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An extensive period in US history has witnessed specific segments of the nation's population (such as females, Blacks, etc.) deprived of voting rights. The female suffrage movement or struggle for winning voting rights for females continued throughout the major part of the 1800s and into the early 1900s[footnoteRef:1]. While a few states allowed female participation in elections, both as contesters and voters, before the 19th Amendment's enforcement, its ratification on 18th August, 1920 ensured voting rights were extended to every woman in America[footnoteRef:2]. Ever since its ratification, US society has universally acknowledged female voting rights. [1: William W. Hodes, "Women and the Constitution" Rutgers L. Rev. 25 (1970): 26.] [2: Carol Lynn Yellin, "COUNTDOWN IN TENNESSEE" American Heritage 30, no. 1 (1978): 12.]

The American Constitution's Nineteenth Amendment accords an equal right to both males and females to vote. It asserts that the federal and state governments shall not curtail or deny citizens' voting rights based on gender[footnoteRef:3]. While Amendment XIV, ratified in 1868, did suggest such equality, a majority of states overlooked it and kept up with limiting or forbidding female suffrage[footnoteRef:4]. [3: Supra, note 1.] [4: National American Woman Suffrage Association. "Victory: How Women Won it"]

Female rights movements in America, which commenced somewhere during the 1830s, becoming entwined with the slavery elimination movement, led to Amendment XIX being proposed and introduced into the Congress in the year 1878. The recommended constitutional amendment continued to be a controversial matter for more than four decades -- a period that witnessed increasing aggressiveness in the nature of the female rights movement. Advocates increasingly organized protests and campaigns to coerce the Congress into passing Amendment XIX and ensuring its enforcement by all states[footnoteRef:5]. The above political action, buttressed by American females' contribution to the industrial sector in the crucial WWI era, led to the Amendment's enforcement. [5: Supra, note 2.]

Amendment XIX proved to be one among the greatest milestones in American women's history, finally according them equal voting rights. Prior to this Amendment's enforcement, America's female citizens utterly lacked self-representation besides that they enjoyed from their fathers and husbands. This milestone in female social and political rights is chiefly responsible for the current power enjoyed by females in the country today.

Undoubtedly, Amendment XIX proved to be a salient achievement for America's female suffrage movement. However, how far did its enactment contribute to the achievement of equal female rights, in general? Is it possible the suffrage movement's progress decelerated as they believed they had finally triumphed? Was the Amendment really a great boost or did it lead to the suffrage movement's stagnation? Why?

Part II

How far did Amendment XIX's enactment contribute to the achievement of equal female rights, in general: Annotated Bibliography

"Appeal for a Sixteenth Amendment" from the National Woman Suffrage Association; 11/10/1876; Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, Record Group 233.

The suffrage movement expressed disappointment when Amendment XV failed to cover female voting rights. Advocates like Susan B. Anthony came together to form the Washington-based NWSA (National Woman Suffrage Association) for coercing the Congress into implementing an amendment guaranteeing female voting rights. In the year 1876, the Association appealed to innumerable local advocacy groups, requesting a great petition campaign to create Congressional support for such an amendment. In 1878, Anthony's friend, Californian Congressman Aaron Sargent, proposed a female suffrage amendment. In a period of 4 years, both the lower and upper houses of the US Congress had instituted special female suffrage committees.

The above article is actually in the form of a letter by Anthony to American women, appealing to them to rise and struggle to achieve their rights. Anthony explains her expectations of Amendment XVI, which were that it shall forbid state disfranchising of inhabitants based on gender. In other words, females ought to demand the Congress to enact a law forbidding gender discrimination by states. This would afford voting rights to females, if the law was incorporated into the Constitution. Further, Anthony cites various failed female attempts at gaining suffrage. She claims their pleas were simply overlooked and stacked amid National archives. She argues that the government would be unable to overlook a large petition and the petitioners' cause. Lastly, she draws attention to African-American males' voting rights and raises the logical question of whether Black men and women are actually unequal before the law, as the latter are still barred from voting.

Graham, Sara Hunter. Woman suffrage and the new democracy. Berghahn Books, 1996.

This book's author states that the NAWSA (National American Woman Suffrage Association), which spearheaded the drive which ultimately led to Amendment XIX's enforcement, introduced a novel political approach/activity for females, namely pressure group politics. However, this narrow analysis may largely be regarded as a simple, though valuable, history of the NAWSA, relating organizational activities and achievements between 1890 and 1920. A graduate in history from the Louisiana State University, the author joins the crowd of female authors who wrote on the subject of female suffrage (e.g., After Suffrage by Kristi Andersen, LJ 8/15/96, and One Woman, One Vote by Marjorie Wheeler, LJ 11/1/95). Just like other historians, the author attempts at explaining the female movement's apparent fragmentation during the 1920s. However, as she has narrowly defined the groups that were a part of it, her work may be considered incomplete.

The author writes about female suffrage in the context of American political history, maintaining that it signifies a major new democracy milestone. She examines the reasons for the successful passage of a constitutional amendment in a period where rights drives were faced with opposition. While prior researches into this subject focus on multiple constituencies in this nationwide movement -- the National Women's Party's extremists, the WCTU's (Woman's Christian Temperance Union) conservatives, or NAWSA's moderates -- this book deconstructs national leadership approaches to support the author's argument. Suffrage movements offer a primary example of the interest group form of politics, demonstrating how interest group institution transformed Americans participation in politics.

The author's greatest input on the issue of suffrage movement success and post-suffrage weakening lies in her linking interest group politics' advent to decreased voter participation. She believes citizens did not feel it necessary to have their say in elections' outcomes as interest groups were not able to impact outcomes, and not because a larger number of individuals could now vote. With increased special interest group and advocate power, political parties' responsibilities shifted. They failed to reflect diverse political players and their actions, and failed to include blacks and females in political systems. Voter socialization and political education became pressure groups' missions. These transformations resulted in a novel political participation framework including informal and formal structures. The author's conclusion is that our grasp of American politics will better reflect political players when political historians expand their examinations. Consequently, female suffrage will enjoy adequate recognition as a key milestone in US political development.

Madsen, Carol Cornwall. "Battle for the Ballot Essays on Woman Suffrage in Utah, 1870-1896." (1997).

This revised collection on Utah's suffrage movement moves towards comprehending regional distinctions with a varied collection of historical and modern articles penned in a span of thirty years. One can easily regard this state as an oddity owing to its Mormon majority. Mormonism indeed contributed greatly to the suffrage movement's path in Utah. However, Madsen overlooks the issue of marginality, examining local challenges within the national political context. For instance, female suffrage enactment in Utah territory comes under the Reconstruction age's political context and encompasses the pressure on Congressional Republicans for developing a democratic American republic. But this context ought not to mix up Utah's suffrage win with the campaign for expanding democratic values and equality.

Another association between the national suffrage campaign and Utah's suffrage implementation is the coalition formed between NWSA's feminists and the pro-suffrage advocates of Utah. This coalition suggests that in spite of the latter's opposition to polygamy it accepted the former's assistance. This illustrates how far national suffrage leaders furthered political associations to garner voting rights for females.

Knupfer, Anne M., and Leonard Silk, eds. Toward a tenderer humanity and a nobler womanhood: African-American women's clubs in turn-of-the-century Chicago. NYU Press, 1997.

This work deals with the ideas which drove modern African-American female clubs, and the kinds of reforms supported by them. The author broadly covers literary, social and suffrage clubs, in addition to clubs focusing on meeting working girls', aged individuals' and dependents' needs. The author and her subjects realize the intimate relationship between reformation and politics. Drives against lynching, pro-school unification drives, and political drives for electing African-Americans as 2nd and 3rd-ward Black Belt representatives are all believed to form part of the mission of African-American uplifting.

Further, racial experience gave rise to a sharply distinct political plan within female suffrage campaigns. The author explains the Alpha Suffrage Club's and Ida Wells' oft-narrated tale, describing the grid of political, religious, and social relationships linking Chicagoan political reformation and social work. Females typically employed maternalist lines of reasoning to explain their political decisions; however, it was hard to segregate Black females' gender and race-based concerns. Prior to as well as after earning voting rights, black females drummed up support in Chicago's wards to have an African-American representative on the Chicago city council. White-American Women's City Club advocates detested the Black candidate Oscar de Priest, a loathing that was deemed inappropriate by numerous Southside club women.

McDonagh, Eileen L., and H. Douglas Price. "Woman suffrage in the Progressive Era: Patterns of opposition and support in referenda voting, 1910-1918." American Political Science Review 79, no. 02 (1985): 415-435.

This work explored bases for the support of and resistance to female suffrage by utilizing male voters' reactions to constitutional polls in 6 major American states in the Progressive age. Typical grounds for suffrage resistance and backing were scrutinized and the authors established that reliable suffrage support sources largely sprung from northern European and Protestant constituencies (except Germans), while Catholics and southern Europeans (with the exception of Germans) did not typically show any reliable patterns. Resistance to suffrage was most consistent in case of urban and Protestant and Catholic German constituencies.

An operational model to suggest prohibition's superior significance as a dominant variable in comparison to turnout or partisanship among the general public explains sources of indirect and direct suffrage support, whilst also demonstrating educational commitment's impact in defining suffrage voting trends. With the exception of the West, suffrage resistance was stronger among the common people as compared to legislative elites. Amendment XIX's eventual success has been covered within the state-level voting context, in addition to America's transformed political atmosphere following its WWI entry and state governments' pioneering attempts at granting "presidential" suffrage, thus evading the tough referenda course.

Buechler, Steven M. Women's movements in the United States: woman suffrage, equal rights, and beyond. Rutgers University Press, 1990.

This comparative sociological study of the 1840-1920 female suffrage movement and the modern feminism delineates similarities and dissimilarities between the two movements, dominant feminist subjects emerging with time and both campaigns' unique concerns within a socio-historical context. Comparisons are made based on the movements' roots, races and classes participating in them, type of organization, philosophies, end results and counter-movements (especially counter-movement sources), by utilizing the resource mobilization model. The underlying causes for female rights movements and the medley of triumphs and setbacks experienced by traditional and contemporary women's movements are addressed. When acknowledging modern feminism's triumphs and setbacks, the author outlines grounds for the relative confidence in this continuous mobilization's long-term impacts.

Further, the author examines the intricate link between social campaigns and reform. Swift transformations facilitate as well as restrict collective action's potential, successively reshaping societal structure. A comparative study of longstanding moments helps highlight the wider dialectical structure-agency link personified in social reform efforts. Beyond simply securing female voting rights, the female suffrage movement furthered civic action in just-enfranchised females via the League of Women Voters and other organizations. Considered the means to the end and not the end by itself, suffrage helped females express themselves and made them and their contributions matter at the federal and local levels. By participating in instituting low-income community development committees and other public works, females have effectively made long-term contributions to their local communities and the broader society. While their voting rights may be less-appreciated now, females continually have positive impacts on their communities and state and federal government policies despite the presence of very few female representatives in government offices.

Lumsden, Linda J. Rampant Women: Suffragists and the Right of Assembly. Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1997.

This book provides a comprehensive view of the connection between female suffrage campaigns and right of assembly. Starting 1908, female advocates organized various public meetings and demonstrations in their very brave attempt at securing voting rights. The author highlights the important part played by various "assemblages" like outdoor pageants, petition campaigns, conventions, soapbox discourse at outdoor meetings, picketing and symbolic expression in the female suffrage campaign. The author contends that without such inventive types of protest, American women might still be denied voting rights today.

The female suffrage movement demonstrated how assemblage rights can transform democratic structures. Perhaps the oldest and most rudimentary free-society principle, assemblage rights worked effectively for suffragists in the 1910s. This disfranchised group with its dearth of resources took their stance and efforts to the most accessible and public platform -- the streets -- thus forcing unsympathetic individuals to at least hear their views, slowly winning the support of a considerable percentage of politicians and the masses alike. Suffrage could only assume the shape of a national-level issue when females publicly advocated for voting rights. Had they not engaged in such public endeavors, their campaign wouldn't have succeeded at all as the public was not interested even in hearing them out, much less taking action. Assemblage rights served as the bedrock for all stages of the female suffrage movement.

References

Hodes, W. William. "Women and the Constitution: Some Legal History and a New Approach to the Nineteenth Amendment." Rutgers L. Rev. 25 (1970): 26.

National American Woman Suffrage Association. Victory: How Women Won it: A Centennial Symposium, 1840-1940. HW Wilson Company, 1940.

Yellin, Carol Lynn. "COUNTDOWN IN TENNESSEE, 1920+ 19th AMENDMENT RATIFICATION CAMPAIGN." American Heritage 30, no. 1 (1978): 12.