‘This Work is God's Cause’: Religion in the Southern Woman Suffrage Movement, 1880–1920
As I began researching religion and woman suffrage in the South I asked a prominent historian of southern religion if he knew of any sources. I had assumed that religion and woman suffrage had an intimate relationship in the South, since historians have amply documented the close connection between southern religion and culture. After scraching his head for a moment, however, he commented dryly, “There really aren't any sources. That will be a short paper.” He went on to explain that religious arguments were seldom used in the struggle for woman suffrage, that natural rights ideology and the social benefits of moral women voting were more common defenses than ones based on Scripture. Even antisuffragists relied on the threat of black women voting and the superfluity of women voting when they were represented by their husbands at the ballot box more often than explicitly religious arguments.