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A movement that lasted over 70 years needed strong leaders to keep it going.
Here are a few of the women who devoted their lives to the suffrage movement.
◀ Victoria Claflin Woodhull (1838–1927) and her sister refused to conform to society’s expectations for women. With support from a wealthy backer, they became the first female stockbrokers on Wall Street. In 1870, Victoria declared she was running for president. With no hope of election, she used her candidacy to raise the issues she believed in. Other suffragists shunned her because of her unconventional behavior.
Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) was born into a Quaker family that was active in the antislavery movement. Anthony taught school for 15 years, but after meeting Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she made the cause of women’s suffrage her life’s work. She traveled and lectured extensively. She appeared before every Congress from 1869 to 1906 to ask for the vote for women. ▶
◀ Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947) took over the presidency of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 80-year-old Susan B. Anthony in 1900. In 1902, Catt helped organize the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. For nine years, she traveled abroad to promote suffrage in other countries. Back in the U.S., she proposed the “Winning Plan” that gained the vote for American women. Afterward, Catt was a founder of the League of Women Voters.
Sojourner Truth (1797–1883) was born into slavery. She was freed when New York outlawed slavery in 1828. Later she traveled widely, speaking on behalf of abolition. In 1850, she attended the first National Woman’s Rights Convention and committed herself to the cause of suffrage. At a convention in 1851, when a clergyman claimed that women were too weak and helpless to be allowed to vote, Truth replied with her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech. Sojourner Truth argued for women to be included in the 15th Amendment. ▶
◀ Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) is sometimes called the “mother of the suffrage movement” for her role in organizing the Seneca Falls convention. She wrote many of Susan B. Anthony’s speeches. Stanton and Anthony met in 1851. They remained lifelong friends, even when they disagreed over the tactics of the movement. Stanton wrote Woman’s Bible, which criticized Christianity’s limited view of women.
Sarah (1792–1873) and Angelina (1805–1879) Grimké were born into a South Carolina slave-holding family. Eventually, they moved north and joined the abolitionist movement. In the 1830s, they were criticized for speaking before mixed groups of men and women. Then they realized that they couldn’t fight for slaves’ rights until women too were free. So they joined the suffragist movement. In 1870, when Sarah was 79 and Angelina 66, they marched with 42 other women in a snowstorm to vote in a local election, while onlookers jeered. ▶
▲ Sarah Grimké
▲ Angelina Grimké
Alice Paul (1885–1977) took part in the more radical protests of the English suffragists. Returning to the U.S., she founded the National Woman’s Party in 1917. She organized protests modeled after English ones and was imprisoned three times. After American women won the right to vote, she earned a law degree. In 1923, she proposed an equal rights amendment to the Constitution and spent the rest of her life fighting for it. Here, from the Capitol, she broadcasts news about the National Woman’s Party.
