Part 2

2012 marks the 95th anniversary of New York women winning the right to vote on November 6, 1917. Here is the second part of a brief summary of what New York suffragists actually did to win in 1917, adapted from the text of “Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement” by Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr.

“A Million New York Women Want the Vote”

An enormously ambitious house-to-house canvass was the main feature of the 1917 campaign in New York. The tactic was diplomatically chosen, Mary Peck noted, because “it demanded service from every worker, did not offend sensitive patriots as more spectacular efforts would have done, and reached into individual homes as meetings never could.”
To answer charges by opponents that most women did not want to vote, suffragists spent more than a year going door-to-door in nearly every city and town in the state, collecting the signatures of over one million women who said that they wanted to vote.
Organizers climbed thousands of tenement stairs, walked country lanes, and visited the homes of the rich and poor. The result was the largest individually-signed petition ever assembled, eventually totaling 1,030,000 names, a majority of the women in the state. For comparison, there were 1,942,000 registered male voters. Suffragists then publicized their remarkable feat as widely as possible.

New York suffragists climaxed their wartime campaign by taking to the streets on October 27, 1917, carrying placards listing the names of over 1,000,000 state women who said they wanted to vote.  It was a compelling refutation of opponents’ claim that “most women didn’t want to vote.”  Male voters in New York approved woman suffrage on November 6, 1917 by 54% – over 100,000 votes.  New York’s political weight helped carry the 19th Amendment through Congress to ratification on August 26, 1920. 

A Patriotic “Woman’s Parade”

On October 27, in a powerful show of pre-election strength, a Woman’s Parade of 20,000 filled New York’s Fifth Avenue led by officers of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) and honored guests carrying American flags.
The parade dramatically reflected the impact of the war and the depth of women’s involvement. Divisions of wives and mothers of servicemen marched along with women doing war related work, industrial workers, professional women, and male supporters. Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Catt led the parade, which included 40 marching bands and took three hours to pass.
The dignity and grandeur of the wartime demonstration made a powerful impression on bystanders. “The men on the sidewalks were visibly moved,” Mary Peck remembered. “It was not half as long as the mammoth parade of 1915; it did not have to be. Women had taken on a value which nothing but war seems to confer on human beings in the eyes of men.”

An emotional Procession of the Petitions served as the centerpiece of the Woman’s Parade. After collecting over a million signatures of women who wanted to vote, Woman Suffrage Party members mounted the petitions on huge pasteboards and carried them up Fifth Avenue, putting the plea of women for democracy directly in front of voters.

Each placard was carried by two women marching eight abreast while banners gave the totals in all the upstate districts. The petitions from New York City were transported in 62 ballot boxes, each one representing an Assembly district and resting on a decorated platform carried by four women. The petition section alone covered more than half a mile and involved over 2,500 women.

City Voters Put New York Over the Top

Huge street banners were hung in all the large cities before the November election. Suffragists held an estimated 11,000 meetings across the state and distributed some eighteen million leaflets, posters, buttons, and novelties. A burst of newspaper advertising climaxed the final weeks with suffrage arguments appearing almost daily in over 700 morning and evening papers, including many in foreign languages.

On November 6, 1917, with over 6,300 women serving as poll watchers, New York voters passed woman suffrage by a 102,353 majority, 703,129 to 600,776. Outside of New York City, the measure lost by 1,510 votes but city voters more than made up the difference. Suffragists were overjoyed and felt confident that winning New York would open the way to certain victory in the U.S. Congress.

Suffragists’ “Big Victory” in New York shared front page headlines on November 7 with other election and war news. One factor contributing to the victory was the decision shortly before the election to keep “hands off” the measure by Tammany Hall politicians, many of whose wives and daughters had become active in the Woman Suffrage Party.

In addition, New York suffrage leaders spent more campaign funds in 1917 than ever before. While in 1915 they had less than $90,000 for the entire state, two years later they raised almost $700,000. “This, at a time when the country was at war, was an achievement which can scarcely be measured. To it suffragists everywhere contributed,” noted Gertrude Brown.

During the campaign, Woman Suffrage Party head Vera Whitehouse and treasurer Helen Rogers Reid decided to raise money the way political parties did – from wealthy men. They succeeded in convincing ten men, including Men’s League stalwarts James Lees Laidlaw and Samuel Untermeyer, to give $10,000 each, and won pledges for lesser sums from many others. In addition, the first payment from the endowment left by publisher Miriam Leslie came in February 1917, adding $50,000 to the campaign fund.

The Political Landscape Transformed

Suffragists across the country were ecstatic that metropolitan, influential New York, with its 43 electoral votes and 43 representatives in Congress, had actually been won. National enfranchisement was finally in sight because of the tremendous energy and resources devoted to the New York campaign.

The number of full suffrage states had not actually changed since 1914, but with presidential suffrage the total electoral votes women had a say in had increased from 91 to 172. New York added another 43. Seven states had passed presidential suffrage during the year, adding to the new sense of momentum.

The night after the election, a Victory meeting in the Cooper Union was “jammed to suffocation with an ecstatic multitude,” according to Mary Peck. When Carrie Catt opened with the words “Fellow Citizens,” the crowd went wild and it was some time before she could continue. Then she urged the state organization to turn without pause to supporting the Federal amendment.

Following the meeting, a New York Times editorial blasted women for “bulldozing Congress to pass the Federal Amendment at once.” An unrelenting opponent, the Times criticized suffragists for going to Washington to lobby for their rights because it “interfered with the vital work of the nation.” Failing to distinguish the moderate Woman Suffrage Party from the National Woman’s Party, the paper further claimed that “it is but a more dangerous form of picketing which these sorely misguided women are about to undertake. . . . Power brings to them no sense of responsibility. They win this state only to browbeat Congress and to seek to impose suffrage on unwilling states.”

Regardless, suffrage lobbyist Maud Wood Park immediately noted a different feeling in Washington D.C. “The carrying of New York was accepted by the politically wise as the handwriting on the wall,” she observed. Politicians as well as suffragists realized that a major turning point had been reached. The enfranchisement of women had become a national issue which even the war could not entirely overshadow.

In two short years, suffragists had helped secure dramatic changes in the political landscape. With new power and renewed hope, NAWSA focused its attention on Congress to finally take up the Federal amendment.

Using similar political skills at the national level, suffragists leveraged their state victories into passage and ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution on August 26, 1920.

© 2012 Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr.

Adapted from Chapter 15 of “Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement,” by Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr. (American Graphic Press: 2005). This excellent, profusely illustrated history was named one of the “Five Best Books” on the subject by The Wall Street Journal. Order from the National Women’s History Project, www.nwhp.org. The author can be reached at agp@ebold.com.

2012 marks the 95^th anniversary of New York women winning the right to vote on November 6, 1917.  The suffragists’ spectacular electoral campaign, waged during the trials of World War I, changed American history and led directly to passage of the 19^th amendment and the enfranchisement of women nationwide.

This election year, we can appreciate anew the determination, perseverance, and skill of these New York suffragists – particularly after being defeated just two years earlier.  We also pay tribute to the far sighted, multi-cultural men of New York who passed the measure.

This election marked a bold chapter in American history and was a key part of the history of the Empire State.  Ultimately, it was a mutual victory where motivated women won equal rights for all women and regular men – male voters, not politicians – recognized the justice of their demand.  The woman suffrage movement offers us one of the best examples of Americans’ love of democracy and dedication to the ideals of liberty and justice for all.

Here is a brief, two-part summary of what New York women actually did in 1917, adapted from the text of “Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement” by Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr.Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ          Ÿ

Suffragists in New York State campaigned throughout 1916 and 1917 to win over the most economically powerful and politically influential state in the nation.

After their defeat in 1915, women’s groups throughout the state reorganized into the New York State Woman Suffrage Party (WSP).  Determined to try again, suffragists, as required, won the approval of two successive state legislatures to submit the measure to the voters, which in itself was a remarkable accomplishment.

The war in Europe helped define the theme of the campaign. Suffragists emphasized women’s patriotic contributions and the logic of establishing at home the democracy America was fighting to defend abroad. Still, the suffrage drive took place in the midst of deep anxieties about the war, with citizens experiencing a vast national mobilization which demanded tremendous energy and personal sacrifice.

“The war had cut across the picturesque propaganda activities which had enlivened the 1915 campaign,” noted Mary Peck, and it drew countless women from suffrage work. Gertrude Brown remembered that the suffrage campaign “seemed at its lowest ebb” during the early summer of 1917 but, “as summer waned and election day came nearer, enthusiasm again began to flame up.”

Restructuring the Woman Suffrage Party

Vera Whitehouse led the state Woman Suffrage Party, with Harriet Burton Laidlaw as vice-chair and Helen Rogers Reid as treasurer.  The WSP in New York City, led by Mary Garrett Hay, formed the backbone of the state effort. Under Hay, the WSP built up its own structure modeled on Tammany Hall, the powerful Democratic machine that controlled the city. Party members were organized by Assembly districts and election precincts, each of which had its own captain. In the city alone there were five borough leaders and 2,080 precinct captains.

Learning from their experiences in 1915, suffragists concentrated on strengthening support and weakening opposition in New York City. To that end, Hay appointed numerous women connected to Tammany Hall politicians to positions in the WSP. Organizers also reached out to working families and immigrant communities, heeding Rose Schneiderman’s advice that the way to the working man was through the working woman.

Winning Upstate Voters

Outside of the metropolitan area, over 80 organizers were active in upstate New York, holding thousands of meetings.  NAWSA paid four field workers who, with countless volunteers from New York and other states, spoke at military camps, circularized voters, and prepared special literature for churches.  These field workers crisscrossed the state constantly during 1917, speaking and seeking endorsements as well as collecting signatures. The pace was often exhausting, with long distances to cover between meetings. Suffragists were especially active in Rochester, Syracuse, Buffalo, and other major cities where they advertised on billboards and street cars, and used large electric signs to flash their message at night.

 Trade unionists and settlement house workers were zealous in promoting the suffrage amendment in New York City’s working class and immigrant neighborhoods in 1917. Even though the main suffrage organizations tended to be run by the city’s social elite, support for the measure was strong among Jewish and other northern and eastern European immigrants, and among others who had fled to the U.S.

Woman suffrage was officially supported by all of the state’s political parties but suffragists still had to deal with wartime challenges, major party rivalries, the liquor industry, the prohibition concerns of male voters, and the virulent opposition of anti-suffragists.

Women’s War Work

Like its counterparts in other states, the New York State Woman Suffrage Party established a War Service Committee in 1917 to implement NAWSA’s wartime plan.  Party members sold Liberty Bonds, worked with the Red Cross and YMCA, and helped conduct a statewide military census.  Suffragists also knitted garments and supplies, and planted gardens to raise food for the war effort.

“In order to do all this work and more, we have had to lay aside much of our suffrage work,” reported WSP head Vera Whitehouse in August. However, “The change in sentiment in regard to women, because of the assistance they have given the government at war, has been enormous.”

Anxious not to lose such favorable support, the WSP publicly condemned the picketing of the White House by Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party. Carrie Catt and others felt that the picketing alienated supporters, harassed the president, and confused the public. NAWSA and the WSP were constantly disassociating themselves from the “disloyal” NWP pickets and never objected to the government’s harsh and illegal treatment of the women during the year.

Still, similar arguments were made by both groups. Like the pickets, The Woman Citizen repeatedly argued that “suffrage for women is a part of that complete democracy so aptly named by Mr. Wilson as the object of this war.”  President Wilson did voice his support during the New York contest.

Harsher Opposition during Wartime

Patriotic appeals linking equal suffrage with the war effort were not enough to silence critics. Anti-suffragists kept up their active opposition, spending tens of thousands of dollars and increasing their personal attacks after the war began. Opponents accused Carrie Catt, Anna Howard Shaw, and other suffragists of having pro-German sympathies and claimed it was disloyal and unpatriotic to work for suffrage in wartime.

Groups like the Manhood Suffrage Association Opposed to Political Suffrage for Women advertised against the initiative, characterizing woman suffrage as an “irreparable calamity.”  Association president Everett P. Wheeler claimed that “Rome fell because her women entered public life.”

After a while, “absurd sallies and misstatement of facts grew tiresome,” recalled Gertrude Brown. “It was not those who labeled themselves anti-suffragists who delayed the coming of suffrage,” she emphasized.  “The dangerous opponents of woman suffrage, those who manipulated legislatures and engineered fraudulent elections, did not label themselves.”

With such powerful yet largely invisible opposition, the election was very much in doubt. Even in the fall, when Mary Garrett Hay predicted victory, Catt confided to Maud Wood Park, “I think Molly’s crazy; for she really believes we’ll win, though so far as I know she is the only person who does.”

Coming Soon  Part 2: “A Million New York Women Want the Vote”

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© 2012 Robert P. J. Cooney, Jr  Adapted from the text of “Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement”