This exhibit explores lobbying and picketing in the suffrage movement. Lobbying is trying to influence the government or a specific person in power. Petitions are a way of achieving a political goal by having enough people sign a document saying that they support a particular candidate or political policy. Lobbying and petitions was a very effective strategy in getting people in power to expand voting to women.
In 1878 in the District of Columbia, Frederick Douglass, Jr signed a petition for women's suffrage that asked the Senate to let women vote. They made and distributed a simple one page document with blank spaces for people to fill out their county, town, and name.
On the petition, someone has written “Colored” before both “Men” and “Women” which seems to demonstrate that this African-American community supports women's right to vote.
Also, the fact that the petition includes columns for men and women separately seems to show that both men and women supported the right of women to vote. Since men already had the right to vote it was important to have their support.
This image is of an index card that suffragists would carry around if they were about to meet this politician. In the picture we can see information including his name, his district, his party, and that he voted for the Susan B. Anthony Amendment on November 2, 1915. The card also includes the quote, regarding his general support for the Amendment, “he must be bound by the verdict of his constituents who rejected it.'' This means that he wants to vote for women's suffrage but because of the people he represents voting for women not to vote, he has to vote that way. This card would be important to suffragists because some of them would think that he does not want women to vote but it was the people he represents that don’t want women to vote. So if a suffragist had this card, they would realize that they could get him on their side, because he had previously voted for women’s suffrage.
This is a letter from Mary Garrett Park to Maud Wood Park where they discuss their plans to persuade senators to vote for women’s right to vote. They talked to Senator Lafollette first and asked him if he could try to convince the other senators.
One excerpt from the letter reads, “Why not go to him or Col. Hanan and ask him if he will not make the suffrage amendment the issue, and tell the Republicans that if they will pass the Amendment immediately, he will agree to do certain things.” This demonstrates that the suffragists were encouraging politicians to pass the amendment. They used strategies like asking politicians to convince other politicians to vote for suffrage in exchange for voting for bills that are important to them.
Another excerpt reads, “I can not understand how either the Republicans or Democrats can permit the President of the United States to go over to Europe and meet the representatives of the other countries, knowing that they have enfranchised their women and that the United States Senate has refused to do it.” This suggests that suffragists were thinking about how it was unfair that other countries had passed the law to let women vote and now their president was having a conference with them. It was frustrating to them that their own government refused to do it.
This picture was taken in England right after the woman in the frame had presented a petition to the king and was arrested. Her name was Emmeline Pankhurst who was a major part in the British suffrage movement. The British suffrage movement influenced the American suffrage movement in many ways. The British suffrage movement was the first suffrage movement to use arrests to get attention and then the American movement adopted that strategy.
This suffrage describes why politicians are contradicting themselves because in the Constitution, women are “free people” as is every other American citizen, but the petition explains that women have fewer rights than men in particular. The suffragists say “we represent 15 million people.” At the time, this was half the country. This shows how much support they were trying to gain for their cause.
They also reference “Declarations of the Fathers” which is related to the Declaration of Independence, which they are saying they should have been included in.
This is a letter from Febb Ensminger Burn to her son Harry T. Burn about how he should vote for the vote of women. In this letter we can see that Harry’s mother writes, “I noticed Chandler's speech, it was very bitter.” By saying this, it seems as though Febb is trying to convince her son not to go along with Chandler, who was an anti-suffragist Senator from Tennessee. We can also see that in this quote from the letter “be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt with her rats.” When Febb writes that Harry should help Carrie Chapman Catt, a suffrage leader, with her “rats,” that could mean he should help her against the anti-suffragists, or it could mean to help her with “rat”-ification of the 19th amendment. However, because Febb later writes, “put the ‘rat’ in ratification,” it seems that she meant the word “rat” in that context. When she writes “Be a good boy,” she seems to be reminding Harry that she is still his mother, despite the fact that he’s an elected official, and perhaps uses this to encourage him to make the political choice that she supports.
Bibliography
The Conversation: "How 17,000 petitions helped deliver votes for women"
History, Art, and Archives: United States House of Representatives: "Petition for Woman Suffrage"
Johanna Neuman: "How Women’s Suffrage Activists Lobbied Congress for the Vote: Lessons For Us"
New Zealand Digital Library: "Document Four: Mary Garrett Hay to Maud Wood Park"
Teach Tennessee History: "'Don’t forget to be a Good Boy': Harry T. Burn’s letter from Mom and the Ratification of the 19th Amendment in Tennessee"
U.S. Capitol Visitor Center: "'A Petition for Universal Suffrage,' January 29, 1866"