FEMINISM IN LITERATURE: A GALE CRITICAL COMPANION|Course hero helper

Posted: March 1st, 2023

Pick any woman who argued for woman’s suffrage in the 19th or early 20th century. What other social movement causes outside of woman’s suffrage was that individual involved in promoting? How did that cause also help (or not help) promote woman’s suffrage itself?

Woman: Majorie Spruill Wheeler

Use the article below for help

The fact of their silence deeply grieved us, but the philosophy of their indifference we thor- oughly comprehended for the first time and saw as never before, that only from woman’s stand- point could the battle be successfully fought, and victory secured. “It is wonderful,” says Swift, “with what patience some folks can endure the suffer- ings of others.” Our liberal men counseled us to silence during the war, and we were silent on our own wrongs; they counseled us again to silence in Kansas and New York, lest we should defeat “ne- gro suffrage,” and threatened if we were not, we might fight the battle alone. We chose the latter, and were defeated. But standing alone we learned our power; we repudiated man’s counsels forever- more; and solemnly vowed that there should never be another season of silence until woman had the same rights everywhere on this green earth, as man.

While we hold in loving reverence the names of such men as Charles Sumner, Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison, Gerrit Smith, Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass, and would urge the rising generation of young men to emulate their virtues, we would warn the young women of the coming generation against man’s advice as to their best interests, their highest development. We would point for them the moral of our experi- ences: that woman must lead the way to her own enfranchisement, and work out her own salvation with a hopeful courage and determination that knows no fear nor trembling. She must not put her trust in man in this transition period, since, while regarded as his subject, his inferior, his slave, their interests must be antagonistic.

But when at last woman stands on an even platform with man, his acknowledged equal everywhere, with the same freedom to express herself in the religion and government of the country, then, and not till then, can she safely take counsel with him in regard to her most sacred rights, privileges, and immunities; for not till then will he be able to legislate as wisely and gener- ously for her as for himself.

THE NATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION (DOCUMENT DATE 1883)

SOURCE: The National Woman Suffrage Association. Library of Congress. Gift of the National American Woman Association (1 November 1938).

In the following document, originally created in 1883, the members of the National Woman Suffrage Associa- tion detail the mission and structure of the organization.

The National Woman Suffrage Association

ARTICLE 1.—This organization shall be called the NATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIA- TION.

ARTICLE 2.—The object of this Association shall be to secure NATIONAL protection for women citizens in the exercise of their right to vote.

ARTICLE 3.—All citizens of the United States subscribing to this Constitution, and contributing not less than one dollar annually, shall be consid- ered members of the Association, with the right to participate in its deliberations.

ARTICLE 4.—The officers of this Association shall be a President, a Vice-President from each of the States and Territories, Corresponding and Recording Secretaries, a Treasurer and an Execu- tive Committee of not less than five.

ARTICLE 5.—A quorum of the Executive Com- mittee shall consist of nine, and all the Officers of this Association shall be ex-officio members of such Committee, with power to vote.

ARTICLE 6.—All Women Suffrage Societies throughout the country shall be welcomed as auxiliaries; and their accredited officers or duly appointed representatives shall be recognized as members of the National Association.

Those desiring to join can do so by sending one dollar with name and address to MRS. JANE H. SPOFFARD, Treasurer, RIGGS HOUSE, Washing- ton, D.C.

OVERVIEWS ELLEN CAROL DUBOIS (ESSAY DATE 1978)

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MARJORIE SPRUILL WHEELER (ESSAY DATE 1995)

SOURCE: Wheeler, Marjorie Spruill. “Introduction: A Short History of the Woman Suffrage Movement in America.” In One Woman, One Vote: Rediscovering the Woman Suffrage Movement, edited by Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, pp. 9-20. Troutdale, Oreg.: New Sage Press, 1995.

In the following excerpt, Wheeler traces the origins, strategies, divisions, and state victories of the woman’s suffrage movement from 1848 to the end of the nineteenth century.

Origins: 1848-1869 The woman suffrage movement, which began

in the northeastern United States, developed in the context of antebellum reform. Many women including Sarah and Angelina Grimké, Abby Kelley Foster, Lucretia Mott, Maria Stewart, Anto-

ON THE SUBJECT OF�

LUCRETIA COFFIN MOTT (1793-1880)

Lucretia Coffin Mott was a pioneer feminist leader and radical abolitionist. She was born on the island of Nantucket, Massachusetts; her family became Quakers and in 1804 moved to the mainland. She was educated in Boston and New York, and after working briefly as a schoolteacher, married James Mott in 1811. At the age of twenty-eight, Mott became a Quaker minister, and when the denomination divided over matters of doctrine she supported the liberal, or Hick- site, faction. The Motts were abolitionists, and their home became a station on the Underground Railroad, by which Southern slaves escaped to the North. Mott helped found the first antislavery society for women in 1837, and later, with other militant aboli- tionist women, helped William Lloyd Garrison take over the American Antislavery Society.

In 1840 Mott was one of a group of women who accompanied Garrison to Lon- don for a world antislavery convention; Gar- rison sat with Mott and other women in the gallery when they were refused seating in the main area, and denied official recognition as delegates from the United States. At the convention Mott met the young Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Their friendship developed, and Mott inspired Stanton, who in time grew more radical than her mentor. The two eventually organized the first Woman’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. During the Civil War, Mott was a vocal supporter of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. She was deeply distressed by the split in the women’s rights movement that developed in the late 1860s, and worked to heal it until her death in 1880.

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Marjorie Spruill Wheeler was a historian and author who wrote extensively about the history of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. While she was not an active participant in the suffrage movement herself, she has studied the lives and work of many suffragists and their involvement in other social movements. One cause that many suffragists, including Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, were involved in promoting was the abolition of slavery. In fact, some suffragists believed that their own struggle for equality was closely linked to the abolitionist movement, as both causes sought to end systems of oppression and injustice.