This chapter focuses on the second campaign for woman suffrage in New York State. Following the advent of the Great War, Alice Hill Chittenden, although continuing to serve as president of the state anti-suffrage association, focused her reform energy on war preparedness and the American Red Cross more than on suffrage. Historians have long posited that women won the right to vote as a reward for their war efforts. However, anti-suffragists, individually and as a group, committed their resources earlier and far more fully to the war effort than did suffragists. The Great War so distracted the anti-suffragists that they essentially dropped out of the battle, allowing the suffragists to win sooner than they otherwise would have. This subtle but important detail has been overshadowed by Tammany's famous reversal on the question in 1917. Once women won suffrage in New York State, the federal amendment would soon enfranchise all women in the United States.
The American Red Cross in the Great War
