features@ihuxf.UUCP (aMAZon) (08/26/85)
> Women were given the right to vote in the 20's because it was felt their > "cooperative and nurturing" forced would help politics. It's first real > demonstration was when the "Women's Christian Temperance Union" managed > to push through prohibition. This merely nurtured the mafia and set up > decades of fucked-up attitudes and policies concerning alcohol. > > -- > Charles Forsythe > CSDF@MIT-VAX Today, Aug. 26, 1985, is the 65th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. "Women were *given* the right to vote". Sure. So the Seneca Falls convention in 1848 had nothing to do with it? So the organizing, public speaking, financial planning, political persuasion of the suffragists (mostly women) had nothing to do with it? So it came gift-wrapped, for the asking? Try reading Eleanor Flexner's book "Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States". Or volumes 1-6 of "History of Woman Suffrage", ed. by the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Or "The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement 1890-1920" by Aileen S. Kraditor. It was partially as a result of the Phyllis Schlaflys and the Moral Majority of that time that the nonsense about "Woman's Purifying Influence" was promulgated. Good heavens, at that time, it was thought that only the spinsters, divorced, or otherwise "unnatural" women would be the only ones who would be interested in suffrage (or women's rights in general). The leaders of NAWSA knew the probable linking of woman suffrage and prohibition by the general public; they really couldn't do that much to challenge that misconception. (And I assume that the *male* legislators and voters had *nothing* to do with Prohibition?) Actually, it was as a result of the women's work in the war effort that allowed the 19th amendment to be passed when it did. If democracy began at home, it was high time to make it more representative. For your trivia files: Illinois was the first state to ratify the 19th amendment. They had some interesting folks down in Springfield at that time. More's the pity they're not there now. If anyone has specific questions on the history of woman suffrage in the US, please write. aMAZon @ AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL; ihnp4!ihuxf!features -- aMAZon @ AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL; ihnp4!ihuxf!features
karen@randvax.UUCP (Karen Isaacson) (08/29/85)
> > Women were given the right to vote in the 20's because it was felt their > > "cooperative and nurturing" forced would help politics. It's first real > > demonstration was when the "Women's Christian Temperance Union" managed > > to push through prohibition. This merely nurtured the mafia and set up > > decades of fucked-up attitudes and policies concerning alcohol. > > Charles Forsythe Wait just a minute. The Liquor Prohibition Amendment was the 18th, was proclaimed as ratified by the U.S. Secretary of State on January 29, 1919, and went into effect on January 16, 1920. The 19th amendment was porclaimed & went into effect on August 26, 1920. I hadn't realized that it was retroactive before that date... -- Karen Isaacson decvax!randvax!karen karen@rand-unix.arpa
tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum) (08/31/85)
> [aMAZon @ AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL; ihnp4!ihuxf!features] > For your trivia files: Illinois was the first state to ratify > the 19th amendment. They had some interesting folks down > in Springfield at that time. More's the pity they're not there > now. ------------------- True, but they probably still vote in Chicago.-) -- Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL ihnp4!ihlpg!tan