It took me a few years, but I finally finished reading all six volumes of The Complete History of Women’s Suffrage. The last volume covers the suffrage actives of women in each state from 1900 to 1920. It’s full of details about who was on which committee, the legislative efforts they made, the names of the representatives who said asinine things about women, and they call out the liquor lobby’s nefarious interference. I’m not recommending you read it.
But I do want to share this one paragraph.
Because this one paragraph, about Georgia, encapsulates what women organized and fought for in all the states, in all those years:
Legislative Action. The first request for woman suffrage was put before the Legislature in 1895, the last in 1920, and in the interim every session had this subject before it, with petitions signed by thousands of women, but during the quarter of a century it did not give one scrap of suffrage to the women of the State. From 1895 bills for the following measures were kept continuously before it: Age of protection for girls to be raised from 10 years; co-guardianship of children; prevention of employment of children under 10 or 12 years old in factories; women on boards of education; opening of the colleges to women. Year after year these bills were smothered in committees or reported unfavorably or defeated, usually by large majorities. In 1912 a bill was passed enabling women to be notaries public; in 1916 one permitting women to practice law, which the suffragists had worked for since 1899; in 1918 one raising the age of consent to 14. The suffrage association had worked for it twenty-three years and always asked that the age be 18.
What did women fight for? For children to have a safe and decent childhood and a future full of opportunities. For women to have an equal voice in how the country was governed.
And look what these women and men accomplished: the vote for women, co-guardianship of children, child labor laws, raising the age of protection so it’s now 16-18 in most states. Not only are women notaries and lawyers (and all the other professions) it’s wonderfully unremarkable. However, child marriage is tragically still a thing in the US and child labor is making a comeback. Some men are even calling for the repeal of the 19th amendment.
I hope we don’t forget these women and their work, because I don’t want us to go back to a time without these hard won rights.