Women's Suffrage in Massachusetts
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| 1780 |
Polly Welts Kaufman's Boston Women
and City School Politics, 1872-1905 (New York: Garland,
1994) notes that the 1780 Massachsuetts State Constitution omits
the word "male" as a qualification for elective office
(but left as a qualification for voting).
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| 1848 |
Women's Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls,
NY.
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| 1850 |
On October 23 & 24, the National Women's
Rights Convention is held at Brinley Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Men and women from across the country are in attendance. Of
the 268 names of those who signed-in, 186 were from Massachusetts
(Harriet
H. Robinson, Appendix D).
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| 1866 |
The first meeting of the American Equal Rights
Association is held at the Meionaon in Boston.
First petition to the Massachusetts Legislature, asking that
women might be allowed to serve on school boards, is presented
by Samuel E. Sewall of Boston. The same petition is presented
again in 1867.
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| 1868 |
New England Women's Club is founded at a convention
at Horticultural Hall in Boston. By 1872 the New England Women's
Club Standing Committee of Education states that "the most
pressing business was securing the appointment of women on the
school committee." Around this time women are elected to
school committees in the small Massachusetts towns of Ashfield
and Monroe. The cities of Lynn, Worcester and Boston are soon
to follow.
An analysis of changes in the school committees of Beverly and
Salem is presented in Kaitlin Nylund's Noblese
Oblige, or Self Interest? A Demographic Analysis of School Committee
Membership, Responsibility and Action, 1860-1900 (2002)
A history of the women's club movement, including the New England
Women's Club, is described in Tara Talbot's The
Lothrop Club and Its Contribution to the Women's Club Movement
(2001).
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| 1869 |
A joint special committee on Woman Suffrage is
formed by the Massachusetts State Legislature. The State House
of Representatives votes on the question of municipal suffrage
for women: 68 "yeas" (33.8%) vs. 133 "nays".
The American Equal Rights Association changes the name of their
organization to the National Women Suffrage Association. The
American Woman Suffrage Association is also formed.
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| 1870
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The Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association
is formed at a meeting at Horticultural Hall in Boston.
The Woman's Journal: a Woman's Suffrage Newspaper is
set-up by the New England Association in 1869 and in 1870. According
to Harriet Robinson, "To sustain the Woman's Journal
and furnish money for other suffrage work, two mammoth bazars
[sic] or fairs were held in 1870 and 1871 in the Music Hall
in Boston. Nearly all the New England Sates and many of the
town in Massachusetts were represented by sale-tables in these
bazars [sic]; and as usual donations were sent from all directions,
and the women worked as women will work for a cause in which
they are interested, to raise money to furnish the sinews of
war. Many of them stood day after day behind sale-tables, or
worked in the cafe as caterers and waiters. Women in whose veins
ran some of the best blood in New England, did not hesitate
even at that early date to become identified with the Woman
Suffrage reform." (p.
64-65)
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| 1871 |
In his address before the Massachusetts State
Legislature, William Clafin becomes the first governor of the
state to speak directly on the subject of women's rights. Clafin
recommends a change in the laws regarding suffrage and property
rights of women.
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| 1874 |
Boston elects three women to serve on the school
committee.
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| 1879 |
The Massachusetts Legislature votes to allow
women to vote for school committee members. At the first annual
elections for School Committee about 5,000 women in Massachusetts
became registered voters.
|
| 1879 |
Louisa
May Alcott is the first woman to register to vote for the Concord
School Committee election.
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| 1880-1881 |
The next goal for the women's movement in Massachusetts
is suffrage for municipal elections. For example in Beverly,
a petition is brought before the town meeting "to
see whether the Town will, by its vote or otherwise, ask the
Legislature to extend to women who are citizens, the right to
hold Town offices and to vote in Town affairs on the same terms
as male citizens." These petitions are rejected by
voters.
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| 1881
|
Harriet H. Robinson's Massachusetts
in the Women's Suffrage Movement: A General Political, Legal
and Legislative History from 1774 to 1881 published in Boston.
Massachusetts State House of Representatives again votes on
the question of municipal suffrage for women: 76 "yeas"
(38.3%) vs. 122 "nays"
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| 1892 |
In June, 1892, the poll tax for women in Massachusetts
is abolished. This enables all women citizens of Massachusetts
who can read and write the right to vote for local school committee
members. The percentage of registered women voters continues
to remain quite low. Women are only allowed to vote for school
committee members until 1920. Many women feel that a broader
franchise would encourage more women to vote. As Harriet H.
Robinson writes in 1881, "If the law were really a 'school
suffrage law' and included the question of school appropriations,
school supervisors, ormanagement, the building of enormous and
costly school houses, or even concerning the books their children
were to use, the result might be different, and the women might
become interested...In fact the School Committee question is
not a vital one with either male or female voters, and it is
impossible to get up any enthusiasm on the subject. As a test
question upon which to try the desire of the women to become
voters, it is a palpable sham." (Massachusetts
in the Woman Suffrage Movement)
The Massachusetts School Suffrage Association surveys the number
of women elected to school boards in Massachusetts. In addition
to 4 in Boston, 157 women serve in 112 cities and towns.
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| 1893-1894 |
Josephine
St. Pierre Ruffin founds the Woman's Era Club for black
women in Boston. Its motto is "Make the World Better".
In 1895 the Woman's Era club publishes "The New Era"
the first newspaper/magazine published for an by black women.
Its readers are urged to become involved in public issues such
as suffrage and civil rights.
|
| 1894 |
Although women are allowed to register and vote
in school elections, not very many are signing up.
There is a large disparity in the number of women versus men
registered to vote in Beverly.
|
| 1895 |
Massachusetts holds a non-binding referendum
concerning municipal suffrage for women. Although women are
allowed to vote on this non-binding topic, the vote statewide
is overwhelmingly rejected,
as shown by example of Beverly's vote. Ninety-six percent
of women vote in the affirmative (23,000 out of 24,000; there
were 600,000 eligible women voters), versus only 32% of male
voters (87,000 of 274,000).
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| 1913 |
Beverly Beacon: A Woman's Newspaper
(Beverly, MA) November 1, 1913. ( HTML)
( PDF)
The Beverly Beacon is an interesting presentation
of the conditions and ideals of women in 1913 from a variety
of perspectives. The editors of the paper describe it as "a
paper with a purpose; two purposes, in fact. One is to throw
light on our city, its past and present, its virtues and faults,
and more particularly on the activities and opinions of its
women." This is the only issue we know about; quite possibly
it was the only one that was printed.
|
| 1915 |
Massachusetts males are asked to
vote by referendum on women's suffrage as an amendment to the
United States Constitution. As in 1895, the referendum is once
again defeated by Massachusetts voters,
reflected by the votes in Beverly. The only community in
the state of Massachusetts to vote in favor of suffrage is Tewksbury
with a vote of 149 to 148. Statewide, only 35.5% was in favor.
Four states in the east vote on full suffrage for women: Massachusetts,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York. All four states vote
in the negative.
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| 1920 |
It is not until 1920 with the passing of the
Nineteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution that women in
Massachusetts were availed full voting privileges.
For more detail, read Jen Remare's Women
Voters in Beverly, Massachusetts During the 1920 Election in
Connection to the Woman's Suffrage Movement (1997)
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Other Timelines:
Timeline from
A History of the American Suffragist Movement (ABC-CLIO,
1997)
One
Hundred Years toward Suffrage: An Overview (Library
of Congress) |
Anti-Suffrage Documents
Believe it or not, there was a strong anti-suffrage movement at
the time led by women.
Johnson, Helen Kendrick. Woman
and the Republic — a Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement
in the United States (1897) (Project Gutenberg e-book)
Stevenson, Louise L. "Women Anti-Suffragists in the 1915
Massachusetts Campaign." The New England Quarterly, Vol.
52, No. 1 (Mar., 1979), pp. 80-93.
The
Remonstrance Against Woman Suffrage (1909) (Library of
Congress)
The Remonstrance is published quarterly by the Massachusetts
Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women.
It expresses the views of women in Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode
Island, New York, Illinois, Iowa, Oregon, Washington, and other
states who believe that the great majority of their sex do not
want the ballot, and that to force it upon them would not only
be an injustice to women, but would lessen their influence for
good and imperil the community. The Remonstrants ask a thoughtful
consideration of their views in the interest of fair discussion.
Related Websites and Articles
Votes
for Women: Selections from the National American Women's Suffrage
Association Collection, 1848-1921 (Library of Congress)
The NAWSA Collection consists of 167 books, pamphlets and other
artifacts documenting the suffrage campaign, including Harriet
H. Robinson's Massachusetts
in the Women Suffrage Movement: A General, Political, Legal and
Legislative History from 1774 to 1881. This book, published
in 1881, includes an excellent 88-page appendix of primary documents
such as legislation, convention reports, first-hand accounts,
and more.
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