Progressive Women

[abluelady]

Does anyone know of a good book that gives the history of the women's movement from way back to voting rights for women? Thanks.

[Morgana LaFey]

1. Hah! I used to

But, here's the google search for ya: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=History+Women%27s+Suffrage&spell=1

Lots of info online.

[abluelady]

2. Thanks.

I was being lazy :>) and wanted one title that told me everything about progressive women. Those are great resources and I'm sure there will be some book titles in the articles.

[necklace]

3. No, but I tend to read about Progressive Women in Difficult Times...

My personal preferences are biographies of women who have excelled in spite of the overwhelming odds against them.

My favorite biographies include:
The Life of Elizabeth I
A Woman Named Jackie

My next biographical search is on Eleanor Roosevelt.

Hope that helps!

[SemperEadem]

5. another good biography to read

would be Catherine de Medicis' biography by Leonie Freida--it is really well written and goes into depth about the enormous difficulties put in her path by rapacious men trying to steal her sons' thrones. If you've studied Elizabeth I Tudor's life, this book will aid in rounding out the picture with regards to England, France, Scotland, Spain, Catholicism and Protestantism.

[SemperEadem]

4. if you're starting with voting rights.

you might also want to look at England's suffragette history... They also went through hell to gain the vote. It was compounded further by the fact that Queen Victoria, a Queen Regnant, not Consort, was, ironically, bitterly opposed to women gaining the vote. In fact, she said: " I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Women's Rights', with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feelings and propriety. Feminists ought to get a good whipping. Were woman to 'unsex' themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection."

The two women who followed her as Queen Consorts, Alexandra and Mary, neither of them favored the vote for women.

Interestingly, New Zealand was the first country to allow women the vote in 1893.

In 1878, a constitutional amendment was proposed that provided "The right of citizens to vote shall not be abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." This same amendment would be introduced in every session of Congress for the next 41 years.

from http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/nineteentham.htm:

In July 1890, the Territory of Wyoming, which allowed women to vote, was admitted as a state. Wyoming became the first state with women suffrage. By 1900, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho joined Wyoming in allowing women to vote.

In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive (Bull Moose) Party became the first national political party to have a plank supporting women suffrage. The tide was beginning to turn.

In May, 1919, the necessary two-thirds vote in favor of the women suffrage amendment was finally mustered in Congress, and the proposed amendment was sent to the states for ratification. By July 1920, with a number of primarily southern states adamantly opposed to the amendment, it all came down to Tennessee. It appeared that the amendment might fail by one vote in the Tennessee house, but twenty-four-year-old Harry Burn surprised observers by casting the deciding vote for ratification. At the time of his vote, Burns had in his pocket a letter he had received from his mother urging him, "Don't forget to be a good boy" and "vote for suffrage." Women had finally won the vote.