Winifred Conkling - Votes for Women!: American Suffragists and the Battle for the Ballot

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American Suffragists and the Battle for the Ballot

Winifred Conkling

Algonquin 2018

We all know how the story ends:

For nearly a hundred years, American women have had

the right to vote in our countrys elections.

Many of us know how the story began:

A group of women gathered to discuss starting

a movement for womens rights at a meeting

in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.

But a lot happened in between,

and far too few of us know those stories.

This book is dedicated to my daughters

Hannah, Ella, and Gwendolyn

and every other reader who

wants to know the whole story.

Aye

Oh, my daughter, I wish you were a boy!: Before Seneca Falls

All men and women are created equal: Seneca Falls Convention, 1848

The right is ours: Creating a National Suffrage Movement

In thought and sympathy we were one: A Feminist Friendship

You must be true alike to the women and the negroes: Division in the Suffrage Movement

Madam, you are not a citizen: Victoria Woodhull Speaks to Congress

I have been & gone & done it!!: Susan B. Anthony Votes for President

We ask justice, we ask equality: Forward, Step by Step

Failure is impossible!: The Next Generation

Votes for Women: The Second Wave of Suffragists

How long must women wait for liberty?: Parades and Protests

Power belongs to good: The Silent Sentinels

This ordeal was the most terrible torture: Hungering for Justice

Dont forget to be a good boy: The Battle for Ratification

: Mary Wollstonecraft

: Sarah Grimk

: Elizabeth Cady Stanton

: Sojourner Truth

: Susan B. Anthonys Address after Her Arrest for Illegal Voting (1873)

Aye

Everyone expected Harry T. Burn to vote against the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. The twenty-four-year-old first-term member of the Tennessee House of Representatives was from Niota, Tennessee, a conservative area in the mountains. It was August 1920. Burn was running for reelection in the fall, and most of his constituents were opposed to female suffrage. If he wanted to win, surely, they thought, he would vote against the bill.

But Burn hadnt made up his mind.

Tennessee governor Albert H. Roberts had called the state legislature into special session to consider whether to support the Nineteenth Amendment. The year before, the United States Congress had passed legislation giving women the right to vote, but before it could become the law of the land, three-fourths of the forty-eight states needed to ratify or approve it.

Thirty-five states had voted in favor of the amendment. One more was needed to make it law. Would Tennessee be that state?

From the moment Burn and his fellow legislators arrived in Nashville, women on both sides of the issue had been pressuring them for their votes. Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, organized the pro-suffrage side. Josephine Anderson Pearson, head of the Tennessee State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, worked against ratification of the amendment.

Both women stayed at the elegant Hermitage Hotel, which became ground zero in the suffrage fight. Pearson took over the hotel mezzanine and decorated the room with American flags, red roses, and a sign that read Anti-Ratification Headquarters . She passed out propaganda arguing that women didnt need the vote because they were already represented by their husbands, fathers, and brothers.

Catt kept a lower profile. To downplay accusations of being an outside agitator, she ran her operation out of her hotel room, offering direction to state and local suffragists. She left the lobbying to a group of young, beautiful pro-suffrage Tennessee wives and mothers, whose presence undermined the argument of the antisthose who did not support womens right to votewho said that the suffrage movement was run by outsiders and bitter, ugly old spinsters.

Both sides invited the legislators to receptions and dinners at the fashionable Hermitage, which was just down the street from the Tennessee State Capitol. As soon as politicians entered the building, women on both sides of the issue would approach the men. In what became known as the War of the Roses, the antis slipped red roses into the legislators lapels. The suffragists, who supported womens right to vote, passed out yellow roses.

On the morning of August 18, a stiflingly hot day even by Nashville standards, elected officials gathered at the statehouse. The Tennessee Senate had passed the suffrage measure five days before. It was up to the House of Representatives to decide the issue.

Women crowded the second-floor galleries of the statehouse, waiting to see history made. A suffragist had attached a yellow sunflower to the golden eagle statue perched at the front of the chamber. Some tried to count flowers to determine which side was going to win, but the room seemed evenly divided between those wearing red and yellow roses.

Catt waited back at the hotel, sitting next to the window and listening to the noisy crowds at the statehouse.

At 10:30 a.m., Seth Walker, Speaker of the House and a dedicated anti, gaveled the meeting to order.

He called for a vote to set aside the decision until the fall, which would mean women would not be able to vote in that years election.

The roll call vote on that question ended in a tie, 48 to 48.

The Speaker called for a second vote. The result was the same.

In that moment, Walker changed his strategy. Since the suffragists didnt appear to have enough votes to win, he decided to call for an immediate vote on the question.

The legislature debated the issue for an hour, but the arguments had all been heard before. It seemed that the legislators had made up their minds.

The hour has come! Walker said.

Harry Burn, the youngest member of the state legislature, wore a red anti-suffrage rose on his lapel. He had voted with the antis to delay the decision, but this was a vote on the main question.

The roll call began.

Anderson, the clerk said.