations of the Wests early acceptance of women in male domains are probably also useful For instance womens early presence in institu- tions of higher education in the West in all likelihood was tied to the fact that the West unlike many parts of the East and South was far more likely to have public land grant universities provisioned for under the Morill Act of 1862 (Goldin and Katz 1999) and public universities were typically less resistant to womens enroll- ments than were privately funded colleges and universities (Albjerg Graham 1978 767) The fact that women were more common in institutions of higher education in the West may also have helped pave the way for their greater presence in the profes- sions in that region Another circumstance unique to the West was that the average age of the population was younger in the West than in other regions (Larson 1974 8) and this also may have contributed both to higher enrollments in colleges and universities and to womens presence in law and medicine Younger women are

68 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

typically more willing and likely to move into traditionally male fields (Beller 1984) Finally the Homestead Act itself may have contributed to altered gender relations in the West The law did not exclude women from claiming land stating that Any person [emphasis added] who is the head of a family or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years is entitled to stake a claim (Muhn 1994 285) While this was interpreted to mean that married women living with their husbands could not make an independent entry it did give some women access to the economic power of property ownership and this provided a circumstance unique to the West that helped women step across the boundary separating the public and private spheres

Whether the primary cause underlying womens greater presence in male arenas of activity in the West stemmed from frontier egalitarianism or from a coincidental confluence of demographic and legal circumstances in that region in the end we argue that womens greater inroads into these male spheres in education the profes- sions voluntaristic politics and property ownership helped structure a gendered opportunity for the adoption of woman suffrage in the West Because women had already begun crossing gender boundaries in these other spheres male legislators and the male electorates of the West were more willing or tolerant of the idea of women participating formally in politics Thus in addition to the activities of the western suffrage movements and political opportunities in the West gendered opportunities we argue also helped to create an environment in which women were more likely to win voting rights

DATA AND METHOD

We use discrete methods in event history analysis to analyze the circumstances resulting in woman suffrage at the state level prior to passage of the 19th Amend- ment (McCammon 1998) All of our data are annual state-level measures and all 48 states are included in our analysis (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii due to a lack of data) Unless a data source is listed below one can assume data came from our con- tent analysis of documents describing the state suffrage movements (McCammon et al forthcoming) Our dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of the pas- sage of woman suffrage and is equal to 0 for years prior to the passage of full suf- frage in a state and 1 for the year in which suffrage was enacted (NAWSA 1940) If suffrage was not enacted in a state the dependent variable remains equal to 0 Years following the adoption of suffrage are not included in the analysis because a state is no longer at risk of passing suffrage3

We use three measures to assess Grimess (1967) theory (1) the number of bar- keeps and saloon keepers per capita (US Bureau of the Census 186418721883 1897 1902 1914 1923 1975)4 (2) the percentage of the population that was urban foreign-born (Lee et al 1957 US Bureau of the Census 1975) and (3) the ratio of the size of the male population to the size of the female population (US Bureau of the Census 1975) In the analyses including the saloon variable we also

McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Albjerg Graham Patricia 1978 Expansion and exclusion A history of women in American higher edu- cation Signs Journal of Women in Culture and Society 3759-73

Baker Paula 1984 The domestication of politics Women and American political society 1780-1920 American Historical Review 89620-47

Barnes Moynihan Ruth 1983 Rebel for rights Abigail Scott Duniway New Haven CT Yale Univer- sity Press

Bartlett Richard A 1974 New country A social history of the American frontiec 1776-1890 New York Oxford University Press

Beeton Beverly 1986 Women vote in the west The woman suffrage movement 1869-1896New York Garland

Beller Andrea H 1984 Trends in occupational segregation by sex and race 1960-1981 In Sexsegrega-tion in the worlace Trends explanations remedies edited by Barbara Reskin 11-26 Washing- ton DC National Academy Press

Berman David R 1987 Male support for woman suffrage An analysis of voting patterns in the moun- tain west Social Science History 11281-94

Blair Karen J 1980 The clubwoman as feminist True womanhood redefined 1868-1914New York Holmes and Meier

Brown Dee A 1958 Thegentle tamers Women of the old west Lincoln University of NebraskaPress Buechler Steven M 1986 The transformation of the woman suffrage movement The case of Illinois

1850-1920New Brunswick Rutgers University Press Buenker John D 197 1 The urban political machine and woman suffrage A study in political adaptabil-

ity The Historian 33264-79 Cady Stanton Elizabeth Susan B Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage eds [I8861 1985 History of

woman suffrage Vol 3 Salem NH Ayer Cashman Sean Dennis 1981 Prohibition The lie of the land New York Free Press Chapman Can Carrie and Nettie Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 Woman suffrage andpolitics The inner

story of the suffrage movement Reprint Seattle University of Washington Press Cole Judith K 1990 A wide field for usefulness Womens civil status and the evolution of womens

suffrage on the Montana frontier 1864-1914 American Journal of Legal History 34262-94 Cott Nancy F 1987 The grounding of modern feminism New Haven CT Yale University Press Deane Glenn E M Beck and Stewart E Tolnay 1998 Incorporating space into social histories How

spatial processes operate and how we observe them International Review of Social History 4357-80

Epstein Barbara Leslie 1981 The politics of domesticity Women evangelism and temperance in nine- teenth century America Middletown CT Wesleyan University Press

Gamson William 1975 The strategy of social protest Homewood IL Dorsey Goldberg Michael L 1994 Non-partisan and all-partisan Rethinking woman suffrage and party poli-

tics in gilded age Kansas Western Historical Quarterly 2521-44

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Goldin Claudia and Lawrence FKatz 1999 The shaping of higher education The formative years in the United States 1890-1940 Journal of Economic Perspectives 1337-62

Grimes Alan P 1967 The puritan ethic and woman suffrage New York Oxford University Press Hunter Graham Sara 1996 Woman suffrage and the new democracy New Haven CT Yale University

Press Husted Harper Ida [I9221 1985 History of woman sufrage Vol 6 Reprint Salem NH Ayer Jerome Camhi Jane 1994 Women against women American anti-suffragism 1880-1920Brooklyn

Carlson Kerber Linda K 1997 Separate spheres female worlds womans place The rhetoric of womens his-

tory In Towardan intellectualhistory ofwomen Essays by LindaKerber 159-99 Chapel Hill Uni- versity of North Carolina Press

Kraditor Aileen S 1965 The ideas of the woman suffrage movement 1890-1920New York Columbia University Press

Larson T A 197la Emancipating the wests dolls vassals and hopeless drudges The origins ofwoman suffrage in the west In Essays in Western history in honor ofProfessor 7A Larson edited by Roger Daniels 1-16 Vol 37 Laramie University of Wyoming Press

1971b Woman suffrage in western America Utah Historical Quarterly 39s-19

1974 Womens role in the American West Montana The Magazine of Western History 243-11

Lee Everett S Ann Ratner Miller Carol P Brainerd and Richard A Easterlin 1957 Population redis- tribution and economic growth United States 1870-1950Philadelphia American Philosophical Society

Lewis Stuart Mabel 1913 The lady honyocker How girls take up claims and make their own homes on the prairie The Independent 75133-37

Marilley Suzanne M 1996 Woman sujji-age and the origins of liberal feminism in the United States 1820-1920Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Marshall Susan E 1998 The gender gap in voting behavior Evidence from a referendum on woman suffrage Research in Political Sociology 8 189-207

Matsuda Mari J 1985 The west and the legal status of women Explanations offrontier feminism Jour-nal of the West 2447-56

McAdam Doug John D McCarthy and Mayer N Zald eds 1996 Comparative perspectives on social movements Political opportunities mobilizing structures and cultural framings New York Carn- bridge University Press

McCammon Holly J 1995 The politics of protection State minimum wage and maximum hours laws for women in the United States Sociological Quarterly 36217-49

1998 Using event history analysis in historical research With illustrations from a study of the passage of womens protective legislation International Review of Social History 4333-55

McCarnmon Holly I Karen E Campbell Ellen M Granberg and Christine Mowery Forthcoming How movements win Gendered opportunity structures and the state womens suffrage movements 1866-1 919 American Sociological Review

McCarthy John and Mayer Zald 1977 Resource mobilization and social movements A partial theory American Journal of Sociology 481212-41

McDonagh Eileen L and H Douglas Price 1985 Woman suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of opposition and support in referenda voting 1910-1918 American Political Science Review 79415-35

Muhn James 1994 Women and the Homestead Act Land Department administration of a legal imbro- glio 1863-1934 Western Legal History 7283-307

Myres SandraL 1982 Westering women andthe frontierexperience 1800-1915Albuquerque Univer- sity of New Mexico Press

Nathan Maud 1926 The story of an epoch-making movement Garden City NJ Doubleday

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 81

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) 1893-1917 The handbookof rhe National American Woman Sufrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1919 The hand book of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1940 Wcfory How women won i f New York H W Wilson National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 Proceedings of the biennial convention of rhe National

Womens Trade Union League of America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 1 5 Proceedings of the biennial convention of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1917Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1919Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 2 2 Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse Patterson-Black Sheryll 1976 Women homesteaders on the great plains frontier Frontiers 167-88 Riessen Reed Dorinda 1958 The woman suffrage movemenrinSouth Dakota Vermillion Government

Research Bureau State University of South Dakota Roy Jeffrey Julie 1998 Frontier women Civilizing the wesr 1840-1880 2d ed New York Hill and

wang Schrom Dye Nancy 1980 As equals and as sisrers Feminism rhe labor movement and the Womens

Trade Union League of New York Columbia University of Missouri Press Skocpol Theda 1992 Prorecting soldiers and mothers The political origins of social policy in the

United States Cambridge MA Belknap Snow David A E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden and Robert D Benford 1986 Frame align-

ment processes micromobilization and movement participation American Sociological Review 51464-81

Sprague Mason Martha 1928 Parents and reachers A survey of organized cooperarion of home school and community Boston Ginn

Spruill Wheeler Marjorie 1993 New women of fhe new Sourh The leaders of rhe woman suffrage movement in the southern srares New York Oxford University Press

Stefanco Carolyn J 1993 Harvest of discontent The depression of 1893 and the womens vote Colo-rado Heritage Spring 16-2 1

Tarrow Sidney 1998 Power in movemenr Social movemenrs collective action and politics 2d ed New York Cambridge University Press

Turner Frederick Jackson 1972 The significance of the frontier in American history In The Turner the- sis Concerning the role of the frontier in American history edited by George R Taylor 1-18 Lexington MA D C Heath

US Bureau of the Census 1864 Census of rhe Unitedstates Popularion Washington DC Govern- ment Printing Office

1872 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 8 8 3 Census of rhe UnitedSrares Population Washington DC Government Printingoffice 1 8 9 7 Census offhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1902Census ofrhe UniredStares Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 9 1 4 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923 Census of rhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1975 Historical sfatistics of the UnitedStates colonial rimes to 1970 Bicentennial ed Pt 1

Washington DC Government Printing Office US Department of Commerce 1919 Statisrical absrracr of the United States Washington DC Gov-

ernment Printing Office

82 GENDER amp SOCIETY 1February 2001

1920Sfatistical abstract of the Unired Stares Washington DC Government Printing Office

1922Sratisricalabstractof the UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923Sratisricalabstractof rhe UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office

USOffice of Education 1872-1900 1902-1914 1916 1917 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1902-14Annual report of the Commissioner of Educarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

1 9 16 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1917Annual report ofthe CommissionerofEducarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

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The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

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McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 67

other types of legislation such as school library and food reform (Blair 1980) (3) the National Congress of Mothers which also advocated for a variety of legislative reforms (Cott 1987 87) (4) the National Womens Trade Union League which also pushed for protective legislation for women (Schrom Dye 1980) and (5) the Womans Christian Temperance Union which played a role in winning prohibi- tion reforms and in some states woman suffrage as well (Epstein 1981) In terms of the number of such organizations in a state (divided by the size of the female population) the West outpaced the East and South (column 9) While the western states had about one womens organization for every 100000 women in thepopula- tion the eastern states had approximately one organization for every 250000 women (or 039 per 100000) and the southern states had one organization for every 400000 women (or 025 per 100000) We argue that the prevalence of politically active womens organizations in the West also provided a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage

Others as well have noted the Wests progressiveness in terms of womens move- ment into male domains (eg Cole 1990 Myres 1982 Patterson-Black 1976) For instance Matsuda (1985) finds that women owned more property in the West than elsewhere largely because of the Homestead Act of 1862 and its role in allowing thousands of single divorced and widowed women (but not married women living with their husbands [Muhn 19941) to claim property in the western region Patterson-Black (197668) in fact estimates that across the West between the late 19th and early 20th centuries about 12 percent of homestead entrants were women with the percentage starting small but increasing over time By 1913 one estimate of the proportion of female homesteaders put the figure at one-third (Stuart 19 13)

The reasons for the Wests leadership are not entirely clear Some have followed Frederick Jackson Turners (1972 Cole 1990) reasoning by claiming that a liberat- ing culture of frontier egalitarianism prevailed on the western frontier This argu- ment holds that the arduousness of life on the frontier caused women and men to work and struggle side by side often at the same tasks This allowed Westerners to innovate and hold more egalitarian beliefs about gender relations which then per- mitted women easier access to traditionally male arenas of activity

But other explanations of the Wests early acceptance of women in male domains are probably also useful For instance womens early presence in institu- tions of higher education in the West in all likelihood was tied to the fact that the West unlike many parts of the East and South was far more likely to have public land grant universities provisioned for under the Morill Act of 1862 (Goldin and Katz 1999) and public universities were typically less resistant to womens enroll- ments than were privately funded colleges and universities (Albjerg Graham 1978 767) The fact that women were more common in institutions of higher education in the West may also have helped pave the way for their greater presence in the profes- sions in that region Another circumstance unique to the West was that the average age of the population was younger in the West than in other regions (Larson 1974 8) and this also may have contributed both to higher enrollments in colleges and universities and to womens presence in law and medicine Younger women are

68 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

typically more willing and likely to move into traditionally male fields (Beller 1984) Finally the Homestead Act itself may have contributed to altered gender relations in the West The law did not exclude women from claiming land stating that Any person [emphasis added] who is the head of a family or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years is entitled to stake a claim (Muhn 1994 285) While this was interpreted to mean that married women living with their husbands could not make an independent entry it did give some women access to the economic power of property ownership and this provided a circumstance unique to the West that helped women step across the boundary separating the public and private spheres

Whether the primary cause underlying womens greater presence in male arenas of activity in the West stemmed from frontier egalitarianism or from a coincidental confluence of demographic and legal circumstances in that region in the end we argue that womens greater inroads into these male spheres in education the profes- sions voluntaristic politics and property ownership helped structure a gendered opportunity for the adoption of woman suffrage in the West Because women had already begun crossing gender boundaries in these other spheres male legislators and the male electorates of the West were more willing or tolerant of the idea of women participating formally in politics Thus in addition to the activities of the western suffrage movements and political opportunities in the West gendered opportunities we argue also helped to create an environment in which women were more likely to win voting rights

DATA AND METHOD

We use discrete methods in event history analysis to analyze the circumstances resulting in woman suffrage at the state level prior to passage of the 19th Amend- ment (McCammon 1998) All of our data are annual state-level measures and all 48 states are included in our analysis (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii due to a lack of data) Unless a data source is listed below one can assume data came from our con- tent analysis of documents describing the state suffrage movements (McCammon et al forthcoming) Our dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of the pas- sage of woman suffrage and is equal to 0 for years prior to the passage of full suf- frage in a state and 1 for the year in which suffrage was enacted (NAWSA 1940) If suffrage was not enacted in a state the dependent variable remains equal to 0 Years following the adoption of suffrage are not included in the analysis because a state is no longer at risk of passing suffrage3

We use three measures to assess Grimess (1967) theory (1) the number of bar- keeps and saloon keepers per capita (US Bureau of the Census 186418721883 1897 1902 1914 1923 1975)4 (2) the percentage of the population that was urban foreign-born (Lee et al 1957 US Bureau of the Census 1975) and (3) the ratio of the size of the male population to the size of the female population (US Bureau of the Census 1975) In the analyses including the saloon variable we also

McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Goldin Claudia and Lawrence FKatz 1999 The shaping of higher education The formative years in the United States 1890-1940 Journal of Economic Perspectives 1337-62

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Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

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The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

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68 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

typically more willing and likely to move into traditionally male fields (Beller 1984) Finally the Homestead Act itself may have contributed to altered gender relations in the West The law did not exclude women from claiming land stating that Any person [emphasis added] who is the head of a family or who has arrived at the age of twenty-one years is entitled to stake a claim (Muhn 1994 285) While this was interpreted to mean that married women living with their husbands could not make an independent entry it did give some women access to the economic power of property ownership and this provided a circumstance unique to the West that helped women step across the boundary separating the public and private spheres

Whether the primary cause underlying womens greater presence in male arenas of activity in the West stemmed from frontier egalitarianism or from a coincidental confluence of demographic and legal circumstances in that region in the end we argue that womens greater inroads into these male spheres in education the profes- sions voluntaristic politics and property ownership helped structure a gendered opportunity for the adoption of woman suffrage in the West Because women had already begun crossing gender boundaries in these other spheres male legislators and the male electorates of the West were more willing or tolerant of the idea of women participating formally in politics Thus in addition to the activities of the western suffrage movements and political opportunities in the West gendered opportunities we argue also helped to create an environment in which women were more likely to win voting rights

DATA AND METHOD

We use discrete methods in event history analysis to analyze the circumstances resulting in woman suffrage at the state level prior to passage of the 19th Amend- ment (McCammon 1998) All of our data are annual state-level measures and all 48 states are included in our analysis (We exclude Alaska and Hawaii due to a lack of data) Unless a data source is listed below one can assume data came from our con- tent analysis of documents describing the state suffrage movements (McCammon et al forthcoming) Our dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of the pas- sage of woman suffrage and is equal to 0 for years prior to the passage of full suf- frage in a state and 1 for the year in which suffrage was enacted (NAWSA 1940) If suffrage was not enacted in a state the dependent variable remains equal to 0 Years following the adoption of suffrage are not included in the analysis because a state is no longer at risk of passing suffrage3

We use three measures to assess Grimess (1967) theory (1) the number of bar- keeps and saloon keepers per capita (US Bureau of the Census 186418721883 1897 1902 1914 1923 1975)4 (2) the percentage of the population that was urban foreign-born (Lee et al 1957 US Bureau of the Census 1975) and (3) the ratio of the size of the male population to the size of the female population (US Bureau of the Census 1975) In the analyses including the saloon variable we also

McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

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Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

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McCammon Campbell 1WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 69

include a measure of the year in which a statepassedaprohibition law to control for the impact of low numbers of saloons due to prohibition (Cashman 1981)

To gauge the role of the state suffrage movements in winning voting rights we examine six factors The first two concern the extent of movement organization We include the number of suffrage organizations in a state based on a count of state suf- frage organizations mens suffrage leagues and a college womens suffrage orga- nizations We also examine the impact of the size of membership (per capita) in NAWSA-affiliated state suffrage associations

The second two movement measures concern insider and outsider strategies used by the suffragists Insider strategies involved lobbying giving speeches and presenting petitions to the state legislature Our measure equals 0 if no insider strat- egies were used 1 if a moderate amount of political activity took place and 2 if sub- stantial campaigning occurred Outsider strategies include (1) holding annual con- ventions (2) holding social events (3) organizing new movement members and (4) giving public speeches holding parades and distributing literature The out- sider strategy measure is a count of the number of different types of tactics used in a given year ranging from 0 to 4

The last two measures of suffrage movement activity concern suffragists use of expediency arguments and theirfund-raising activity Expediency arguments were arguments stating that women should have the vote because women could bring special womanly skills to politics to address public issues involving morality families and children If state suffragists used such arguments in public speeches or documents in a given year we coded this measure as 1 and 0 otherwise We simi- larly constructed a measure of suffragist fund-raising activity If suffragists engaged in fund-raising in a given year the variable was coded 1and 0 otherwise Fund-rais- ing activities include soliciting donations selling tickets to lectures plays and other events and holding various types of sales to raise money for the movement Another measure we use to gauge the influence of fund-raising is the amount con- tributed by the state movements to NAWSA (divided by the states population)

We measure political opportunity for suffrage success with three variables First a procedural variable indicates the ease or difficulty of reforming voting rights in a state The territories could grant women the vote simply with a favorable legislative vote Most states though required a public referendum in addition to the legislative vote Some required a constitutional convention Our procedural vari- able ranges from 1 to 5 or from easiest to most difficult reform procedure In addi- tion we include two measures of political party support one indicating an endorse- ment from either the state Democratic or Republican Party and one indicating an endorsement from a third party in particulal the Populist Progressive Prohibi- tion or Socialist Parties These variables equal 1 if an endorsement occurred and 0 otherwise

Gendered opportunities for suffrage reform are also measured with three vari- ables each indicating womens inroads into traditionally male arenas of activity First the number of women who were physicians and lawyers (divided by the total number ofphysicians and lawyers) is a measure of womens entrance into the pro-

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

httpwwwjstororg

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The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -

Page 16: vol15no1

70 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

fessions (US Bureau of the Census 187218831897 190219141923) Second a measure of the percentage of all college and university students who were female indicates womens inroads into higher education (US Department of Commerce 1919 1920 1922 1923 US Office of Education 1872-1900 1902-14 1916 1917) Finally we also include the number ofprominent womens organizations in a state (divided by the size of the states female population) a count measure that includes the Consumers League the General Federation of Womens Clubs the National Congress of Mothers the National Womens Trade Union League and the Womans Christian Temperance Union (Nathan 1926 National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 1915 1917 1919 1922 Schrom Dye 1980 Skocpol 1992 Sprague Mason 1928 US Bureau of the Census 1975)

We also include three types of control variables First because antisuffrage organizations mobilized in various states to oppose the suffrage movements we include a measure of the presence of antiorganizations (equal to 1 if an antiorganization existed and 0 otherwise) These organizations composed mainly of middle- and upper-class women and sometimes men opposed woman suffrage primarily on the grounds that womens place was in the home and not in politics (Jerome Camhi 1994) Their presence in a state may have increased public opposi- tion to woman suffrage and prevented the adoption of womens voting rights

In addition we include a measure of the proportion of neighboring states grant- ing sufrage (lagged one year) (NAWSA 1940) Particularly in the West a state could find itself surrounded by states in which women voted This was the case for instance in Nevada when by 1914 (the year in which Nevada granted suffrage) all five neighboring states had granted woman suffrage (see Figure 1) A diffusion effect may have occurred in which the occurrence of suffrage in one state encour- aged its passage in a neighboring state

Finally we also include in our models dichotomous terms indicating the various decades in our period of analysis (with the 1910s as our reference category) Twelve out of the 15 states enacting full suffrage did so in the 1910s Including the decades measures will allow us to determine whether after controlling for other factors period effects exist

RESULTS

In Table 3 we present the results of our event history analysis of the circum- stances leading to state adoption of woman suffrage We begin with separate regres- sion equations for each cluster of explanatory hypotheses Grimess Puritan ethos (columnl) movement mobilization (column 2) political opportunities (column 3) gendered opportunities (column 4) and control variables (column 5) In column 6 we include only variables with significant effects in the partial models In column 7 we include only variables that are significant in column 6 The results in column 7 then are our final results Columns 8 and 9 provide variations on the results in col- umn 7

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -

Page 17: vol15no1

TABLE 3 Event History Analysis of Factors Influencing the Passage of Full Suffrage for Women 1866-1919 (standard errors in parentheses)

(17 (2) (3) (49 (5) (69 (79 (8J (9f

Grimess Puritan ethic Saloon keepers and barkeeps

State prohibition laws

Percent urban foreign-born

Sex ratio

Movement mobilization and cultural framing Number of suffrage organizations

Suffrage association membership

Insider strategies

Outsider strategies

Fund-raising

Financial contributions to NAWSA 2 (005)

(continued)

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

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The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -

Page 18: vol15no1

74 GENDER amp SOCIETYI February 2001

The results reveal a number of findings concerning the circumstances leading to the adoption of woman suffrage For instance none of the various measures of Grimess Puritan-ethic hypothesis are significant (column 1)A high concentration of saloon keepers and barkeeps in a state did not lead to woman suffrage neither did a high concentration of immigrants in urban areas6 Moreover states with more men than women were no more likely to enact suffrage than states with a balanced number of men and women These results cast doubt on Grimess (1967) argument that native-born westerners were likely to support woman suffrage when con- fronted with social ills large urban immigrant populations and few women Larson (1971a 15) in fact points out that although the argument that woman suffrage would increase the number of women was posited in Wyoming prior to suffrage there no greater influx of women into the territory following the enfranchisement of woman suffrage occurred Other factors must have been at work producing woman suffrage in the West7

On the other hand the results show that two aspects of movement mobilization aided the suffragists in their quest for the vote fund-raising and the use of expedi- ency arguments (columns 26 and 7) The significant effect for fund-raising indi- cates that the more suffragists engaged in fund-raising activities the greater were their chances of winning the vote This is confirmed by the result in column 8 where the significant financial variable in that model shows that the greater the amount that a state movement could contribute to NAWSA-a measure attesting to the movements fund-raising ability-the more likely the movement was to win voting rights The importance of fund-raising to movement success is not surpris- ing Fund-raising is a key movement activity To the degree that movements can raise funds they are able to pursue a variety of activities-traveling to the state capitol to lobby legislators paying for ads and literature to distribute or hiring organizers In all likelihood this is what occurred for the suffragists in the West They rivaled the eastern movements in their fund-raising ability (see Table 2) and moreover they probably needed substantial funds given the costs of the extensive travel essential to spreading the suffrage message in the western states The results suggest then that Westerners used the funds effectively in their attempts to sway leg- islators and voters

Suffragists use of expediency arguments also helped them win the vote Expe- diency rationales for the vote held that women should be permitted to vote because they unlike men were the caregivers and the nurturers of society and these abilities would make women valuable contributors to understanding and solving societys problems especially those confronting families women and children Western suffragists were more likely than suffragists outside the region to employ expedi- ency arguments (see Table 2) and such arguments were particularly effective in persuading legislators and voters that women should vote because they resonated with widely held beliefs about womens appropriate roles Their use in the West then helps explain early suffrage in that region

Other measures of movement mobilization however are not significant predic- tors of suffrage The extent of suffrage organizing in a state (see column 2 for

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

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Baker Paula 1984 The domestication of politics Women and American political society 1780-1920 American Historical Review 89620-47

Barnes Moynihan Ruth 1983 Rebel for rights Abigail Scott Duniway New Haven CT Yale Univer- sity Press

Bartlett Richard A 1974 New country A social history of the American frontiec 1776-1890 New York Oxford University Press

Beeton Beverly 1986 Women vote in the west The woman suffrage movement 1869-1896New York Garland

Beller Andrea H 1984 Trends in occupational segregation by sex and race 1960-1981 In Sexsegrega-tion in the worlace Trends explanations remedies edited by Barbara Reskin 11-26 Washing- ton DC National Academy Press

Berman David R 1987 Male support for woman suffrage An analysis of voting patterns in the moun- tain west Social Science History 11281-94

Blair Karen J 1980 The clubwoman as feminist True womanhood redefined 1868-1914New York Holmes and Meier

Brown Dee A 1958 Thegentle tamers Women of the old west Lincoln University of NebraskaPress Buechler Steven M 1986 The transformation of the woman suffrage movement The case of Illinois

1850-1920New Brunswick Rutgers University Press Buenker John D 197 1 The urban political machine and woman suffrage A study in political adaptabil-

ity The Historian 33264-79 Cady Stanton Elizabeth Susan B Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage eds [I8861 1985 History of

woman suffrage Vol 3 Salem NH Ayer Cashman Sean Dennis 1981 Prohibition The lie of the land New York Free Press Chapman Can Carrie and Nettie Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 Woman suffrage andpolitics The inner

story of the suffrage movement Reprint Seattle University of Washington Press Cole Judith K 1990 A wide field for usefulness Womens civil status and the evolution of womens

suffrage on the Montana frontier 1864-1914 American Journal of Legal History 34262-94 Cott Nancy F 1987 The grounding of modern feminism New Haven CT Yale University Press Deane Glenn E M Beck and Stewart E Tolnay 1998 Incorporating space into social histories How

spatial processes operate and how we observe them International Review of Social History 4357-80

Epstein Barbara Leslie 1981 The politics of domesticity Women evangelism and temperance in nine- teenth century America Middletown CT Wesleyan University Press

Gamson William 1975 The strategy of social protest Homewood IL Dorsey Goldberg Michael L 1994 Non-partisan and all-partisan Rethinking woman suffrage and party poli-

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Goldin Claudia and Lawrence FKatz 1999 The shaping of higher education The formative years in the United States 1890-1940 Journal of Economic Perspectives 1337-62

Grimes Alan P 1967 The puritan ethic and woman suffrage New York Oxford University Press Hunter Graham Sara 1996 Woman suffrage and the new democracy New Haven CT Yale University

Press Husted Harper Ida [I9221 1985 History of woman sufrage Vol 6 Reprint Salem NH Ayer Jerome Camhi Jane 1994 Women against women American anti-suffragism 1880-1920Brooklyn

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Larson T A 197la Emancipating the wests dolls vassals and hopeless drudges The origins ofwoman suffrage in the west In Essays in Western history in honor ofProfessor 7A Larson edited by Roger Daniels 1-16 Vol 37 Laramie University of Wyoming Press

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1974 Womens role in the American West Montana The Magazine of Western History 243-11

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Lewis Stuart Mabel 1913 The lady honyocker How girls take up claims and make their own homes on the prairie The Independent 75133-37

Marilley Suzanne M 1996 Woman sujji-age and the origins of liberal feminism in the United States 1820-1920Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Marshall Susan E 1998 The gender gap in voting behavior Evidence from a referendum on woman suffrage Research in Political Sociology 8 189-207

Matsuda Mari J 1985 The west and the legal status of women Explanations offrontier feminism Jour-nal of the West 2447-56

McAdam Doug John D McCarthy and Mayer N Zald eds 1996 Comparative perspectives on social movements Political opportunities mobilizing structures and cultural framings New York Carn- bridge University Press

McCammon Holly J 1995 The politics of protection State minimum wage and maximum hours laws for women in the United States Sociological Quarterly 36217-49

1998 Using event history analysis in historical research With illustrations from a study of the passage of womens protective legislation International Review of Social History 4333-55

McCarnmon Holly I Karen E Campbell Ellen M Granberg and Christine Mowery Forthcoming How movements win Gendered opportunity structures and the state womens suffrage movements 1866-1 919 American Sociological Review

McCarthy John and Mayer Zald 1977 Resource mobilization and social movements A partial theory American Journal of Sociology 481212-41

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Myres SandraL 1982 Westering women andthe frontierexperience 1800-1915Albuquerque Univer- sity of New Mexico Press

Nathan Maud 1926 The story of an epoch-making movement Garden City NJ Doubleday

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 81

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) 1893-1917 The handbookof rhe National American Woman Sufrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1919 The hand book of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1940 Wcfory How women won i f New York H W Wilson National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 Proceedings of the biennial convention of rhe National

Womens Trade Union League of America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 1 5 Proceedings of the biennial convention of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1917Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

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America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 2 2 Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse Patterson-Black Sheryll 1976 Women homesteaders on the great plains frontier Frontiers 167-88 Riessen Reed Dorinda 1958 The woman suffrage movemenrinSouth Dakota Vermillion Government

Research Bureau State University of South Dakota Roy Jeffrey Julie 1998 Frontier women Civilizing the wesr 1840-1880 2d ed New York Hill and

wang Schrom Dye Nancy 1980 As equals and as sisrers Feminism rhe labor movement and the Womens

Trade Union League of New York Columbia University of Missouri Press Skocpol Theda 1992 Prorecting soldiers and mothers The political origins of social policy in the

United States Cambridge MA Belknap Snow David A E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden and Robert D Benford 1986 Frame align-

ment processes micromobilization and movement participation American Sociological Review 51464-81

Sprague Mason Martha 1928 Parents and reachers A survey of organized cooperarion of home school and community Boston Ginn

Spruill Wheeler Marjorie 1993 New women of fhe new Sourh The leaders of rhe woman suffrage movement in the southern srares New York Oxford University Press

Stefanco Carolyn J 1993 Harvest of discontent The depression of 1893 and the womens vote Colo-rado Heritage Spring 16-2 1

Tarrow Sidney 1998 Power in movemenr Social movemenrs collective action and politics 2d ed New York Cambridge University Press

Turner Frederick Jackson 1972 The significance of the frontier in American history In The Turner the- sis Concerning the role of the frontier in American history edited by George R Taylor 1-18 Lexington MA D C Heath

US Bureau of the Census 1864 Census of rhe Unitedstates Popularion Washington DC Govern- ment Printing Office

1872 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 8 8 3 Census of rhe UnitedSrares Population Washington DC Government Printingoffice 1 8 9 7 Census offhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1902Census ofrhe UniredStares Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 9 1 4 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923 Census of rhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1975 Historical sfatistics of the UnitedStates colonial rimes to 1970 Bicentennial ed Pt 1

Washington DC Government Printing Office US Department of Commerce 1919 Statisrical absrracr of the United States Washington DC Gov-

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82 GENDER amp SOCIETY 1February 2001

1920Sfatistical abstract of the Unired Stares Washington DC Government Printing Office

1922Sratisricalabstractof the UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923Sratisricalabstractof rhe UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office

USOffice of Education 1872-1900 1902-1914 1916 1917 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1902-14Annual report of the Commissioner of Educarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

1 9 16 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1917Annual report ofthe CommissionerofEducarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

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The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

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McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGEMOVEMENTS 75

number of suffrage organizations and column 9 for size of membership) did not influence the ability of the suffragists to gain the vote Movements with greater numbers of organizations and movements with larger per capita memberships were not necessarily more successful movements While some western states had large memberships (see Table l)many of them did not yet most granted suffrage In the end large-scale mobilization did not translate into political success perhaps for the same reasons that Abigail Scott Duniway argued that the still hunt was an effec- tive means of pursuing suffrage (Moynihan 1983) Large memberships and wide- spread suffrage activity in a state may have aroused too much opposition to the cause Carrie Chapman Catt president of NAWSA when the federal amendment was ratified remarked after looking back on the suffragists campaigns that ironically the better the campaign the more certain that suffrage would be defeated at the polls (Chapman Catt and Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 130) These results seem to confirm her obse~at ion ~

The use of insider and outsider strategies by the suffragists also did not provide an advantage (or disadvantage) in winning the vote (column 2) Neither measure is statistically significant State movements that used such strategies were no more or less likely to convince the state legislature or the electorate to grant the vote to women than were movements that did not rely heavily on such strategies This evi- dence may cast at least some doubt on whether the use of the still hunt was more effective than a more obvious campaign But taken together with the other findings it becomes clear that large and active movements were no more successful than small and less-active movements in winning the vote

Both political and gendered opportunities helped bring about suffrage in the West (columns 346 and 7) In fact two types of political opportunities appear to have existed in the West First the voting rights reform procedure variable is signifi- cant and negative in the models The easier the reform procedure the more likely a state was to grant suffrage (the measure indicates the difficulty of the procedure) The western territories because they did not require an electoral vote on suffrage provided a political opportunity for broadening voting rights to women But the states that had less complex ways of reforming voting rights also provided a politi- cal opportunity for suffrage and many of them also were in the West The second type of political opportunity that existed in the West came in the form of support for woman suffrage from the state Democratic and Republican Parties Because of a lack of entrenched political opposition to woman suffrage in the West as existed among southern Democrats and in the political machines in some eastern cities politicians in the West were more easily persuaded of the suffragists view that women ought to vote Endorsement from state Democratic and Republican Parties significantly increased the likelihood of suffrage success Third-party support for suffrage however did not translate into full voting rights for women (column 3) in all likelihood because the Democrats and the Republicans were more likely than third parties to control the legislative votes necessary to change the law

Two measures of a gendered opportunity for woman suffrage are significant in these analyses the proportion of physicians and lawyers who were female (female

76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

REFERENCES

Albjerg Graham Patricia 1978 Expansion and exclusion A history of women in American higher edu- cation Signs Journal of Women in Culture and Society 3759-73

Baker Paula 1984 The domestication of politics Women and American political society 1780-1920 American Historical Review 89620-47

Barnes Moynihan Ruth 1983 Rebel for rights Abigail Scott Duniway New Haven CT Yale Univer- sity Press

Bartlett Richard A 1974 New country A social history of the American frontiec 1776-1890 New York Oxford University Press

Beeton Beverly 1986 Women vote in the west The woman suffrage movement 1869-1896New York Garland

Beller Andrea H 1984 Trends in occupational segregation by sex and race 1960-1981 In Sexsegrega-tion in the worlace Trends explanations remedies edited by Barbara Reskin 11-26 Washing- ton DC National Academy Press

Berman David R 1987 Male support for woman suffrage An analysis of voting patterns in the moun- tain west Social Science History 11281-94

Blair Karen J 1980 The clubwoman as feminist True womanhood redefined 1868-1914New York Holmes and Meier

Brown Dee A 1958 Thegentle tamers Women of the old west Lincoln University of NebraskaPress Buechler Steven M 1986 The transformation of the woman suffrage movement The case of Illinois

1850-1920New Brunswick Rutgers University Press Buenker John D 197 1 The urban political machine and woman suffrage A study in political adaptabil-

ity The Historian 33264-79 Cady Stanton Elizabeth Susan B Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage eds [I8861 1985 History of

woman suffrage Vol 3 Salem NH Ayer Cashman Sean Dennis 1981 Prohibition The lie of the land New York Free Press Chapman Can Carrie and Nettie Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 Woman suffrage andpolitics The inner

story of the suffrage movement Reprint Seattle University of Washington Press Cole Judith K 1990 A wide field for usefulness Womens civil status and the evolution of womens

suffrage on the Montana frontier 1864-1914 American Journal of Legal History 34262-94 Cott Nancy F 1987 The grounding of modern feminism New Haven CT Yale University Press Deane Glenn E M Beck and Stewart E Tolnay 1998 Incorporating space into social histories How

spatial processes operate and how we observe them International Review of Social History 4357-80

Epstein Barbara Leslie 1981 The politics of domesticity Women evangelism and temperance in nine- teenth century America Middletown CT Wesleyan University Press

Gamson William 1975 The strategy of social protest Homewood IL Dorsey Goldberg Michael L 1994 Non-partisan and all-partisan Rethinking woman suffrage and party poli-

tics in gilded age Kansas Western Historical Quarterly 2521-44

80 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

Goldin Claudia and Lawrence FKatz 1999 The shaping of higher education The formative years in the United States 1890-1940 Journal of Economic Perspectives 1337-62

Grimes Alan P 1967 The puritan ethic and woman suffrage New York Oxford University Press Hunter Graham Sara 1996 Woman suffrage and the new democracy New Haven CT Yale University

Press Husted Harper Ida [I9221 1985 History of woman sufrage Vol 6 Reprint Salem NH Ayer Jerome Camhi Jane 1994 Women against women American anti-suffragism 1880-1920Brooklyn

Carlson Kerber Linda K 1997 Separate spheres female worlds womans place The rhetoric of womens his-

tory In Towardan intellectualhistory ofwomen Essays by LindaKerber 159-99 Chapel Hill Uni- versity of North Carolina Press

Kraditor Aileen S 1965 The ideas of the woman suffrage movement 1890-1920New York Columbia University Press

Larson T A 197la Emancipating the wests dolls vassals and hopeless drudges The origins ofwoman suffrage in the west In Essays in Western history in honor ofProfessor 7A Larson edited by Roger Daniels 1-16 Vol 37 Laramie University of Wyoming Press

1971b Woman suffrage in western America Utah Historical Quarterly 39s-19

1974 Womens role in the American West Montana The Magazine of Western History 243-11

Lee Everett S Ann Ratner Miller Carol P Brainerd and Richard A Easterlin 1957 Population redis- tribution and economic growth United States 1870-1950Philadelphia American Philosophical Society

Lewis Stuart Mabel 1913 The lady honyocker How girls take up claims and make their own homes on the prairie The Independent 75133-37

Marilley Suzanne M 1996 Woman sujji-age and the origins of liberal feminism in the United States 1820-1920Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Marshall Susan E 1998 The gender gap in voting behavior Evidence from a referendum on woman suffrage Research in Political Sociology 8 189-207

Matsuda Mari J 1985 The west and the legal status of women Explanations offrontier feminism Jour-nal of the West 2447-56

McAdam Doug John D McCarthy and Mayer N Zald eds 1996 Comparative perspectives on social movements Political opportunities mobilizing structures and cultural framings New York Carn- bridge University Press

McCammon Holly J 1995 The politics of protection State minimum wage and maximum hours laws for women in the United States Sociological Quarterly 36217-49

1998 Using event history analysis in historical research With illustrations from a study of the passage of womens protective legislation International Review of Social History 4333-55

McCarnmon Holly I Karen E Campbell Ellen M Granberg and Christine Mowery Forthcoming How movements win Gendered opportunity structures and the state womens suffrage movements 1866-1 919 American Sociological Review

McCarthy John and Mayer Zald 1977 Resource mobilization and social movements A partial theory American Journal of Sociology 481212-41

McDonagh Eileen L and H Douglas Price 1985 Woman suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of opposition and support in referenda voting 1910-1918 American Political Science Review 79415-35

Muhn James 1994 Women and the Homestead Act Land Department administration of a legal imbro- glio 1863-1934 Western Legal History 7283-307

Myres SandraL 1982 Westering women andthe frontierexperience 1800-1915Albuquerque Univer- sity of New Mexico Press

Nathan Maud 1926 The story of an epoch-making movement Garden City NJ Doubleday

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 81

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) 1893-1917 The handbookof rhe National American Woman Sufrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1919 The hand book of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1940 Wcfory How women won i f New York H W Wilson National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 Proceedings of the biennial convention of rhe National

Womens Trade Union League of America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 1 5 Proceedings of the biennial convention of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1917Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1919Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 2 2 Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse Patterson-Black Sheryll 1976 Women homesteaders on the great plains frontier Frontiers 167-88 Riessen Reed Dorinda 1958 The woman suffrage movemenrinSouth Dakota Vermillion Government

Research Bureau State University of South Dakota Roy Jeffrey Julie 1998 Frontier women Civilizing the wesr 1840-1880 2d ed New York Hill and

wang Schrom Dye Nancy 1980 As equals and as sisrers Feminism rhe labor movement and the Womens

Trade Union League of New York Columbia University of Missouri Press Skocpol Theda 1992 Prorecting soldiers and mothers The political origins of social policy in the

United States Cambridge MA Belknap Snow David A E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden and Robert D Benford 1986 Frame align-

ment processes micromobilization and movement participation American Sociological Review 51464-81

Sprague Mason Martha 1928 Parents and reachers A survey of organized cooperarion of home school and community Boston Ginn

Spruill Wheeler Marjorie 1993 New women of fhe new Sourh The leaders of rhe woman suffrage movement in the southern srares New York Oxford University Press

Stefanco Carolyn J 1993 Harvest of discontent The depression of 1893 and the womens vote Colo-rado Heritage Spring 16-2 1

Tarrow Sidney 1998 Power in movemenr Social movemenrs collective action and politics 2d ed New York Cambridge University Press

Turner Frederick Jackson 1972 The significance of the frontier in American history In The Turner the- sis Concerning the role of the frontier in American history edited by George R Taylor 1-18 Lexington MA D C Heath

US Bureau of the Census 1864 Census of rhe Unitedstates Popularion Washington DC Govern- ment Printing Office

1872 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 8 8 3 Census of rhe UnitedSrares Population Washington DC Government Printingoffice 1 8 9 7 Census offhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1902Census ofrhe UniredStares Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 9 1 4 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923 Census of rhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1975 Historical sfatistics of the UnitedStates colonial rimes to 1970 Bicentennial ed Pt 1

Washington DC Government Printing Office US Department of Commerce 1919 Statisrical absrracr of the United States Washington DC Gov-

ernment Printing Office

82 GENDER amp SOCIETY 1February 2001

1920Sfatistical abstract of the Unired Stares Washington DC Government Printing Office

1922Sratisricalabstractof the UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923Sratisricalabstractof rhe UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office

USOffice of Education 1872-1900 1902-1914 1916 1917 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1902-14Annual report of the Commissioner of Educarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

1 9 16 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1917Annual report ofthe CommissionerofEducarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

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Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

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References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

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76 GENDER amp SOCIETY I February 2001

professionals) and the proportion of college students who were female (columns 4 6 and 7) Both are measures of womens inroads into previously male arenas of activity The results suggest that where women more frequently stepped across boundaries that had previously separated womens and mens roles political and public opinions shifted to support womens right to vote and women crossed these boundaries during this period more so in the West than in the East and South (see Table 2)

The presence of politically active womens organizations in a state however did not increase the likelihood of that states granting suffrage (column 6)Although in one respect such organizations are an indicator of womens movement into the male sphere of politics these organizations were also womens organizations and thus perhaps were not commonly perceived to transgress gender boundaries Unlike womens movement into higher education and the professions where women inte- grated with men womens organizations still resulted in a degree of separatism For this reason perhaps the activism of womens organizations did not alter thinking about gender roles and thus womens organizations did not affect suffrage

We also included various control measures in our analysis To gauge the impact of opposition to the suffrage movements we included a measure of the presence of an antisuffrage organization in a state Although this measure was significant in the partial model (column 5 ) it was not significant in the final model (column 6) sug- gesting that opposition to the movements had little or no effect on their success

On the other hand states with high percentages of neighboring states that had passed full suffrage were more likely than other states to adopt woman suffrage (columns 5-7) This too helps explain why the West was a front-runner in terms of woman suffrage As attitudes toward women and the vote shifted in one state it appears that they influenced attitudes in neighboring states leading neighboring states as well to grant ~uf f rage ~

Finally we included decade measures in our models to address the fact that the frequency of states adopting suffrage was higher from 1910 to 1919 than in earlier decades The results for these terms show that our substantive terms do a reasonable job of explaining why more states passed suffrage in the last decade compared to the earlier decades Only one of the decade measures is significant The 1890s vari- able is significant and negative in the model in column 7 suggesting that our sub- stantive variables have not fully explained why fewer states passed suffrage in the 1890s compared with the 1910s (although the 1890s measure is not significant in column 6) Thus while we have not entirely explained the period differences in the pace of suffrage enactment our substantive findings do indicate that more states adopted full voting rights for women in the 1910s than in most other periods because during these years suffragists were raising more funds and using expedi- ency arguments to a greater degree more and more state Democratic and Republi- can Parties endorsed woman suffrage women were increasingly entering male spheres of activity in higher education and in the professions and states increas- ingly had neighboring states with suffrage

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

REFERENCES

Albjerg Graham Patricia 1978 Expansion and exclusion A history of women in American higher edu- cation Signs Journal of Women in Culture and Society 3759-73

Baker Paula 1984 The domestication of politics Women and American political society 1780-1920 American Historical Review 89620-47

Barnes Moynihan Ruth 1983 Rebel for rights Abigail Scott Duniway New Haven CT Yale Univer- sity Press

Bartlett Richard A 1974 New country A social history of the American frontiec 1776-1890 New York Oxford University Press

Beeton Beverly 1986 Women vote in the west The woman suffrage movement 1869-1896New York Garland

Beller Andrea H 1984 Trends in occupational segregation by sex and race 1960-1981 In Sexsegrega-tion in the worlace Trends explanations remedies edited by Barbara Reskin 11-26 Washing- ton DC National Academy Press

Berman David R 1987 Male support for woman suffrage An analysis of voting patterns in the moun- tain west Social Science History 11281-94

Blair Karen J 1980 The clubwoman as feminist True womanhood redefined 1868-1914New York Holmes and Meier

Brown Dee A 1958 Thegentle tamers Women of the old west Lincoln University of NebraskaPress Buechler Steven M 1986 The transformation of the woman suffrage movement The case of Illinois

1850-1920New Brunswick Rutgers University Press Buenker John D 197 1 The urban political machine and woman suffrage A study in political adaptabil-

ity The Historian 33264-79 Cady Stanton Elizabeth Susan B Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage eds [I8861 1985 History of

woman suffrage Vol 3 Salem NH Ayer Cashman Sean Dennis 1981 Prohibition The lie of the land New York Free Press Chapman Can Carrie and Nettie Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 Woman suffrage andpolitics The inner

story of the suffrage movement Reprint Seattle University of Washington Press Cole Judith K 1990 A wide field for usefulness Womens civil status and the evolution of womens

suffrage on the Montana frontier 1864-1914 American Journal of Legal History 34262-94 Cott Nancy F 1987 The grounding of modern feminism New Haven CT Yale University Press Deane Glenn E M Beck and Stewart E Tolnay 1998 Incorporating space into social histories How

spatial processes operate and how we observe them International Review of Social History 4357-80

Epstein Barbara Leslie 1981 The politics of domesticity Women evangelism and temperance in nine- teenth century America Middletown CT Wesleyan University Press

Gamson William 1975 The strategy of social protest Homewood IL Dorsey Goldberg Michael L 1994 Non-partisan and all-partisan Rethinking woman suffrage and party poli-

tics in gilded age Kansas Western Historical Quarterly 2521-44

80 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

Goldin Claudia and Lawrence FKatz 1999 The shaping of higher education The formative years in the United States 1890-1940 Journal of Economic Perspectives 1337-62

Grimes Alan P 1967 The puritan ethic and woman suffrage New York Oxford University Press Hunter Graham Sara 1996 Woman suffrage and the new democracy New Haven CT Yale University

Press Husted Harper Ida [I9221 1985 History of woman sufrage Vol 6 Reprint Salem NH Ayer Jerome Camhi Jane 1994 Women against women American anti-suffragism 1880-1920Brooklyn

Carlson Kerber Linda K 1997 Separate spheres female worlds womans place The rhetoric of womens his-

tory In Towardan intellectualhistory ofwomen Essays by LindaKerber 159-99 Chapel Hill Uni- versity of North Carolina Press

Kraditor Aileen S 1965 The ideas of the woman suffrage movement 1890-1920New York Columbia University Press

Larson T A 197la Emancipating the wests dolls vassals and hopeless drudges The origins ofwoman suffrage in the west In Essays in Western history in honor ofProfessor 7A Larson edited by Roger Daniels 1-16 Vol 37 Laramie University of Wyoming Press

1971b Woman suffrage in western America Utah Historical Quarterly 39s-19

1974 Womens role in the American West Montana The Magazine of Western History 243-11

Lee Everett S Ann Ratner Miller Carol P Brainerd and Richard A Easterlin 1957 Population redis- tribution and economic growth United States 1870-1950Philadelphia American Philosophical Society

Lewis Stuart Mabel 1913 The lady honyocker How girls take up claims and make their own homes on the prairie The Independent 75133-37

Marilley Suzanne M 1996 Woman sujji-age and the origins of liberal feminism in the United States 1820-1920Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Marshall Susan E 1998 The gender gap in voting behavior Evidence from a referendum on woman suffrage Research in Political Sociology 8 189-207

Matsuda Mari J 1985 The west and the legal status of women Explanations offrontier feminism Jour-nal of the West 2447-56

McAdam Doug John D McCarthy and Mayer N Zald eds 1996 Comparative perspectives on social movements Political opportunities mobilizing structures and cultural framings New York Carn- bridge University Press

McCammon Holly J 1995 The politics of protection State minimum wage and maximum hours laws for women in the United States Sociological Quarterly 36217-49

1998 Using event history analysis in historical research With illustrations from a study of the passage of womens protective legislation International Review of Social History 4333-55

McCarnmon Holly I Karen E Campbell Ellen M Granberg and Christine Mowery Forthcoming How movements win Gendered opportunity structures and the state womens suffrage movements 1866-1 919 American Sociological Review

McCarthy John and Mayer Zald 1977 Resource mobilization and social movements A partial theory American Journal of Sociology 481212-41

McDonagh Eileen L and H Douglas Price 1985 Woman suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of opposition and support in referenda voting 1910-1918 American Political Science Review 79415-35

Muhn James 1994 Women and the Homestead Act Land Department administration of a legal imbro- glio 1863-1934 Western Legal History 7283-307

Myres SandraL 1982 Westering women andthe frontierexperience 1800-1915Albuquerque Univer- sity of New Mexico Press

Nathan Maud 1926 The story of an epoch-making movement Garden City NJ Doubleday

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 81

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) 1893-1917 The handbookof rhe National American Woman Sufrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1919 The hand book of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1940 Wcfory How women won i f New York H W Wilson National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 Proceedings of the biennial convention of rhe National

Womens Trade Union League of America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 1 5 Proceedings of the biennial convention of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1917Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1919Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 2 2 Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse Patterson-Black Sheryll 1976 Women homesteaders on the great plains frontier Frontiers 167-88 Riessen Reed Dorinda 1958 The woman suffrage movemenrinSouth Dakota Vermillion Government

Research Bureau State University of South Dakota Roy Jeffrey Julie 1998 Frontier women Civilizing the wesr 1840-1880 2d ed New York Hill and

wang Schrom Dye Nancy 1980 As equals and as sisrers Feminism rhe labor movement and the Womens

Trade Union League of New York Columbia University of Missouri Press Skocpol Theda 1992 Prorecting soldiers and mothers The political origins of social policy in the

United States Cambridge MA Belknap Snow David A E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden and Robert D Benford 1986 Frame align-

ment processes micromobilization and movement participation American Sociological Review 51464-81

Sprague Mason Martha 1928 Parents and reachers A survey of organized cooperarion of home school and community Boston Ginn

Spruill Wheeler Marjorie 1993 New women of fhe new Sourh The leaders of rhe woman suffrage movement in the southern srares New York Oxford University Press

Stefanco Carolyn J 1993 Harvest of discontent The depression of 1893 and the womens vote Colo-rado Heritage Spring 16-2 1

Tarrow Sidney 1998 Power in movemenr Social movemenrs collective action and politics 2d ed New York Cambridge University Press

Turner Frederick Jackson 1972 The significance of the frontier in American history In The Turner the- sis Concerning the role of the frontier in American history edited by George R Taylor 1-18 Lexington MA D C Heath

US Bureau of the Census 1864 Census of rhe Unitedstates Popularion Washington DC Govern- ment Printing Office

1872 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 8 8 3 Census of rhe UnitedSrares Population Washington DC Government Printingoffice 1 8 9 7 Census offhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1902Census ofrhe UniredStares Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 9 1 4 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923 Census of rhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1975 Historical sfatistics of the UnitedStates colonial rimes to 1970 Bicentennial ed Pt 1

Washington DC Government Printing Office US Department of Commerce 1919 Statisrical absrracr of the United States Washington DC Gov-

ernment Printing Office

82 GENDER amp SOCIETY 1February 2001

1920Sfatistical abstract of the Unired Stares Washington DC Government Printing Office

1922Sratisricalabstractof the UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923Sratisricalabstractof rhe UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office

USOffice of Education 1872-1900 1902-1914 1916 1917 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1902-14Annual report of the Commissioner of Educarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

1 9 16 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1917Annual report ofthe CommissionerofEducarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

You have printed the following article

Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

This article references the following linked citations If you are trying to access articles from anoff-campus location you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR Pleasevisit your librarys website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR

References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -

Page 21: vol15no1

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 77

In sum the results provide no support for Grimess thesis that a native-born population reacted to the social problems of the West its immigrant population and its shortage of women by adopting woman suffrage as the panacea Rather these results show that the circumstances leading to suffrage were rooted in the mobilization of the state suffrage movements and various political and gendered opportunities

CONCLUSION

How did women win the vote in the western states The political successes of the state suffrage movements were rooted in two circumstances in what the move- ments did for themselves that is in the very ways in which they mobilized and in the context in which they existed particularly in terms of political and gendered opportunities In terms of their mobilization the state suffrage movements were successful where they actively raised funds for the cause and where they framed rationales for suffrage in ways that resonated with widely held beliefs about the appropriate roles for women in society In terms of the context in which they mobi- lized the movements were victorious where the procedural steps involved in expanding the franchise to women were relatively few and simple and where the major political parties endorsed suffrage Also in terms of the context the suffra- gists were successful where gendered opportunities meant that women were already moving into male domains particularly in higher education and in the pro- fessions This blurring of the boundary separating mens and womens spheres made legislators and electorates more tolerant of supporting womens right to vote

Thus a combination of agency and structure allowed women to win the vote in the West Grimes (1967) and others (Berman 1987 McDonagh and Price 1985) ignore the role of the organized suffrage movements in winning the vote in the West Yet the work here shows quite clearly that not only were there vibrant suf- frage movements in the western states-Utah and Nevada had some of the largest movements in terms of membership-but the strategies used by the suffragists there played an important role in determining the successes and failures of the movements Western suffragists were clearly agents in bringing about important political change They were not passive subjects who were simply given the vote by a native-born male constituency who finally deemed it appropriate

But the suffragists activism alone was not enough to bring about an expansion of democracy to women Suffragists also mobilized in the eastern and southern states but were far less successful in those regions Large state suffrage movements existed in the East But with only two exceptions-in Michigan and New York- suffragists were unable to win full voting rights outside the West until passage of the federal amendment despite their mobilization Success also came to suffragists in the West because structural opportunities existed there both political and gendered opportunities Without these as well the political revolution of woman suffrage would not have occurred early in the West

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

REFERENCES

Albjerg Graham Patricia 1978 Expansion and exclusion A history of women in American higher edu- cation Signs Journal of Women in Culture and Society 3759-73

Baker Paula 1984 The domestication of politics Women and American political society 1780-1920 American Historical Review 89620-47

Barnes Moynihan Ruth 1983 Rebel for rights Abigail Scott Duniway New Haven CT Yale Univer- sity Press

Bartlett Richard A 1974 New country A social history of the American frontiec 1776-1890 New York Oxford University Press

Beeton Beverly 1986 Women vote in the west The woman suffrage movement 1869-1896New York Garland

Beller Andrea H 1984 Trends in occupational segregation by sex and race 1960-1981 In Sexsegrega-tion in the worlace Trends explanations remedies edited by Barbara Reskin 11-26 Washing- ton DC National Academy Press

Berman David R 1987 Male support for woman suffrage An analysis of voting patterns in the moun- tain west Social Science History 11281-94

Blair Karen J 1980 The clubwoman as feminist True womanhood redefined 1868-1914New York Holmes and Meier

Brown Dee A 1958 Thegentle tamers Women of the old west Lincoln University of NebraskaPress Buechler Steven M 1986 The transformation of the woman suffrage movement The case of Illinois

1850-1920New Brunswick Rutgers University Press Buenker John D 197 1 The urban political machine and woman suffrage A study in political adaptabil-

ity The Historian 33264-79 Cady Stanton Elizabeth Susan B Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage eds [I8861 1985 History of

woman suffrage Vol 3 Salem NH Ayer Cashman Sean Dennis 1981 Prohibition The lie of the land New York Free Press Chapman Can Carrie and Nettie Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 Woman suffrage andpolitics The inner

story of the suffrage movement Reprint Seattle University of Washington Press Cole Judith K 1990 A wide field for usefulness Womens civil status and the evolution of womens

suffrage on the Montana frontier 1864-1914 American Journal of Legal History 34262-94 Cott Nancy F 1987 The grounding of modern feminism New Haven CT Yale University Press Deane Glenn E M Beck and Stewart E Tolnay 1998 Incorporating space into social histories How

spatial processes operate and how we observe them International Review of Social History 4357-80

Epstein Barbara Leslie 1981 The politics of domesticity Women evangelism and temperance in nine- teenth century America Middletown CT Wesleyan University Press

Gamson William 1975 The strategy of social protest Homewood IL Dorsey Goldberg Michael L 1994 Non-partisan and all-partisan Rethinking woman suffrage and party poli-

tics in gilded age Kansas Western Historical Quarterly 2521-44

80 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

Goldin Claudia and Lawrence FKatz 1999 The shaping of higher education The formative years in the United States 1890-1940 Journal of Economic Perspectives 1337-62

Grimes Alan P 1967 The puritan ethic and woman suffrage New York Oxford University Press Hunter Graham Sara 1996 Woman suffrage and the new democracy New Haven CT Yale University

Press Husted Harper Ida [I9221 1985 History of woman sufrage Vol 6 Reprint Salem NH Ayer Jerome Camhi Jane 1994 Women against women American anti-suffragism 1880-1920Brooklyn

Carlson Kerber Linda K 1997 Separate spheres female worlds womans place The rhetoric of womens his-

tory In Towardan intellectualhistory ofwomen Essays by LindaKerber 159-99 Chapel Hill Uni- versity of North Carolina Press

Kraditor Aileen S 1965 The ideas of the woman suffrage movement 1890-1920New York Columbia University Press

Larson T A 197la Emancipating the wests dolls vassals and hopeless drudges The origins ofwoman suffrage in the west In Essays in Western history in honor ofProfessor 7A Larson edited by Roger Daniels 1-16 Vol 37 Laramie University of Wyoming Press

1971b Woman suffrage in western America Utah Historical Quarterly 39s-19

1974 Womens role in the American West Montana The Magazine of Western History 243-11

Lee Everett S Ann Ratner Miller Carol P Brainerd and Richard A Easterlin 1957 Population redis- tribution and economic growth United States 1870-1950Philadelphia American Philosophical Society

Lewis Stuart Mabel 1913 The lady honyocker How girls take up claims and make their own homes on the prairie The Independent 75133-37

Marilley Suzanne M 1996 Woman sujji-age and the origins of liberal feminism in the United States 1820-1920Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Marshall Susan E 1998 The gender gap in voting behavior Evidence from a referendum on woman suffrage Research in Political Sociology 8 189-207

Matsuda Mari J 1985 The west and the legal status of women Explanations offrontier feminism Jour-nal of the West 2447-56

McAdam Doug John D McCarthy and Mayer N Zald eds 1996 Comparative perspectives on social movements Political opportunities mobilizing structures and cultural framings New York Carn- bridge University Press

McCammon Holly J 1995 The politics of protection State minimum wage and maximum hours laws for women in the United States Sociological Quarterly 36217-49

1998 Using event history analysis in historical research With illustrations from a study of the passage of womens protective legislation International Review of Social History 4333-55

McCarnmon Holly I Karen E Campbell Ellen M Granberg and Christine Mowery Forthcoming How movements win Gendered opportunity structures and the state womens suffrage movements 1866-1 919 American Sociological Review

McCarthy John and Mayer Zald 1977 Resource mobilization and social movements A partial theory American Journal of Sociology 481212-41

McDonagh Eileen L and H Douglas Price 1985 Woman suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of opposition and support in referenda voting 1910-1918 American Political Science Review 79415-35

Muhn James 1994 Women and the Homestead Act Land Department administration of a legal imbro- glio 1863-1934 Western Legal History 7283-307

Myres SandraL 1982 Westering women andthe frontierexperience 1800-1915Albuquerque Univer- sity of New Mexico Press

Nathan Maud 1926 The story of an epoch-making movement Garden City NJ Doubleday

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 81

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) 1893-1917 The handbookof rhe National American Woman Sufrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1919 The hand book of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1940 Wcfory How women won i f New York H W Wilson National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 Proceedings of the biennial convention of rhe National

Womens Trade Union League of America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 1 5 Proceedings of the biennial convention of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1917Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1919Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 2 2 Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse Patterson-Black Sheryll 1976 Women homesteaders on the great plains frontier Frontiers 167-88 Riessen Reed Dorinda 1958 The woman suffrage movemenrinSouth Dakota Vermillion Government

Research Bureau State University of South Dakota Roy Jeffrey Julie 1998 Frontier women Civilizing the wesr 1840-1880 2d ed New York Hill and

wang Schrom Dye Nancy 1980 As equals and as sisrers Feminism rhe labor movement and the Womens

Trade Union League of New York Columbia University of Missouri Press Skocpol Theda 1992 Prorecting soldiers and mothers The political origins of social policy in the

United States Cambridge MA Belknap Snow David A E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden and Robert D Benford 1986 Frame align-

ment processes micromobilization and movement participation American Sociological Review 51464-81

Sprague Mason Martha 1928 Parents and reachers A survey of organized cooperarion of home school and community Boston Ginn

Spruill Wheeler Marjorie 1993 New women of fhe new Sourh The leaders of rhe woman suffrage movement in the southern srares New York Oxford University Press

Stefanco Carolyn J 1993 Harvest of discontent The depression of 1893 and the womens vote Colo-rado Heritage Spring 16-2 1

Tarrow Sidney 1998 Power in movemenr Social movemenrs collective action and politics 2d ed New York Cambridge University Press

Turner Frederick Jackson 1972 The significance of the frontier in American history In The Turner the- sis Concerning the role of the frontier in American history edited by George R Taylor 1-18 Lexington MA D C Heath

US Bureau of the Census 1864 Census of rhe Unitedstates Popularion Washington DC Govern- ment Printing Office

1872 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 8 8 3 Census of rhe UnitedSrares Population Washington DC Government Printingoffice 1 8 9 7 Census offhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1902Census ofrhe UniredStares Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 9 1 4 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923 Census of rhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1975 Historical sfatistics of the UnitedStates colonial rimes to 1970 Bicentennial ed Pt 1

Washington DC Government Printing Office US Department of Commerce 1919 Statisrical absrracr of the United States Washington DC Gov-

ernment Printing Office

82 GENDER amp SOCIETY 1February 2001

1920Sfatistical abstract of the Unired Stares Washington DC Government Printing Office

1922Sratisricalabstractof the UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923Sratisricalabstractof rhe UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office

USOffice of Education 1872-1900 1902-1914 1916 1917 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1902-14Annual report of the Commissioner of Educarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

1 9 16 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1917Annual report ofthe CommissionerofEducarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

You have printed the following article

Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

This article references the following linked citations If you are trying to access articles from anoff-campus location you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR Pleasevisit your librarys website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR

References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -

Page 22: vol15no1

78 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

In the end we argue that both movement mobilization and structural opportuni- ties provide a general explanation of why woman suffrage came early to the West But our general explanation overlooks the idiosyncratic circumstances in some states that may have also contributed to suffrage for instance Mormonism in Utahs early extension of the vote or Populism in the 1890s in Colorado both proba- bly aided the suffragists in these states (Beeton 1986 Marilley 1996) While we do not deny the importance of such unique circumstances in the western states we dis- agree with Larsons (1971a 15) claim that there is no all-encompassing explana- tion for the Wests priority in woman suffrage While Grimes may have been wrong about the specifics he was right in that we can find commonalities among the states to explain the early arrival of woman suffrage in the West

NOTES

1The mean of our reform procedure measure (a measure ranging from 1 to 5 where 5 indicates the most cumbersome reform procedure) in states granting suffrage was 245In states not granting suffrage the mean was 303 ( t= -1031)

2 An ideology of frontier egalitarianism also may have played a role in prompting woman suffrage in the West if indeed the ideology existed (for debates on this seeLarson 1971b Myres 1982) We can- not incorporate such a measure into our analysis because it simply does not exist If frontier egalitarian- ism did prompt western states to adopt suffrage we capture its influence at least in part through our mea- sures of gendered opportunities

3 We include both suffrage events in Utah and Washington in our analysis (see Figure 1) Exclud- ing the earlier passage of suffrage from an analysis not shown here reveals that no bias is introduced by considering both suffrage events for each of these states in the same analyses

4 No data by state are available on the incidence of alcoholism prostitution and gambling for this time period Saloons is thus our best proxy of these social problems Data for a few variables were available only decennially saloon keepers and bar tenders percentage urban foreign-born sex ratio and female professionals For these we linearly interpolated data for intervening years

5 Data on the proportion of property owned by women are not available for this time period 6 We also examined analyses including measures of the overall foreign-born population and the

native white population but these measures were not statistically significant It is possible that the effect theorized by Grimes for the urban foreign-born was unique to the West However an interaction term constructed by multiplying percentage urban foreign-born by a dummy variable indicating the western states was not significant None of these analyses are shown

7 Prohibition also did not result in suffrage The measure is not significant in column 1 8 Our fund-raising measure does not appear to be a proxy for the size of the movement (in that

larger movements should be able to raise greater funds) We excluded the fund-raising measure from the analyses and neither measure of the extent of organizing (number of organizations or size of member- s h p ) was significant

9 Inclusion of a spatial-effects term instead of the proportion of contiguous states passing suffrage revealed no bias in our results due to a diffusion process (Deane Beck and Tolnay 1998)

10 The means for all these measures are significantly higher for the 1910s than for earlier years 11 Additional measures of fit for the models in Table 3 (for models with a constant N) indicate that

the model in column 1 (Grimess model) has apoorer fit than the other models For instance the BIC for column 1 is -1 81 while that for column 7 is 242 In nested models (comparing the model in column 1 with a model in which the parameters in columns 1 and 7 are combined) the difference in chi-square (7187 7 dB is significant at the 001 level Also some of the variables included in the analyses have

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

REFERENCES

Albjerg Graham Patricia 1978 Expansion and exclusion A history of women in American higher edu- cation Signs Journal of Women in Culture and Society 3759-73

Baker Paula 1984 The domestication of politics Women and American political society 1780-1920 American Historical Review 89620-47

Barnes Moynihan Ruth 1983 Rebel for rights Abigail Scott Duniway New Haven CT Yale Univer- sity Press

Bartlett Richard A 1974 New country A social history of the American frontiec 1776-1890 New York Oxford University Press

Beeton Beverly 1986 Women vote in the west The woman suffrage movement 1869-1896New York Garland

Beller Andrea H 1984 Trends in occupational segregation by sex and race 1960-1981 In Sexsegrega-tion in the worlace Trends explanations remedies edited by Barbara Reskin 11-26 Washing- ton DC National Academy Press

Berman David R 1987 Male support for woman suffrage An analysis of voting patterns in the moun- tain west Social Science History 11281-94

Blair Karen J 1980 The clubwoman as feminist True womanhood redefined 1868-1914New York Holmes and Meier

Brown Dee A 1958 Thegentle tamers Women of the old west Lincoln University of NebraskaPress Buechler Steven M 1986 The transformation of the woman suffrage movement The case of Illinois

1850-1920New Brunswick Rutgers University Press Buenker John D 197 1 The urban political machine and woman suffrage A study in political adaptabil-

ity The Historian 33264-79 Cady Stanton Elizabeth Susan B Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage eds [I8861 1985 History of

woman suffrage Vol 3 Salem NH Ayer Cashman Sean Dennis 1981 Prohibition The lie of the land New York Free Press Chapman Can Carrie and Nettie Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 Woman suffrage andpolitics The inner

story of the suffrage movement Reprint Seattle University of Washington Press Cole Judith K 1990 A wide field for usefulness Womens civil status and the evolution of womens

suffrage on the Montana frontier 1864-1914 American Journal of Legal History 34262-94 Cott Nancy F 1987 The grounding of modern feminism New Haven CT Yale University Press Deane Glenn E M Beck and Stewart E Tolnay 1998 Incorporating space into social histories How

spatial processes operate and how we observe them International Review of Social History 4357-80

Epstein Barbara Leslie 1981 The politics of domesticity Women evangelism and temperance in nine- teenth century America Middletown CT Wesleyan University Press

Gamson William 1975 The strategy of social protest Homewood IL Dorsey Goldberg Michael L 1994 Non-partisan and all-partisan Rethinking woman suffrage and party poli-

tics in gilded age Kansas Western Historical Quarterly 2521-44

80 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

Goldin Claudia and Lawrence FKatz 1999 The shaping of higher education The formative years in the United States 1890-1940 Journal of Economic Perspectives 1337-62

Grimes Alan P 1967 The puritan ethic and woman suffrage New York Oxford University Press Hunter Graham Sara 1996 Woman suffrage and the new democracy New Haven CT Yale University

Press Husted Harper Ida [I9221 1985 History of woman sufrage Vol 6 Reprint Salem NH Ayer Jerome Camhi Jane 1994 Women against women American anti-suffragism 1880-1920Brooklyn

Carlson Kerber Linda K 1997 Separate spheres female worlds womans place The rhetoric of womens his-

tory In Towardan intellectualhistory ofwomen Essays by LindaKerber 159-99 Chapel Hill Uni- versity of North Carolina Press

Kraditor Aileen S 1965 The ideas of the woman suffrage movement 1890-1920New York Columbia University Press

Larson T A 197la Emancipating the wests dolls vassals and hopeless drudges The origins ofwoman suffrage in the west In Essays in Western history in honor ofProfessor 7A Larson edited by Roger Daniels 1-16 Vol 37 Laramie University of Wyoming Press

1971b Woman suffrage in western America Utah Historical Quarterly 39s-19

1974 Womens role in the American West Montana The Magazine of Western History 243-11

Lee Everett S Ann Ratner Miller Carol P Brainerd and Richard A Easterlin 1957 Population redis- tribution and economic growth United States 1870-1950Philadelphia American Philosophical Society

Lewis Stuart Mabel 1913 The lady honyocker How girls take up claims and make their own homes on the prairie The Independent 75133-37

Marilley Suzanne M 1996 Woman sujji-age and the origins of liberal feminism in the United States 1820-1920Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Marshall Susan E 1998 The gender gap in voting behavior Evidence from a referendum on woman suffrage Research in Political Sociology 8 189-207

Matsuda Mari J 1985 The west and the legal status of women Explanations offrontier feminism Jour-nal of the West 2447-56

McAdam Doug John D McCarthy and Mayer N Zald eds 1996 Comparative perspectives on social movements Political opportunities mobilizing structures and cultural framings New York Carn- bridge University Press

McCammon Holly J 1995 The politics of protection State minimum wage and maximum hours laws for women in the United States Sociological Quarterly 36217-49

1998 Using event history analysis in historical research With illustrations from a study of the passage of womens protective legislation International Review of Social History 4333-55

McCarnmon Holly I Karen E Campbell Ellen M Granberg and Christine Mowery Forthcoming How movements win Gendered opportunity structures and the state womens suffrage movements 1866-1 919 American Sociological Review

McCarthy John and Mayer Zald 1977 Resource mobilization and social movements A partial theory American Journal of Sociology 481212-41

McDonagh Eileen L and H Douglas Price 1985 Woman suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of opposition and support in referenda voting 1910-1918 American Political Science Review 79415-35

Muhn James 1994 Women and the Homestead Act Land Department administration of a legal imbro- glio 1863-1934 Western Legal History 7283-307

Myres SandraL 1982 Westering women andthe frontierexperience 1800-1915Albuquerque Univer- sity of New Mexico Press

Nathan Maud 1926 The story of an epoch-making movement Garden City NJ Doubleday

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 81

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) 1893-1917 The handbookof rhe National American Woman Sufrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1919 The hand book of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1940 Wcfory How women won i f New York H W Wilson National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 Proceedings of the biennial convention of rhe National

Womens Trade Union League of America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 1 5 Proceedings of the biennial convention of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1917Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1919Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 2 2 Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse Patterson-Black Sheryll 1976 Women homesteaders on the great plains frontier Frontiers 167-88 Riessen Reed Dorinda 1958 The woman suffrage movemenrinSouth Dakota Vermillion Government

Research Bureau State University of South Dakota Roy Jeffrey Julie 1998 Frontier women Civilizing the wesr 1840-1880 2d ed New York Hill and

wang Schrom Dye Nancy 1980 As equals and as sisrers Feminism rhe labor movement and the Womens

Trade Union League of New York Columbia University of Missouri Press Skocpol Theda 1992 Prorecting soldiers and mothers The political origins of social policy in the

United States Cambridge MA Belknap Snow David A E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden and Robert D Benford 1986 Frame align-

ment processes micromobilization and movement participation American Sociological Review 51464-81

Sprague Mason Martha 1928 Parents and reachers A survey of organized cooperarion of home school and community Boston Ginn

Spruill Wheeler Marjorie 1993 New women of fhe new Sourh The leaders of rhe woman suffrage movement in the southern srares New York Oxford University Press

Stefanco Carolyn J 1993 Harvest of discontent The depression of 1893 and the womens vote Colo-rado Heritage Spring 16-2 1

Tarrow Sidney 1998 Power in movemenr Social movemenrs collective action and politics 2d ed New York Cambridge University Press

Turner Frederick Jackson 1972 The significance of the frontier in American history In The Turner the- sis Concerning the role of the frontier in American history edited by George R Taylor 1-18 Lexington MA D C Heath

US Bureau of the Census 1864 Census of rhe Unitedstates Popularion Washington DC Govern- ment Printing Office

1872 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 8 8 3 Census of rhe UnitedSrares Population Washington DC Government Printingoffice 1 8 9 7 Census offhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1902Census ofrhe UniredStares Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 9 1 4 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923 Census of rhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1975 Historical sfatistics of the UnitedStates colonial rimes to 1970 Bicentennial ed Pt 1

Washington DC Government Printing Office US Department of Commerce 1919 Statisrical absrracr of the United States Washington DC Gov-

ernment Printing Office

82 GENDER amp SOCIETY 1February 2001

1920Sfatistical abstract of the Unired Stares Washington DC Government Printing Office

1922Sratisricalabstractof the UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923Sratisricalabstractof rhe UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office

USOffice of Education 1872-1900 1902-1914 1916 1917 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1902-14Annual report of the Commissioner of Educarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

1 9 16 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1917Annual report ofthe CommissionerofEducarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

You have printed the following article

Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

This article references the following linked citations If you are trying to access articles from anoff-campus location you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR Pleasevisit your librarys website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR

References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -

Page 23: vol15no1

McCammon Campbell I WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 79

missing data (see notes for Table 3) Excluding these variables from the analyses did not change the results for other variables In addition we examined the impact of a number of other factors not included intheseanalyses forexample conflict within the state movements use ofjusticearguments availability of the initiative and referendum World War I years percentage of women employed passage of partial suffrage a dummy variable indicating the western states and years since statehood None of these mea- sures were significant (analyses not shown) Finally when Michgan and New York are dropped from the analysis all variables significant in the model in column 7 of Table 3 remain significant indicating that the final model indeed offers an explanation of western suffrage

REFERENCES

Albjerg Graham Patricia 1978 Expansion and exclusion A history of women in American higher edu- cation Signs Journal of Women in Culture and Society 3759-73

Baker Paula 1984 The domestication of politics Women and American political society 1780-1920 American Historical Review 89620-47

Barnes Moynihan Ruth 1983 Rebel for rights Abigail Scott Duniway New Haven CT Yale Univer- sity Press

Bartlett Richard A 1974 New country A social history of the American frontiec 1776-1890 New York Oxford University Press

Beeton Beverly 1986 Women vote in the west The woman suffrage movement 1869-1896New York Garland

Beller Andrea H 1984 Trends in occupational segregation by sex and race 1960-1981 In Sexsegrega-tion in the worlace Trends explanations remedies edited by Barbara Reskin 11-26 Washing- ton DC National Academy Press

Berman David R 1987 Male support for woman suffrage An analysis of voting patterns in the moun- tain west Social Science History 11281-94

Blair Karen J 1980 The clubwoman as feminist True womanhood redefined 1868-1914New York Holmes and Meier

Brown Dee A 1958 Thegentle tamers Women of the old west Lincoln University of NebraskaPress Buechler Steven M 1986 The transformation of the woman suffrage movement The case of Illinois

1850-1920New Brunswick Rutgers University Press Buenker John D 197 1 The urban political machine and woman suffrage A study in political adaptabil-

ity The Historian 33264-79 Cady Stanton Elizabeth Susan B Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage eds [I8861 1985 History of

woman suffrage Vol 3 Salem NH Ayer Cashman Sean Dennis 1981 Prohibition The lie of the land New York Free Press Chapman Can Carrie and Nettie Rogers Shuler [I9231 1969 Woman suffrage andpolitics The inner

story of the suffrage movement Reprint Seattle University of Washington Press Cole Judith K 1990 A wide field for usefulness Womens civil status and the evolution of womens

suffrage on the Montana frontier 1864-1914 American Journal of Legal History 34262-94 Cott Nancy F 1987 The grounding of modern feminism New Haven CT Yale University Press Deane Glenn E M Beck and Stewart E Tolnay 1998 Incorporating space into social histories How

spatial processes operate and how we observe them International Review of Social History 4357-80

Epstein Barbara Leslie 1981 The politics of domesticity Women evangelism and temperance in nine- teenth century America Middletown CT Wesleyan University Press

Gamson William 1975 The strategy of social protest Homewood IL Dorsey Goldberg Michael L 1994 Non-partisan and all-partisan Rethinking woman suffrage and party poli-

tics in gilded age Kansas Western Historical Quarterly 2521-44

80 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

Goldin Claudia and Lawrence FKatz 1999 The shaping of higher education The formative years in the United States 1890-1940 Journal of Economic Perspectives 1337-62

Grimes Alan P 1967 The puritan ethic and woman suffrage New York Oxford University Press Hunter Graham Sara 1996 Woman suffrage and the new democracy New Haven CT Yale University

Press Husted Harper Ida [I9221 1985 History of woman sufrage Vol 6 Reprint Salem NH Ayer Jerome Camhi Jane 1994 Women against women American anti-suffragism 1880-1920Brooklyn

Carlson Kerber Linda K 1997 Separate spheres female worlds womans place The rhetoric of womens his-

tory In Towardan intellectualhistory ofwomen Essays by LindaKerber 159-99 Chapel Hill Uni- versity of North Carolina Press

Kraditor Aileen S 1965 The ideas of the woman suffrage movement 1890-1920New York Columbia University Press

Larson T A 197la Emancipating the wests dolls vassals and hopeless drudges The origins ofwoman suffrage in the west In Essays in Western history in honor ofProfessor 7A Larson edited by Roger Daniels 1-16 Vol 37 Laramie University of Wyoming Press

1971b Woman suffrage in western America Utah Historical Quarterly 39s-19

1974 Womens role in the American West Montana The Magazine of Western History 243-11

Lee Everett S Ann Ratner Miller Carol P Brainerd and Richard A Easterlin 1957 Population redis- tribution and economic growth United States 1870-1950Philadelphia American Philosophical Society

Lewis Stuart Mabel 1913 The lady honyocker How girls take up claims and make their own homes on the prairie The Independent 75133-37

Marilley Suzanne M 1996 Woman sujji-age and the origins of liberal feminism in the United States 1820-1920Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Marshall Susan E 1998 The gender gap in voting behavior Evidence from a referendum on woman suffrage Research in Political Sociology 8 189-207

Matsuda Mari J 1985 The west and the legal status of women Explanations offrontier feminism Jour-nal of the West 2447-56

McAdam Doug John D McCarthy and Mayer N Zald eds 1996 Comparative perspectives on social movements Political opportunities mobilizing structures and cultural framings New York Carn- bridge University Press

McCammon Holly J 1995 The politics of protection State minimum wage and maximum hours laws for women in the United States Sociological Quarterly 36217-49

1998 Using event history analysis in historical research With illustrations from a study of the passage of womens protective legislation International Review of Social History 4333-55

McCarnmon Holly I Karen E Campbell Ellen M Granberg and Christine Mowery Forthcoming How movements win Gendered opportunity structures and the state womens suffrage movements 1866-1 919 American Sociological Review

McCarthy John and Mayer Zald 1977 Resource mobilization and social movements A partial theory American Journal of Sociology 481212-41

McDonagh Eileen L and H Douglas Price 1985 Woman suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of opposition and support in referenda voting 1910-1918 American Political Science Review 79415-35

Muhn James 1994 Women and the Homestead Act Land Department administration of a legal imbro- glio 1863-1934 Western Legal History 7283-307

Myres SandraL 1982 Westering women andthe frontierexperience 1800-1915Albuquerque Univer- sity of New Mexico Press

Nathan Maud 1926 The story of an epoch-making movement Garden City NJ Doubleday

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 81

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) 1893-1917 The handbookof rhe National American Woman Sufrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1919 The hand book of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1940 Wcfory How women won i f New York H W Wilson National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 Proceedings of the biennial convention of rhe National

Womens Trade Union League of America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 1 5 Proceedings of the biennial convention of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1917Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1919Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 2 2 Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse Patterson-Black Sheryll 1976 Women homesteaders on the great plains frontier Frontiers 167-88 Riessen Reed Dorinda 1958 The woman suffrage movemenrinSouth Dakota Vermillion Government

Research Bureau State University of South Dakota Roy Jeffrey Julie 1998 Frontier women Civilizing the wesr 1840-1880 2d ed New York Hill and

wang Schrom Dye Nancy 1980 As equals and as sisrers Feminism rhe labor movement and the Womens

Trade Union League of New York Columbia University of Missouri Press Skocpol Theda 1992 Prorecting soldiers and mothers The political origins of social policy in the

United States Cambridge MA Belknap Snow David A E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden and Robert D Benford 1986 Frame align-

ment processes micromobilization and movement participation American Sociological Review 51464-81

Sprague Mason Martha 1928 Parents and reachers A survey of organized cooperarion of home school and community Boston Ginn

Spruill Wheeler Marjorie 1993 New women of fhe new Sourh The leaders of rhe woman suffrage movement in the southern srares New York Oxford University Press

Stefanco Carolyn J 1993 Harvest of discontent The depression of 1893 and the womens vote Colo-rado Heritage Spring 16-2 1

Tarrow Sidney 1998 Power in movemenr Social movemenrs collective action and politics 2d ed New York Cambridge University Press

Turner Frederick Jackson 1972 The significance of the frontier in American history In The Turner the- sis Concerning the role of the frontier in American history edited by George R Taylor 1-18 Lexington MA D C Heath

US Bureau of the Census 1864 Census of rhe Unitedstates Popularion Washington DC Govern- ment Printing Office

1872 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 8 8 3 Census of rhe UnitedSrares Population Washington DC Government Printingoffice 1 8 9 7 Census offhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1902Census ofrhe UniredStares Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 9 1 4 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923 Census of rhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1975 Historical sfatistics of the UnitedStates colonial rimes to 1970 Bicentennial ed Pt 1

Washington DC Government Printing Office US Department of Commerce 1919 Statisrical absrracr of the United States Washington DC Gov-

ernment Printing Office

82 GENDER amp SOCIETY 1February 2001

1920Sfatistical abstract of the Unired Stares Washington DC Government Printing Office

1922Sratisricalabstractof the UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923Sratisricalabstractof rhe UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office

USOffice of Education 1872-1900 1902-1914 1916 1917 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1902-14Annual report of the Commissioner of Educarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

1 9 16 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1917Annual report ofthe CommissionerofEducarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

You have printed the following article

Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

This article references the following linked citations If you are trying to access articles from anoff-campus location you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR Pleasevisit your librarys website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR

References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -

Page 24: vol15no1

80 GENDER amp SOCIETY February 2001

Goldin Claudia and Lawrence FKatz 1999 The shaping of higher education The formative years in the United States 1890-1940 Journal of Economic Perspectives 1337-62

Grimes Alan P 1967 The puritan ethic and woman suffrage New York Oxford University Press Hunter Graham Sara 1996 Woman suffrage and the new democracy New Haven CT Yale University

Press Husted Harper Ida [I9221 1985 History of woman sufrage Vol 6 Reprint Salem NH Ayer Jerome Camhi Jane 1994 Women against women American anti-suffragism 1880-1920Brooklyn

Carlson Kerber Linda K 1997 Separate spheres female worlds womans place The rhetoric of womens his-

tory In Towardan intellectualhistory ofwomen Essays by LindaKerber 159-99 Chapel Hill Uni- versity of North Carolina Press

Kraditor Aileen S 1965 The ideas of the woman suffrage movement 1890-1920New York Columbia University Press

Larson T A 197la Emancipating the wests dolls vassals and hopeless drudges The origins ofwoman suffrage in the west In Essays in Western history in honor ofProfessor 7A Larson edited by Roger Daniels 1-16 Vol 37 Laramie University of Wyoming Press

1971b Woman suffrage in western America Utah Historical Quarterly 39s-19

1974 Womens role in the American West Montana The Magazine of Western History 243-11

Lee Everett S Ann Ratner Miller Carol P Brainerd and Richard A Easterlin 1957 Population redis- tribution and economic growth United States 1870-1950Philadelphia American Philosophical Society

Lewis Stuart Mabel 1913 The lady honyocker How girls take up claims and make their own homes on the prairie The Independent 75133-37

Marilley Suzanne M 1996 Woman sujji-age and the origins of liberal feminism in the United States 1820-1920Cambridge MA Harvard University Press

Marshall Susan E 1998 The gender gap in voting behavior Evidence from a referendum on woman suffrage Research in Political Sociology 8 189-207

Matsuda Mari J 1985 The west and the legal status of women Explanations offrontier feminism Jour-nal of the West 2447-56

McAdam Doug John D McCarthy and Mayer N Zald eds 1996 Comparative perspectives on social movements Political opportunities mobilizing structures and cultural framings New York Carn- bridge University Press

McCammon Holly J 1995 The politics of protection State minimum wage and maximum hours laws for women in the United States Sociological Quarterly 36217-49

1998 Using event history analysis in historical research With illustrations from a study of the passage of womens protective legislation International Review of Social History 4333-55

McCarnmon Holly I Karen E Campbell Ellen M Granberg and Christine Mowery Forthcoming How movements win Gendered opportunity structures and the state womens suffrage movements 1866-1 919 American Sociological Review

McCarthy John and Mayer Zald 1977 Resource mobilization and social movements A partial theory American Journal of Sociology 481212-41

McDonagh Eileen L and H Douglas Price 1985 Woman suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of opposition and support in referenda voting 1910-1918 American Political Science Review 79415-35

Muhn James 1994 Women and the Homestead Act Land Department administration of a legal imbro- glio 1863-1934 Western Legal History 7283-307

Myres SandraL 1982 Westering women andthe frontierexperience 1800-1915Albuquerque Univer- sity of New Mexico Press

Nathan Maud 1926 The story of an epoch-making movement Garden City NJ Doubleday

McCammon Campbell WOMENS SUFFRAGE MOVEMENTS 81

National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) 1893-1917 The handbookof rhe National American Woman Sufrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1919 The hand book of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

1940 Wcfory How women won i f New York H W Wilson National Womens Trade Union League 191 1 Proceedings of the biennial convention of rhe National

Womens Trade Union League of America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 1 5 Proceedings of the biennial convention of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1917Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1919Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 2 2 Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse Patterson-Black Sheryll 1976 Women homesteaders on the great plains frontier Frontiers 167-88 Riessen Reed Dorinda 1958 The woman suffrage movemenrinSouth Dakota Vermillion Government

Research Bureau State University of South Dakota Roy Jeffrey Julie 1998 Frontier women Civilizing the wesr 1840-1880 2d ed New York Hill and

wang Schrom Dye Nancy 1980 As equals and as sisrers Feminism rhe labor movement and the Womens

Trade Union League of New York Columbia University of Missouri Press Skocpol Theda 1992 Prorecting soldiers and mothers The political origins of social policy in the

United States Cambridge MA Belknap Snow David A E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden and Robert D Benford 1986 Frame align-

ment processes micromobilization and movement participation American Sociological Review 51464-81

Sprague Mason Martha 1928 Parents and reachers A survey of organized cooperarion of home school and community Boston Ginn

Spruill Wheeler Marjorie 1993 New women of fhe new Sourh The leaders of rhe woman suffrage movement in the southern srares New York Oxford University Press

Stefanco Carolyn J 1993 Harvest of discontent The depression of 1893 and the womens vote Colo-rado Heritage Spring 16-2 1

Tarrow Sidney 1998 Power in movemenr Social movemenrs collective action and politics 2d ed New York Cambridge University Press

Turner Frederick Jackson 1972 The significance of the frontier in American history In The Turner the- sis Concerning the role of the frontier in American history edited by George R Taylor 1-18 Lexington MA D C Heath

US Bureau of the Census 1864 Census of rhe Unitedstates Popularion Washington DC Govern- ment Printing Office

1872 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 8 8 3 Census of rhe UnitedSrares Population Washington DC Government Printingoffice 1 8 9 7 Census offhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1902Census ofrhe UniredStares Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 9 1 4 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923 Census of rhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1975 Historical sfatistics of the UnitedStates colonial rimes to 1970 Bicentennial ed Pt 1

Washington DC Government Printing Office US Department of Commerce 1919 Statisrical absrracr of the United States Washington DC Gov-

ernment Printing Office

82 GENDER amp SOCIETY 1February 2001

1920Sfatistical abstract of the Unired Stares Washington DC Government Printing Office

1922Sratisricalabstractof the UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923Sratisricalabstractof rhe UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office

USOffice of Education 1872-1900 1902-1914 1916 1917 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1902-14Annual report of the Commissioner of Educarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

1 9 16 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1917Annual report ofthe CommissionerofEducarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

You have printed the following article

Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

This article references the following linked citations If you are trying to access articles from anoff-campus location you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR Pleasevisit your librarys website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR

References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -

Page 25: vol15no1

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National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) 1893-1917 The handbookof rhe National American Woman Sufrage Association and proceedings of the annual convention New York National American Woman Suffrage Association

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America Chicago William C Faehse 1917Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1919Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of the National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse 1 9 2 2 Proceedings of the biennial convenrion of rhe National Womens Trade Union League of

America Chicago William C Faehse Patterson-Black Sheryll 1976 Women homesteaders on the great plains frontier Frontiers 167-88 Riessen Reed Dorinda 1958 The woman suffrage movemenrinSouth Dakota Vermillion Government

Research Bureau State University of South Dakota Roy Jeffrey Julie 1998 Frontier women Civilizing the wesr 1840-1880 2d ed New York Hill and

wang Schrom Dye Nancy 1980 As equals and as sisrers Feminism rhe labor movement and the Womens

Trade Union League of New York Columbia University of Missouri Press Skocpol Theda 1992 Prorecting soldiers and mothers The political origins of social policy in the

United States Cambridge MA Belknap Snow David A E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden and Robert D Benford 1986 Frame align-

ment processes micromobilization and movement participation American Sociological Review 51464-81

Sprague Mason Martha 1928 Parents and reachers A survey of organized cooperarion of home school and community Boston Ginn

Spruill Wheeler Marjorie 1993 New women of fhe new Sourh The leaders of rhe woman suffrage movement in the southern srares New York Oxford University Press

Stefanco Carolyn J 1993 Harvest of discontent The depression of 1893 and the womens vote Colo-rado Heritage Spring 16-2 1

Tarrow Sidney 1998 Power in movemenr Social movemenrs collective action and politics 2d ed New York Cambridge University Press

Turner Frederick Jackson 1972 The significance of the frontier in American history In The Turner the- sis Concerning the role of the frontier in American history edited by George R Taylor 1-18 Lexington MA D C Heath

US Bureau of the Census 1864 Census of rhe Unitedstates Popularion Washington DC Govern- ment Printing Office

1872 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 8 8 3 Census of rhe UnitedSrares Population Washington DC Government Printingoffice 1 8 9 7 Census offhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1902Census ofrhe UniredStares Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1 9 1 4 Census ofthe UnitedStates Popularion Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923 Census of rhe UniredSrares Population Washington DC Government Printing Office 1975 Historical sfatistics of the UnitedStates colonial rimes to 1970 Bicentennial ed Pt 1

Washington DC Government Printing Office US Department of Commerce 1919 Statisrical absrracr of the United States Washington DC Gov-

ernment Printing Office

82 GENDER amp SOCIETY 1February 2001

1920Sfatistical abstract of the Unired Stares Washington DC Government Printing Office

1922Sratisricalabstractof the UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923Sratisricalabstractof rhe UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office

USOffice of Education 1872-1900 1902-1914 1916 1917 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1902-14Annual report of the Commissioner of Educarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

1 9 16 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1917Annual report ofthe CommissionerofEducarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

You have printed the following article

Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

This article references the following linked citations If you are trying to access articles from anoff-campus location you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR Pleasevisit your librarys website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR

References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -

Page 26: vol15no1

82 GENDER amp SOCIETY 1February 2001

1920Sfatistical abstract of the Unired Stares Washington DC Government Printing Office

1922Sratisricalabstractof the UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office 1923Sratisricalabstractof rhe UniredSrares Washington DC Government Printing Office

USOffice of Education 1872-1900 1902-1914 1916 1917 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1902-14Annual report of the Commissioner of Educarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

1 9 16 Annual report of the Commissioner of Education Washington DC Government Printing Office

1917Annual report ofthe CommissionerofEducarion Washington DC Government Printing Office

Holly J McCammon is an associare professor of sociology ar Vanderbilt University Her inrer- esrs concern rhe relarionship between social movements and the state She continues to study the womens suffrage movement by invesrigaring the circumsfances including the political context in which the srate-level movements emerged

Karen E Campbell is an associa re professor ofsociology at Vanderbilt University In addition to her work with Holly J McCammon on women ssuffrage movements she is interesred in popular explanations ofgender inequality genderdifferences in social nehvorks and rhe srare regulation of nurse pracritioners

You have printed the following article

Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

This article references the following linked citations If you are trying to access articles from anoff-campus location you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR Pleasevisit your librarys website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR

References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -

Page 27: vol15no1

You have printed the following article

Winning the Vote in the West The Political Successes of the Womens Suffrage Movements1866-1919Holly J McCammon Karen E CampbellGender and Society Vol 15 No 1 (Feb 2001) pp 55-82Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0891-24322820010229153A13C553AWTVITW3E20CO3B2-Z

This article references the following linked citations If you are trying to access articles from anoff-campus location you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR Pleasevisit your librarys website or contact a librarian to learn about options for remote access to JSTOR

References

The Domestication of Politics Women and American Political Society 1780-1920Paula BakerThe American Historical Review Vol 89 No 3 (Jun 1984) pp 620-647Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-87622819840629893A33C6203ATDOPWA3E20CO3B2-23

Male Support for Woman Suffrage An Analysis of Voting Patterns in the Mountain WestDavid R BermanSocial Science History Vol 11 No 3 (Autumn 1987) pp 281-294Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0145-55322819872329113A33C2813AMSFWSA3E20CO3B2-6

Non-Partisan and All-Partisan Rethinking Woman Suffrage and Party Politics in Gilded AgeKansasMichael L GoldbergThe Western Historical Quarterly Vol 25 No 1 (Spring 1994) pp 21-44Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0043-38102819942129253A13C213ANAARWS3E20CO3B2-H

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 1 of 2 -

The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -

Page 28: vol15no1

The Shaping of Higher Education The Formative Years in the United States 1890 to 1940Claudia Goldin Lawrence F KatzThe Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol 13 No 1 (Winter 1999) pp 37-62Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0895-33092819992429133A13C373ATSOHET3E20CO3B2-G

Resource Mobilization and Social Movements A Partial TheoryJohn D McCarthy Mayer N ZaldThe American Journal of Sociology Vol 82 No 6 (May 1977) pp 1212-1241Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0002-96022819770529823A63C12123ARMASMA3E20CO3B2-23

Woman Suffrage in the Progressive Era Patterns of Opposition and Support in ReferendaVoting 1910-1918Eileen L McDonagh H Douglas PriceThe American Political Science Review Vol 79 No 2 (Jun 1985) pp 415-435Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-05542819850629793A23C4153AWSITPE3E20CO3B2-2

Frame Alignment Processes Micromobilization and Movement ParticipationDavid A Snow E Burke Rochford Jr Steven K Worden Robert D BenfordAmerican Sociological Review Vol 51 No 4 (Aug 1986) pp 464-481Stable URLhttplinksjstororgsicisici=0003-12242819860829513A43C4643AFAPMAM3E20CO3B2-2

httpwwwjstororg

LINKED CITATIONS- Page 2 of 2 -