Women's Suffrage Timeline

While the Continental Congress considers declaring independence from England, delegate John Adams receives a letter from his wife, Abigail. She urges him to "remember the ladies." If the men do not, the women will "foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation." In his reply, Adams dismisses his wife's request, saying her proposal would "compleatly (sic) subject Us to the Despotism of the Petticoat." In a letter to a friend, John Adams writes that he believes women are too delicate to vote. Abigail Adams criticizes her husband for promoting freedom while insisting on "retaining an absolute power over Wives."

The colonies decide to break away from England, and on July 4, the Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence. It states that "all men are created equal." Scholars continue to debate whether Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration's other writers chose the word "men" to be inclusive of all humans, or to exclude women and children.

Although Abigail Adams does not convince her husband to stand for women's rights during the Continental Congress, she predicts that women will not remain in an inferior position forever. "Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken," she writes. Women have the power to "subdue our Masters."
 

• Do you think the framers of the Declaration of Independence intentionally excluded women when they wrote the phrase "all men are created equal"? Why or why not?
• How have attitudes toward women in politics changed over time?

As the Constitutional Convention gets underway to create an operating framework for the United States of America, the Founding Fathers debate which powers the federal government should have, and which should stay with the states. The men choose to place the issue of suffrage — who is or is not allowed to vote — under the control of the states. As a result, in 12 of the 13 states of the new country, voting is limited to men only.

New Jersey is the one exception. Its state constitution says that "all inhabitants" who are at least 21 years old and own property worth at least 50 English pounds can vote. This language makes it legal for single women to vote. (Married women cannot own property, so do not meet the requirements.) In the 1790s, New Jersey passes statutes that refer to voters as "he or she" and include free slaves as eligible. In 1797, significant numbers of women vote for the first time and spark debate in local newspapers about the power and rights of female voters.

The tide turns in 1806, when men are caught voting once as themselves, and then dressing up as women to vote again. This and other acts of fraud cause the New Jersey Legislature to cancel the election's results. The following year, the Legislature narrows the definition of voters to taxpaying white men only. Lawmakers argue that the change is "highly necessary to the safety, quiet, good order and dignity of the state." The effort to change the law is led by John Condict, a representative from Newark who nearly lost an election after his opponent earned the votes of many female supporters.

• Why did the framers leave suffrage in state control?
• Why did New Jersey include a property requirement?

To appease opponents of the U.S. Constitution who fear it gives too much power to a central government, James Madison and others propose a Bill of Rights. The 12 proposed amendments address critics' concerns by spelling out specific rights the government cannot take away. Ten of the 12 proposed amendments become law after they are ratified by the necessary two-thirds majority of states. They include the First Amendment, which guarantees five freedoms. This is how we interpret those five freedoms today:

Religion: The freedom to exercise any religion or no religion; the government cannot establish an official state religion.

Speech: The freedom to express ideas, including unpopular viewpoints and controversial topics, using written, verbal or symbolic language (speech using actions or images in place of words).

Press: The freedom to publish information without government interference or censorship. In 1791, the printing press was the main tool for publishing information, but freedom of the press today also covers radio, television and the Internet.

Assembly: The freedom to peaceably gather together in a group.

Petition: The freedom to ask the government to change a law or policy.

(You can find much more about these freedoms, including detailed descriptions and current issues, on the First Amendment Center website.) Over the course of our nation's history, these freedoms have become tools for many groups seeking to address injustices and change society, including the activists of the women's suffrage movement.

• How did the passage of the Bill of Rights eventually help women win the right to vote?

Englishwoman Mary Wollstonecraft is an active and well-known voice in European political debates. In a book called A Vindication of the Rights of Men, she defends the French Revolution ideals of liberty and equality. Wollstonecraft also argues against monarchy and the practice of passing all property to a family's eldest son.

Wollstonecraft believed the revolutionaries' talk of rights for "man" meant all of humanity. But in 1791, she learns that the French government is proposing a system of schools that will end at eighth grade for girls but continue on for boys. She fears that women will be treated as inferior in the new republic.

Wollstonecraft publishes another book, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, in 1792. She calls for woman suffrage and advocates for women's education, arguing that education is key to power. A Vindication sells out within a year and is reprinted several times in three different languages.

In the United States, newspapers and magazines across the country publish reviews and excerpts of Wollstonecraft's work (press). Some people criticize her stance on the French Revolution and attack her personal morality. Others find her work inspirational. In the decades to follow, A Vindication of the Rights of Women influences many prominent voices in the American women's suffrage movement, including Margaret Fuller, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

• Why did Wollstonecraft think that education was so essential for women?

Emma Hart Willard grows up with a father who believes in educating both his sons and his daughters. She becomes a teacher and an advocate for girls' education. However, Willard temporarily retires from teaching after she marries, because it is not socially acceptable for female teachers to be married or for upper-class married women to work. While raising her children, she continues her own education by studying college books a male relative gives her.

Willard also writes A Plan for Improving Female Education, in which she argues girls should have greater educational opportunities (press). She sends her plan to the New York Legislature to ask for public funding, as well as to prominent politicians including James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams (petition).

Although many in the Legislature are shocked by and ignore her request, in 1819, Gov. DeWitt Clinton invites Willard to establish a school in Waterford like the one described in her plan. Two years later, in the fall of 1821, Willard moves to Troy and opens the Troy Female Seminary. Though it is not a college, the school offers the most advanced education available to women in America. At first, the high tuition makes it affordable only for upper-class families. Later financial success allows the school to provide tuition for the poor. Some of its students, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, go on to become advocates for women's rights.

• How does the foundation of the Troy Female Seminary reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the emerging women's suffrage movement?

A Presbyterian minister and a missionary seeking to "train teachers and other Christian leaders for the boundless most desolate fields in the West" found Oberlin Collegiate Institute and Oberlin Colony in Ohio in 1833. John J. Shipherd and Philo P. Stewart hope to create a community dedicated to living by and spreading the Christian Gospel (religion). Pupils pay their tuition by working in attached shops and farms, making education accessible to rich and poor.

From its founding, Oberlin is coeducational, making it the first college in the United States to admit women. Initially, women study separately from men and receive diplomas from a separate academic path called the "Ladies Course." Classes include religion, housekeeping and other women's work. Four years later, in 1837, Oberlin opens its bachelor's degree program to women. Caroline Mary Rudd, Elizabeth Prall and Mary Hosford are the first female college graduates. A decade later, Lucy Stone graduates from Oberlin, as well.

• How might having access to a college education influence women's lives?
• Compare and contrast the schools Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucy Stone attended. Did their educations foreshadow their different approaches to fighting for woman suffrage? How do you know?

After being denied membership in an anti-slavery society because of her sex, Lucretia Mott, a Quaker activist, helps organize the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women, the first national convention of its kind (assembly).

Women had always been a part of the abolitionist movement, but rather than work alongside male abolitionists, they generally formed their own female-only organizations (assembly). Local women's anti-slavery groups begin forming in the 1830s and spread throughout the northern half of the United States. Members meet to pray, raise funds and circulate anti-slavery publications (religion, speech, press, petition).

At the national convention in 1837, members of these local groups gather in New York City to discuss the problem of slavery and plan possible solutions. In addition to establishing a national leadership structure and spelling out the group's beliefs, convention participants resolve to regularly petition state legislatures and the federal government against slavery. Since women can't vote, exercising the right to petition the government is their most direct form of political action.

• How did the abolitionist movement shape the women's suffrage movement? How did it affect their role(s) in society?

Sarah Grimké is a vocal advocate for abolition and women's rights. With her sister, Angelina Grimké, Sarah goes on a public speaking tour to promote her ideas (speech). The local Congregationalist clergy disapprove and warn member churches not to host the sisters. The clergy believe it is improper for women to speak and work outside the home (speech, religion).

Sarah Grimké responds by writing "Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and the Condition of Woman," which the New England Spectator publishes (press). In the letters, addressed to the head of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, Grimké argues that God created the sexes as equals. It is men, she says, who have forced women into a position of inferiority by denying them opportunities and using them like servants. She also argues that women should have all of the same rights and duties as men and be able to pursue education, religion, work or politics in the same ways that men do.

Many readers find Grimké's arguments shocking. The outcry creates publicity for the Grimké sisters' visit to Massachusetts. Thousands of people gather to hear them speak as they tour the state sharing their views on abolition and women's rights (speech, assembly).

• Why might Sarah Grimké have chosen to address her letters to the head of the female anti-slavery society?

Mary Lyon becomes a teacher when she is 17 years old, but is frustrated by the limited opportunities available to her. She sometimes travels for days by carriage to attend schools or lectures where she can further her education. Eventually, Lyon decides to start a college for women. She writes ads and travels the country asking for donations (press, speech). Because it is not considered necessary or proper for women to pursue higher education, Lyon hopes that attributing the idea of the school to "benevolent gentlemen" rather than herself will help gain community support. Lyon also recruits only men for a board of trustees.

After years of work, Lyon founds Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1837, the first endowed college for women in the United States. The school in South Hadley, Mass., originally offers a three-year curriculum, and students are asked to work as well as study to keep tuition low. Lyon urges her students: "Go where no one else will go, do what no one else will do." Students can take the same courses taught at men's colleges, including science and math. Mount Holyoke expands to a four-year college in 1861, and in 1893 changes its name to Mount Holyoke College. The institution becomes a model for other women's colleges throughout the country.

• If you lived in the 1800s, would you have attended Oberlin or Mount Holyoke College? What would have been the pros and cons of each choice?

Mississippi passes the first state law protecting a woman's right to own property after marriage. Before the passage of this law, anything a single woman owned became her husband's property when she married, a principle called coverture.

The change to the law happens after a legal battle between John Fisher and a married couple, Betsy Love and James Allen. Allen was in debt to Fisher. To settle the debt, Fisher seizes a slave named Toney. Allen sues (petition), arguing that Fisher can't settle the debt by taking Toney because Toney belongs to his wife, who is a Chickasaw Indian. Under Chickasaw law, women keep possession of their property even after marriage, and husbands and wives each acquire and settle their debts independently.

This case leads Mississippi lawmaker Thomas B.J. Hadley to introduce legislation to protect the property of white married women as well as Chickasaw Indian women. After failing several times, the bill passes and is signed into law by the governor on Feb. 16, 1839.

• This law's passage is a significant gain for women, but it is made possible by an argument over ownership of a slave. How can the expansion of one group's rights harm the rights of another group? Demonstrate how this tradeoff is or is not acceptable.

Margaret Fuller, the daughter of a well-educated congressman, is frustrated with the limited social and intellectual opportunities for women. A gifted philosopher and writer, Fuller joins the transcendentalist movement: the philosophy of self-improvement appeals to her frustrated ambition. Fuller becomes friends with transcendentalist leaders, including Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson invites her to join him as editor of The Dial; she becomes sole editor from 1840-42 (press). At the same time, Fuller starts a series of gatherings called "Conversations" for educated women in Boston (speech, assembly). Their goal is to answer the questions, "What were we born to do? How shall we do it?"

These opportunities result in Fuller developing and publishing in 1843 the first great American feminist work: an article called "The Great Lawsuit. Man versus Men. Woman versus Women." In it, Fuller argues that women deserve the same opportunities to develop intellectually and socially as men. Women, she writes, are essentially slaves and exist only to please their husbands. Two years later, Fuller expands the article into an essay, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (press).

Horace Greeley, editor of The New York Tribune, is impressed with Woman and invites Fuller to be a literary critic and then a foreign correspondent at the paper. The Tribune is one of the most influential newspapers in the country, and Greeley is known for championing abolition. Yet in 1850, returning from her post in Italy, Fuller dies tragically with her family in a shipwreck.

• Knowing that The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan in 1963 can be considered a direct descendant of Fuller's work, how does Fuller's work anticipate the modern women's rights movement?

After years of experimentation, inventor Charles Goodyear finally perfects and patents the rubber vulcanization process on June 15, 1844. This technique makes rubber more durable and resistant to melting, so it can be used in manufacturing. Goodyear's discovery paves the way for the mass production of the first rubber condoms in 1855, which provide a safer, cheaper and more reliable method of contraception and family planning. Before the end of the century, production of other rubber contraceptives begins. These developments lead to a decrease in family size among white, native-born women. As a result, many women have more free time to pursue other ventures and take on more visible roles outside of the home.

• Why and how was the reproductive rights movement tied to the women's suffrage movement?

The Seneca Falls Convention in New York is the first local conference on women's rights (assembly). Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton head its organization. Mott, Stanton and others publicize the meeting using word of mouth and by publishing an announcement in the Seneca County Courier (press).

Approximately 300 women and men gather for the convention. Lucretia Mott's husband presides over the meeting, but Stanton reads their "Declaration of Sentiments" (speech). It begins by stating, "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal." Then the writers list legal, social and economic evidence of women's inferior position in society. The document concludes by promising that the signers will "petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf" (press, petition, religion, speech). Stanton then asks attendees to vote for a resolution declaring it the "duty of the women of this country" to advocate for the right to vote. Ultimately, 100 conference attendees sign the Seneca Falls declaration, though some later remove their names after criticism of the event and its objectives spreads.

The convention attracts attention from the press, but most of it is negative. Newspapers mock the women in attendance and their goals (press). "A discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far more complacency by many of what are called the wise and the good of our land, than would be a discussion of the rights of woman," author Frederick Douglass laments in his North Star newspaper (press). Stanton doesn't mind the tone of the coverage, believing that it "will start women thinking, and men too; and when men and women think about a new question, the first step in progress is taken."

• How did previous events lay the groundwork for the Seneca Falls Convention?
• What "firsts" did participants achieve at the convention?
• Why would Mott and others use the Declaration of Independence as a model for their "Declaration of Sentiments"?

In January 1849, Amelia Bloomer launches The Lily, a newspaper for women focused on promoting temperance (abstaining from alcohol). Bloomer recognizes that society frowns on public speaking by women, and believes that the written word provides the best chance for self-expression. Bloomer expands the focus of the paper to supporting women's rights, including suffrage (press).

Bloomer also advocates for changes in women's clothing. She promotes a new outfit for women consisting of a knee-length skirt over pants. The outfit is meant to provide women with more freedom of movement, and Bloomer both wears it and writes about its benefits in The Lily.

Word spreads about Bloomer's outfit, and although she did not invent the look, other publications begin to refer to the dress and pants as "bloomers." Bloomer receives hundreds of letters from women asking for a pattern to make their own "bloomers." She becomes the subject of widespread ridicule by men and women who deem the outfit improper or even scandalous (speech). Some of her critics are women's rights supporters who worry that the debate about women's clothing makes their cause look shallow and will slow down their progress toward equality.

The controversy increases The Lily's circulation from 500 to 4,000 readers.

• Why was women's clothing an important topic to some members of the suffrage movement?
• Why did other members of the movement avoid the debate over appropriate attire?
• Are the clothes you wear a form of speech? Explain.

After the Seneca Falls (N.Y.) Convention, women's rights advocates organize periodic conventions at the local and regional levels (assembly). In 1850, with fellow Quakers Lucretia Mott and Mary Ann McClintock, Paulina Wright Davis organizes and presides over the first national women's rights convention in Worcester, Mass. This two-day event launches a national movement to gain "political, legal, and social equality with man." Thanks to the organizers' outreach efforts, including publishing ads, tracts and books, nearly 1,000 men and women from as far away as California attend (press, assembly). As at Seneca Falls, with the exception of a few newspapers with ties to the women's rights movement, news coverage largely criticizes or mocks the convention (press). The New York Herald calls the conference's goals ridiculous, describing them as:

1. abolish the Bible;

2. abolish the constitution and the laws of the land;

3. reorganize society upon a social platform of perfect equality in all things, of sexes and colors;

4. establish the most free and miscellaneous amalgamation of sexes and colors;

5. elect Abby Kelley Foster President of the United States and Lucretia Mott Commander-in-chief-of the Army;

6. To cut throats ad libitum;

7. To abolish the gallows.

Women's rights supporters continue to hope that any attention paid to their cause will ultimately help them achieve their goals. The national conventions become a regular occurrence (assembly).

• Why were conventions critical to the success of the women's suffrage movement?
• Why did these conferences elicit such negative reactions?

Sojourner Truth is born into slavery in rural New York as Isabella Bomefree. She escapes into freedom with her infant daughter in 1826. She soon begins lecturing about slavery and women's rights across the country (speech). In 1843, she takes the name Sojourner Truth.

At a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio, in May 1851, Truth gives an impassioned, unscripted speech about women's place in society. The speech rouses the crowd and becomes legendary despite the lack of any formal record of her words. It is not until 12 years later that prominent reformer Frances Gage publishes the first complete account of Truth's speech (press). Gage recalls that Truth exclaimed, "That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?" By Gage's account, Truth also takes on those who use Biblical arguments to hold women inferior, saying, "Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him."

Truth's speech and details of the convention spread from Ohio to the East, as newspapers from the Cincinnati Gazette to the Pittsburgh Saturday Visiter publish accounts of the proceedings (press). Some, like the New York Herald, condemn organizers for including blacks; others praise them. Over time, Gage's account of Truth's speech becomes the hallmark of the convention.

• Do you think Gage's account was accurate?
• Do you think its accuracy mattered to members of the women's suffrage movement?
• Does its accuracy matter to historians today?

The Una, the first women's rights periodical to be owned, edited and published by a woman, begins printing in Providence, R.I., in 1853 (press). The masthead reads, "A Paper Devoted to the Elevation of Women," and publisher Paulina Wright Davis promises that the newspaper will stand for "discussing the rights, sphere, duty and destiny of woman, fully and fearlessly."

Prominent suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone and Caroline Dall write articles for The Una, reporting on the progress of women's rights and the suffrage movement. Despite these high-profile contributors, the paper lasts for less than three years. Financial problems force it to cease publication on Oct. 15, 1855.

• Do you think the short time that The Una lasted means that it was a failure? Why or why not?
• How did money - or the lack of it - impact the tactics and progress of the women's suffrage movement?

At the outbreak of the Civil War, most suffrage leaders agree to suspend women's rights conventions for the duration of the fighting. Female volunteers instead support the effort through work outside the home. Some serve as nurses to wounded soldiers and the federal government supports their efforts by forming the United States Sanitary Commission on June 13, 1861. Other women form local Ladies Aid Societies to collect and send food, clothing, blankets and medical supplies to Union or Confederate troops (assembly). Others provide medical care by establishing private hospitals in their houses. Many Northern women focus their political efforts on addressing the issue of slavery. Elizabeth Keckley, a former slave, founds the Contraband Relief Association in 1862 (assembly). During the war, the association provides funds and clothing to 40,000 "contraband," former slaves who escaped to Washington, D.C.

Through their wartime work, many women's rights activists gain important organizational skills and leadership experience they will apply when the suffrage movement resumes after the war.

• Do you agree with the decision of the women's rights movement to suspend conventions and suffrage activities during the Civil War? Why or why not?

Three months after the Emancipation Proclamation (and three years after the last women's rights convention), Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony issue a call on behalf of the Woman's Central Committee for a meeting of "the Loyal Women of the Nation." The call is published in the New York Tribune (press). The meeting is held on May 14, 1863, in New York City and is attended by women from states and territories across the country (assembly). Participants officially form the Women's Loyal National League (sometimes called the Women's National Loyal League), the first national women's political organization (assembly). A WLNL resolution states that "there can never be a true peace" until the rights of all blacks and all women are established. However, the league chooses to focus its efforts on the issue of slavery. The members agree to circulate a "mammoth petition" asking Congress to end slavery throughout the U.S. There are separate petitions for men and women.

The Tribune praises the group's focus, writing, "The women of the Loyal League have shown great practical wisdom in restricting their efforts to one object, the most important which any society can aim at, in this hour, and great courage in undertaking to do what never has been done in the world before, to obtain one million names to a petition." Other newspapers, such as the New York Herald, view the group as a "revolutionary women's rights movement" (press).

The WLNL gathers 100,000 signatures by Feb. 9, 1864, which Sen. Charles Sumner presents to Congress as a proof of popular support for the newly proposed 13th Amendment to formally abolish slavery. By the end of the drive, the 5,000 members of the WLNL collect 400,000 signatures. Although short of their goal, their results help persuade Congress to abolish slavery. The organization disbands upon the passage of the 13th Amendment.

• Do you think the New York Herald's description of the league as "revolutionary" is a criticism? Why or why not?
• Why do you think many of the members of the first convention found a resolution equating women's and African-Americans' rights controversial?

Following Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender in April 1865, women's rights activists in the North return their energies to the suffrage movement, forming organizations such as the American Equal Rights Association (assembly).

Across the South, elite and middle-class white women such as Mary Dunbar Williams of Winchester, Va., begin to organize Ladies Memorial Associations to give proper burials to Confederate soldiers in unidentified battlefield graves (assembly). Later they establish annual Memorial Days to commemorate the "Lost Cause" of the Confederacy, a romantic interpretation of the ideals and culture of the slave-owning South (speech). The Ladies Memorial Associations also raise money for the construction of some of the first monuments to the Confederacy. The groups lay the groundwork for larger organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which emerges in the 1890s.

Southern men generally support the associations' efforts, citing the focus on educating future generations and honoring men. At the same time, the groups' work of organizing events and fundraising gives many of the participants their first taste of social and political actions and impact.

• Why do you think women had such a prominent leadership role in memorializing the Confederacy?

The 13th Amendment abolishes slavery with these words: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Congress takes almost a year to pass the amendment. The New York Times writes of the scene in the House of Representatives after its passage: "When the presiding officer announced that the resolution was agreed to by yeas 119, nays 56, the enthusiasm of all present, save a few disappointed politicians, knew no bounds, and for several moments the scene was grand and impressive beyond description."

Ratification by the required three-fourths of the states is completed on Dec. 6, 1865, when Georgia approves the amendment. Secretary of State William Seward declares it to be officially adopted into the U.S. Constitution on Dec. 18.

The 13th Amendment concludes the abolitionist struggle in which many women's rights activists participated. Their work on this subject awakened many women to their lack of political power and provided valuable political organizing experience as they turned their attention to securing their own rights.

• What did the ratification of the 13th Amendment mean for the women's suffrage movement?

After the passage of the 13th Amendment, women's rights activists who had been focused on abolition turn their attention to suffrage. During the 11th National Woman's Rights Convention in New York City on May 10, 1866 - the first held since the outbreak of the Civil War - abolitionist Theodore Tilton suggests merging anti-slavery and women's rights societies into a new organization that will fight for universal suffrage for all women and African-American men. Participants at the convention, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, Henry Blackwell and Frederick Douglass, agree to the idea and found the American Equal Rights Association with the aim to "secure Equal Rights to all American Citizens, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color, or sex" (speech, assembly, petition). Tensions soon arise between abolitionists and women's rights activists over whether African-American men's suffrage should take precedence over woman suffrage. Congress's passage of the 15th Amendment in 1869 will exacerbate this tension and cause the group to dissolve.

• Why do you think abolitionists and the women's rights activists decided to merge their organizations?
• What were the advantages and disadvantages of this decision?

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Parker Pillsbury begin publishing a radical weekly women's rights newspaper called The Revolution in January 1868 (press). The motto on its masthead summarizes Stanton and Anthony's uncompromising stance on women's rights: "Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less."

Anthony, who had long dreamed of founding a women's rights newspaper, is The Revolution's proprietor. Stanton and Pillsbury are its editors. Financing comes from George Francis Train, a man widely criticized in reform circles for his racist, pro-slavery views (speech). Because of this, many abolitionists refuse to support The Revolution, even though Train's financial backing ends soon after the first issue. With circulation never exceeding 3,000 and no financial backers after Train, the newspaper struggles financially throughout its two years of publication under Anthony and Stanton. Anthony personally assumes the paper's $10,000 debt and transfers ownership to Laura Curtis Bullard for $1. Bullard asks Anthony, Stanton and Pillsbury to leave and turns The Revolution into a society and literary publication. It takes Anthony six years giving paid lectures to pay off the paper's initial debts. Despite its limited circulation, financial problems and short lifespan, The Revolution provides an important forum for Anthony and Stanton's views. It also reaches out to working-class women by publishing a series of articles titled "The Working Women of New York" about concerns such as sex discrimination in the workplace and unionization efforts by female workers. The Revolution not only advocates for woman suffrage, but also addresses more controversial women's rights issues, including overhauling divorce law, female jury service, prostitution laws and equal pay.

• Do you think it is important to know who owns a newspaper or other news source?
• Would you boycott a news source if you didn't agree with some of the views of one of the financial backers?

Congress passes the 14th Amendment on June 13, 1866, and presents it to the states for ratification. It prohibits states from denying the life, liberty or property of any person born or naturalized in the United States, including former slaves, without "due process of law." Two years later, the minimum number of states ratify the amendment, and it becomes part of the U.S. Constitution. Southern states had to ratify the amendment to rejoin the Union.

The second section of the amendment identifies eligible voters as "male inhabitants … twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States." It is the first use of the word "male" in the Constitution, and effectively bans women from voting in national elections. This forces suffrage supporters to make difficult strategy choices. Should women advocate for state laws or for a federal amendment? Should they advocate for universal suffrage or just for white women's rights? Early Supreme Court decisions confirm the suffragists' fears that the amendment's anti-discrimination language only applies to race. It is not until the 1970s and the case of Reed v. Reed that the Supreme Court begins to use the amendment's "equal protection clause," part of the first section, as the basis for striking down gender discrimination.

• Why do you think legislators included the word "male" in this amendment?
• The 14th Amendment expanded rights for one group while limiting the rights of another. Do you think it is possible for all groups to have equally broad rights? What are the challenges to achieving this equality?

Olympia Brown, the first woman to be ordained a minister in the United States, proposes a regional women's suffrage organization in New England (religion, assembly). She sees a need to focus on "a clear-cut, separate and single question," apart from the issue of African-American male suffrage. The result is the New England Woman Suffrage Association, the first major political association to focus specifically on votes for women. NEWSA declares that its object "shall be to procure the right of suffrage for Women, and to effect such changes in laws as shall place women in all respects on an equal footing with men."

Despite this radical stance, NEWSA reaches out to abolitionists and male Republicans who prefer taking a moderate approach. Accordingly, NEWSA supports advocating for black suffrage at the federal level and focuses instead on creating change for women at the state level. Through its newspaper The Woman's Advocate, NEWSA praises legislators who support expanded voting, work and educational opportunities for women (press). NEWSA also writes petitions; the biggest gathers more than 7,500 signatures supporting women's suffrage in Massachusetts. However, the Legislature ultimately votes down the measure, 22-9.

• Do you think welcoming male Republican members for whom woman suffrage was not the top priority made this group stronger or weaker? Why?