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Gayle Gullett
Gullett, Gayle. Becoming Citizens: The Emergence and Development of the California Women's Movement, 1880-1911. Women in American History Series. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000.
The women's rights movement is often characterized as a national movement because of its present day context in contemporary history and time. However, Gayle Gullett's book Becoming Citizens: The Emergence and Development of the California Women's Movement, 1880-1911 is instructive in the way that it highlights how the campaign for female suffrage was forced to undergo a series of ideological and structural transformations to achieve a specific goal. Rather than manifesting itself as a pure politics of group solidarity amongst women across class lines, this movement only achieved success, ultimately, when it took on the form of ideologically oriented rather than group-oriented politics, and included men and moderation into its fold.
This was not true of the beginnings of the women's rights movement in California, true -- at the very beginning, the Californian movement took its lead from its first most notable figure, not a Californian, but the template of Susan B. Anthony, national feminist advocate. This period, the historian Gayle Gullett suggests, highlighted a specific aspect of the past of the women's rights movement, namely a kind of radical as opposed to the later forms of reform progressivism, albeit with...
(102).
Thus, Gayle Gullett breaks the history of the women's movement into a series of stages. The first stage of the women's movement development began in 1880 and ended in 1896's defeat to gain suffrage within the state. The first stage was a radical movement, and both more diffuse and more nationalist in tone, taking its lead from national, non-Californian activists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the former of whom might be said to be characteristic of the period.
The second wave of the women's movement for suffrage in California, however, was far more reformist in its ideological nature. This moment in time of the California women's movement focused not on not so much the personal rights of the female sex and issues of wedlock, but how the introduction of women's voice into politics could bring a more "moral, humane, harmonious" aspect to political life. (107). Early radicalism was replaced with an effort on reform and more alliances with men and community-service-based efforts of a female stripe.
This second period could be primarily characterized not so much by a leading female figure, but by the political candidate William Jennings Bryan. Bryan was defeated in the election, but his populist reform progressivism that encompassed suffrage into its ideological fold, rather than emphasized this single issue to the exclusion of all others, crystallizes…
Yet, even though it was not constructed or specifically focused upon achieving a political agenda, the "Good Government Movement" alone finally allowed for a constitutional amendment for woman suffrage on the ballot in 1911. This was accomplished, activists assured the legislature and Californians part of a general movement for good government, rather than a victory for women alone. (181). This is rather "unsettling," in the author's terms, in terms of what it says about the achievement of women's suffrage as laudable as the outcome might have been. (7)
The "Good Government" movement, moreover, may have achieved some other strong achievements in its ideological progress through the state, but because of its beginnings in the upper class, it had a strong and occasionally unpleasant missionary aspect to its attempts to address social ills. There was also a strong anti-migrant sentiment in some aspects of its membership. Gullett's specific highlighting of Californian Women's Club involvement these later campaigns took a backseat to male reformers' desire to purge cities of machine politics and corruption, although male reformers may have later used potential female participation in government and suffrage to achieve their objectives.
Did the women of California ultimately become 'used' and channeled into ultimately unprofitable objectives by making their goals too diffuse? Should they have taken their leads from Anthony and Bryan of the past, rather than of later male reformers? Becoming Citizens is well researched but ultimately poses more difficult questions than it can attempt to answer. Should the Californian women have remained radical and stressed the objectives of more radical early activists as Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone? Should they have linked their cause to the progressive aims of Bryant? Or was it best for them to do as they did, and to outline a specific political objective, that of suffrage within the state, and make use of preexisting conventional channels and political groups and alliances? By stressing the last, Californian women's movement achieved its objective, even though it is female radicals such as Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as well as the presidential reform candidate, William Jennings Bryan, whom history best remembers.
Woman's Suffrage Women in the United States made the fight for suffrage their most fundamental demand because they saw it as the defining feature of full citizenship. The philosophy underlying women's suffrage was the belief in "natural rights" to govern themselves and choose their own representatives. Woman's suffrage asserted that women should enjoy individual rights of self-government, rather than relying on indirect civic participation as the mothers, sisters, or daughters of
In 1869, Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, another prominent 19th century suffragist, formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) to collectively lobby for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote. The NWSA also focused their attention on universal suffrage for African-Americans. Their efforts toward abolition succeeded first, as the 15th Amendment passed in 1871. Also in 1869 Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and other suffragists formed a separate suffragist
Suffrage Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Amelia Bloomer were all instrumental in shifting the status of women in American society. Their writings reveal the personalities, assumptions, and values of the authors. Each of these women took incredible personal risks by challenging the underlying assumptions in the society that women were not valid, valuable members of society. The place of women in American society prior to suffrage was no better
149-150). References Balu, R. (Fall 1995). History comes alive: How women won the right to vote. Human Rights, 22(4). Retrieved March 23, 2005, from Academic Search Premier database. Colorado: Popularism, panic and persistence. (No date). Retrieved March 23, 2005, at http://www.autry-museum.org/explore/exhibits/suffrage/suffrage_co.html. Marilley, S.M. (1996). Woman suffrage and the origins of liberal feminism in the United States, 1820-1920. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Suffrage appeals to lawless and hysterical women. (30 May 1913). New York
The authors further point out that at the time, NWSA did not accept male membership as its focus was firmly trained on securing the voting rights of women nationwide. As their push for the enfranchisement of women at the federal level became more and more untenable, NWSA shifted its focus to individual states. In so doing, it planned to create a ripple effect that could ease the attainment of
Women The sphere of women's work had been strictly confined to the domestic realm, prior to the Industrial Revolution. Social isolation, financial dependence, and political disenfranchisement characterized the female experience prior to the twentieth century. The suffrage movement was certainly the first sign of the dismantling of the institutionalization of patriarchy, followed by universal access to education, and finally, the civil rights movement. Opportunities for women have gradually unfolded since the