Women's Suffrage Dbq

An American’s right to vote prevails as one of the nation’s most recognized forms of representation of freedom in the United States. However, voting rights have a sordid past of exclusion for many peoples on the basis of race, religion, and sex. The list of factors that led to the eventual ratification of the nineteenth amendment is long and complex, from complications with other civil rights issues to disputes over its place at the state or federal level. Although the amendment granting the female vote was ratified in 1920, the demand for women’s suffrage in the United States first gained broad notice in the 1840s. The “first women’s rights convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York” (Oxford 388) met in 1848. A major player in the women’s

Although the issue of women’s suffrage was indeed political at its roots, association with political parties was not recommended by the founders of the National Woman Suffrage Association. Anthony claimed that for suffragettes to align themselves with certain political parties “would be to divide and distract public thought from women as suffragists to women as Republicans, Populists, etc” (Anthony). The focus on how it may help one’s own party would dominate the thoughts of voters, instead of the women’s right to vote as American citizens. This view was not shared by the American Woman Suffrage Association, whose members “were not willing to break with longtime abolitionist and Republican Party allies” (Oxford

While the National Woman Suffrage Association’s goal was a formal amendment granting the right to vote, the American Woman Suffrage Association’s plans were to obtain the vote through a state-by-state strategy (Flexner 165). This key difference actually led to the eventual union of both organizations into a singular association. The NWSA attempted to pass its amendment, but it failed. After their “[defeat] in the Senate, women involved with the National [Women Suffrage Association] were tempted to look for action in the states” (Wheeler 14). The leaders of this movement “believed the union necessary in order to…direct the mounting interest in suffrage” (Wheeler 15), and moved towards a union that could accommodate more members as well as combine efforts into the goal of obtaining the women’s vote. Thus, after the merger, the newly formed National American Women Suffrage Association “poured its meager resources and considerable talents into state campaigns” (Wheeler 15). The route of the formation for the National American Woman Suffrage Association was a long one, with focuses on sexism, feminism, and the female vote throughout its transformation as an organization. With its group now without serious division, its true target seemed in reach: