WST 470: Women's Studies

The right of women to vote; Throughout the latter part of the 19th cent. the issue of women's voting rights was an important phase of feminism. MORE

The women’s movement was a campaign for the enfranchisement of women. Because suffrage activists in both the United States and Britain did not have the support of any of the main political parties, they experimented with a range of new tactics for attracting attention and support to their cause, which gave their campaign a distinctly modern feel. An organized women’s movement developed first in the United States and then in Britain in the mid-nineteenth century. MORE

Undoubtedly one of the most forceful pioneers of women’s suffrage in the United States, Anthony never gave up hope of winning. MORE

From Encyclopedia of Women Social Reformers
Inspired by the ordination of Antoinette Brown Blackwell in 1853, Olympia Brown set out to become a preacher herself, achieving her goal in 1863 when she was ordained in the Universalist Church. She was also a leading suffragist and pacifist as a member of the Congressional Union and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. MORE

Women’s rights leader and feminist pioneer; She was drawn to the abolitionist, temperance, and women’s rights movements through visits to the home of her cousin, the reformer Gerrit Smith. MORE

Abolitionist and women’s rights activist; In 1850 she was a leader in calling a women’s rights convention at Worcester, MA, and her speech there both won over Susan B Anthony to the cause and inspired John Stuart Mill to write ‘The Enfranchisement of Woman’. MORE

Undoubtedly the dominating presence in the WCTU, Willard devoted her considerable energies to women’s education and suffrage and protective measures for working women. MORE

Her essay A Room of One's Own (1929) has become a feminist classic. MORE

From From Suffrage to the Senate: America's Political Women
Until the passage of married women’s property acts in the mid–nineteenth century, marriage essentially resulted in a woman’s civil death, which included the denial of her right to own property. The acts, however, fueled the debate on women's rights. MORE

From Dictionary of British History
Two statutes that granted basic property rights to married women and were thus important landmarks in the women's movement. MORE

From From Suffrage to the Senate: America's Political Women
The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granted women’s suffrage in 1920 by stipulating that the right to vote could not be denied on the basis of sex.