Aug 15, 2020 03:19 AM
(This post was last modified: Aug 15, 2020 03:26 AM by C C.)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/h...180975573/
EXCERPTS: On Sept. 6, 1870 [...] the polls opened in Laramie, Louisa Swain, an “aged grandam,” cast her vote, and the watching crowd cheered. Many women voted in Laramie [Wyoming] that day, including at least two African American women, who were escorted to the polls by a deputy U.S. marshal. ... Fifty years before the 19th Amendment prohibited discrimination in voting on the basis of sex, these Western women were pioneers of political equality.
[...] After the Civil War ended in 1865, the Reconstruction Amendments made many women citizens but did not guarantee their voting rights. Despite the efforts of national suffrage movements, Eastern and Southern governments proved unreceptive to such a radical concept.
Westerners were more open to the idea of expanding the franchise. Many felt that railroads and corporations were too powerful, and that society and government had become too corrupt, taking power from the common man— and woman. As Mrs. E.P. Thorndyke of California put it in 1880, “This male experiment of a republican form of government has proved a lamentable failure and is fast merging into an oligarchy where fraud, incompetency and tyranny are the marked and leading features.”
Perhaps women could clean up the mess, and bring power to the people. But entrenched interests rarely give up power without a fight. The initial successes [...] were followed by years of setbacks ... Colorado, Utah and Idaho women gained access to the ballot box. But then, progress stalled. Nevertheless, suffragists persisted.
The West’s diverse communities were critical to these campaigns’ success. Many African American, Latina, Chinese American and Indigenous women saw suffrage as a way to empower themselves and their communities. Speaking in San Francisco in 1896, African American suffragist Naomi Anderson argued that “Woman’s suffrage would result in much good to the men as well as to the women, for the black laws on California’s statute books would never be canceled until the women had their rights and cast their votes.”
But even as Western states expanded voting rights to women, many also adopted Southern-style Jim Crow laws, including literacy and English language tests that were often used to disenfranchise immigrants and Latinos. These policies were also deployed against Indigenous communities... (MORE - details)
RELATED (High Country News): Since the 1870s, the West has led the way for women in politics
EXCERPTS: On Sept. 6, 1870 [...] the polls opened in Laramie, Louisa Swain, an “aged grandam,” cast her vote, and the watching crowd cheered. Many women voted in Laramie [Wyoming] that day, including at least two African American women, who were escorted to the polls by a deputy U.S. marshal. ... Fifty years before the 19th Amendment prohibited discrimination in voting on the basis of sex, these Western women were pioneers of political equality.
[...] After the Civil War ended in 1865, the Reconstruction Amendments made many women citizens but did not guarantee their voting rights. Despite the efforts of national suffrage movements, Eastern and Southern governments proved unreceptive to such a radical concept.
Westerners were more open to the idea of expanding the franchise. Many felt that railroads and corporations were too powerful, and that society and government had become too corrupt, taking power from the common man— and woman. As Mrs. E.P. Thorndyke of California put it in 1880, “This male experiment of a republican form of government has proved a lamentable failure and is fast merging into an oligarchy where fraud, incompetency and tyranny are the marked and leading features.”
Perhaps women could clean up the mess, and bring power to the people. But entrenched interests rarely give up power without a fight. The initial successes [...] were followed by years of setbacks ... Colorado, Utah and Idaho women gained access to the ballot box. But then, progress stalled. Nevertheless, suffragists persisted.
The West’s diverse communities were critical to these campaigns’ success. Many African American, Latina, Chinese American and Indigenous women saw suffrage as a way to empower themselves and their communities. Speaking in San Francisco in 1896, African American suffragist Naomi Anderson argued that “Woman’s suffrage would result in much good to the men as well as to the women, for the black laws on California’s statute books would never be canceled until the women had their rights and cast their votes.”
But even as Western states expanded voting rights to women, many also adopted Southern-style Jim Crow laws, including literacy and English language tests that were often used to disenfranchise immigrants and Latinos. These policies were also deployed against Indigenous communities... (MORE - details)
RELATED (High Country News): Since the 1870s, the West has led the way for women in politics
