What It Took to Win “Votes for Women!”
September 16, 2024 | Nancy Kennedy
Stone Hill Arts Book Club: Choosing to Conquer: The Women Who Won the Vote | October 7 @ 6:30 p.m.
Illustrated Talk and Discussion led by Nancy Kennedy, author of Women Win the Vote! 19 for the 19th Amendment
Location: Stone Hill Church Harris Hall (1025 Bunn Dr. Princeton)
Free and open to the public | Ages 13+ welcome!
Registration Requested
Amazon Link for Book Purchase
“The time has come to conquer or submit. For us there is but one choice. We have made it.” Yes, President Woodrow Wilson said these words in regard to winning World War I. But in 1917, another towering historical figure adopted this battle cry as her own. Suffrage leader (and outspoken Jersey Girl!) Alice Paul put those words on a banner that she paraded in front of Wilson’s home — the White House — on a picket line peopled by women who were tired of waiting for men to grant them the right to vote. They’d decided it was time to conquer.
From the start of our country in 1776, women had been shut out from participation in public life. And they protested their second-class status even while the battles of the Revolutionary War raged. “Remember the ladies,” Abigail Adams admonished her husband, John, who was at the Continental Congress. “If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”
Sadly, the organized fight for the woman’s vote was a long way off, but finally in 1848 five women met for tea at a house in Seneca Falls, New York, and they decided it was time to act. They organized a two-day women’s rights convention at the Seneca Falls Wesleyan Methodist Chapel and formalized their complaints and demands in a document they called The Declaration Of Sentiments and Resolutions. The fight was on!
In my book Women Win the Vote! 19 for the 19th Amendment, I profile nineteen women who devoted their lives to this epic civil rights battle. The nineteen women are both those who were prominent in the fight and those who have been overlooked due to racism and class prejudice. You’ll meet some of them in my illustrated talk, “Choosing to Conquer”. Some were women of faith, some were atheists — but all worked toward the single goal of winning the full rights of citizenship for themselves and their American sisters.
Often forgotten is the fact that the suffrage fight went on at not just the national level, but at the state and local level as well. And New Jersey is an exciting state in suffrage history! Remember I said that from the beginning of our country American women couldn’t vote? That’s not entirely true! In 1776, the New Jersey constitution granted women, African American men and immigrants the right to vote. And yet just a few decades later, a new constitution restricted the elective franchise to free, white males. What happened there?
And because Stone Hill Church is in Princeton, I rummaged around in old newspapers and found ample evidence of suffrage activity here in town. Who was for suffrage? Who was against it? Where did the opposing camps meet? And what did Princeton University and seminary students think about women voting? The streets you walk and houses you see today will take on a new layer of meaning when you follow in the footsteps of the suffragists.
I love talking about the three generations of passionate women — and men! — who devoted their lives to righting this glaring civil injustice. Through a trove of vivid historical photos and the actual words the suffragists spoke, you’ll gain an appreciation of the courage and commitment it took for women to carry out their mission — the mission to conquer. Please join me on October 7 at 6:30 p.m. in Harris Hall at Stone Hill Church of Princeton for more on this exciting topic!