Women's fierce fight for the right to vote is one of the truly great, but overlooked, stories in American history. Generations of women from well-known Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Alice Paul and little-known Elizabeth Piper Ensley, Maud Malone, Hazel Hunkins, and Betty Gram-devoted their lives to the momentous struggle.
The Vote: Women's Fierce Fight for Equal Suffrage is the gripping account of the hard-won victory, replete with political intrigues and betrayals, pageantry and parades, pickets and violent mobs, and strong characters. The story proceeds from 1648 in Maryland with Mistress Margaret Brent who demanded not just one, but two votes from the colonial leaders; to property-owning women in New Jersey who voted for 31 years, until legislators rescinded their right (1776-1807); to 1867 in Kansas, the first of many state campaigns for enfranchisement that women undertook against entrenched, obdurate male legislators and voters; to the arduous quest for a federal woman suffrage amendment.
Millions of suffragists-from Annie Arniel, a munitions factory worker, to Alva Belmont, a philanthropist-energized the woman suffrage movement, the first nation-wide, highly organized civil rights movement. From coast to coast, they pioneered modern tactics: innovating legal strategies and lobbying techniques, garnering unprecedented publicity with elaborately staged events, initiating picketing at the White House, and demanding political prisoner status.
More than 500 women were arrested for the cause on charges ranging from obstructing traffic to climbing on a statue to applauding in court-168 women went to jail where many were brutalized. After she was released, Ernestine Hara was "tempted to go back again on the picket line." But, she "wasn't courageous enough to" risk going back to jail. She "felt horrified by the different things that could happen to you in prison."6 There was also the stigma, as Hara pointed out: "Jails had a very bad reputation for anyone, especially for women. If you were a jailbird, you were a fallen woman." Effie Boutwell Main's husband filed for divorce "on account of the disgrace" of her serving a ten-day sentence. Hazel Hunkins's half-brother paid for a newspaper notice, informing readers that she "had been deluded by people in Washington" and "was not that kind of girl."7 Several women were fired from their jobs, including a teacher, Janet Fotheringham, for setting a bad example for her students.
Nevertheless, women joined the picket line, fully aware of the risks. Many went to jail again and again-Lavinia Dock, three times, and Edith Ainge, five times. After her second imprisonment in 1917, Annie Arniel had returned to Wilmington, Delaware, to recuperate. Although she was "much broken in health," according to a reporter, she predicted that her "experience may have to be repeated before the great cause for which we women have endured so much is finally won."8 Arniel served eight jail terms, totaling 108 days. Lucy Burns, who endured punishment in solitary confinement wrapped in a blanket, having been stripped of her clothes, spent the most time in jail of any suffragist.
Across America, newspapers covered suffragists' relentless fight for the equal suffrage, often with attention-getting front-page coverage. WOMEN ON THE RAMPAGE, read a newspaper headline in 1866.
Award-winning author, Penny Colman, tells the stirring story through first-hand accounts, newspaper headlines and articles, anecdotes, songs, poems, documents, cartoons, and photographs. She interweaves ideas-the reordering of women's roles and rights-with contested issues involving race, class, strategies, tactics, politics, and personalities. The Vote: Women's Fierce Fight for Equal Suffrage, infused with women's words, is a thought-provoking true story with relevance to key current issues in the governance of America.
