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Women
Suffrage Movement
Throughout the Progressive Era, shouts for “Votes for Women” were heard all over the nation. Coming on the heels of statewide victories, suffragettes (Members of national organizations who worked to get voting rights for women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) rallied under the guises of national organizations to achieve the right to vote. After years of meetings, parades, and even hunger strikes, women finally achieved the right to vote with the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Victory had been achieved.
Read Women's Suffrage at Last to learn more about the struggle for voting rights for women.
Suffrage Leaders
During the 19th century, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony pressed for greater rights and privileges within their male dominated society, including equal access to education, property ownership, and employment opportunities.
The struggle to achieve voting rights for women began in 1848 at the Seneca Falls Convention. In 1890, Anthony, along with Stanton, formed the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) to press for a constitutional amendment.
Suffragist Strategies
While the ultimate goal of the Suffragists was a constitutional amendment, they worked on a state-by-state to get states to permit women to vote. Victories came first in the western states like Wyoming and Utah and eventually other states, including New York.
Using demonstrations, mock elections, and even hunger strikes, suffrage leaders sought to persuade their fellow Americans to support the ballot for women.
Explore The Fight for Women's Suffrage to learn more about the strategies and leaders.
Anti-Suffrage Arguments
Believe it or not, not all women supported the suffrage movement. In fact, in some areas of the country, a majority of women opposed suffrage. Some argued that women were powerful enough without the vote due to their influence on husbands and sons. Others argued that having the right to vote would make women more masculine and blur the distinctions between the sexes, as displayed in the intro cartoon.
Reasons for opposition varied, but at the core was a deep concern that the social order would be disturbed by granting women the right to vote.
Read Opponents of Suffrage to learn more arguments against suffrage.
New Leadership
Unfortunately, Stanton and Anthony did not live to see national women's suffrage; they set the stage for new leaders like Carrie Chapman Catt who broke barriers state-by-state as she led the national movement as president of NAWSA in the 1910s.
However, a small group of more "radical" women led by Alice Paul demanded more and created a split in the movement. (Alice Paul organized the famous Suffrage Parade in March 1913 and founded the more militant organization called the Congressional Union (CU), which protested during WWI, resulting in jail time for several of its members.) These radical women wanted full equality, including the right to vote, and were willing to do willing to take aggressive militant actions to achieve it.
Impact of World War I
The entire Progressive Movement was impacted when the U.S. entered World War I in April 1917. The war marked an end to the movement. Americans focused on the war due to its life and death impact, rather than progressive issues. Nevertheless, the Congressional Union (CU, the organization formed by Alice Paul that took a more militant approach to achieving suffrage for women) and Alice Paul continued their fight for suffrage despite being jailed and treated unfairly.
On the other hand, the war positively impacted the fight for suffrage due to the significantly changing role of women in the workplace, replacing men who were at war.
After an intense campaign blitz during WWI, women finally achieved the right to vote with the 19th Amendment. In 1920, nearly 100 years after the fight began, the women of America had finally achieved their goal.
African Americans
Civil Rights
While women crusaded for the right to vote, African Americans were also busy fighting for equal treatment under the law. In the years following Reconstruction, African Americans witnessed the gradual fading of virtually all of the rights and freedoms they acquired after the Civil War.
It started with the segregation (separation, in this case, between the races) of social environments (schools, shopping, etc.) and slowly expanded to all other facets of life. These segregation customs were enforced by whites who resorted to various acts of violence and intimidation to maintain control.
Discrimination, Segregation, and Jim Crow Laws
The system of racial discrimination and segregation that started after Reconstruction was known as Jim Crow. By the end of the 1800s, these social regulations were transformed into law with the Plessy v. Ferguson decision. Under the terms of the ruling, separate accommodations were legal, as long as they were equal in nature. However, the equality mandate never materialized in the segregated South.
Jim Crow laws (laws passed between 1876 and 1965 that mandated and upheld segregation) affected nearly every aspect of African American life, making social, political, or economic advancement nearly impossible for African Americans.
Read Segregation and Disfranchisement to learn more about the impact of Jim Crow.
African American Leadership
In the midst of the mires of Jim Crow, African Americans were also busy fighting for equal treatment under the law. Led by such leaders as Booker T. Washington (a Civil Rights leader who promoted a self-help strategy to integration) and W.E.B. Dubois (Civil Rights leader who demanded full equality), African American groups across the nation began challenging Jim Crow laws that upheld "separate but equal" (the legal doctrine that upheld segregation) accommodations and policies that were inherently unequal.
Carter G. Woodson was another African American leader who promoted black education during the early 1900s. He started Black History Month to help bring attention to black history.
Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington gained prominence within the black and progressive white communities for his support of gradual equality. Influenced by his days as a slave, Washington focused on proving black self-worth and teaching practical job skills.
Washington founded the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama to train African Americans in practical skills. In a speech at the Atlanta Exposition in 1895, he professed his believe that African Americans should focus on vocational education like that offered at the Tuskegee Institute.
Read Booker T. Washington to learn more his ideas on equality.
W.E.B. DuBois
In contrast to Washington, W.E.B. DuBois argued for immediate equality. In order to end all forms of discrimination, DuBois met with 30 other men at Niagara Falls to draft a series of demands, known as the Niagara Movement. In addition, DuBois helped to found the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, a civil rights organization founded by DuBois and other members of the Niagara Movement) to help achieve the goal.
Though these two leaders differed in their approach, collectively they helped African Americans generate a source of pride and confidence, traits that were largely suppressed during the Jim Crow era.
Read W.E.B. DuBois to learn more his contrasting ideas on equality.
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