“Ruffling the Somewhat Calm Domain”
This chapter demonstrates how rural women in upstate villages and towns—often considered to be apolitical—actually embraced the suffrage spirit, causing a number of pro-suffrage hotbeds to emerge outside of New York City. Many suffrage leaders had deep roots in the towns, villages, and farms of the state. Taking advantage of opportunities to participate in the political culture shaped during the transition from an agrarian to a market economy, contingents of rural women helped lay the foundation for a broad-based state suffrage movement. With the broader base of rural women supporting the movement, rural activists could now appeal to husbands and fathers in these areas to garner electoral support. By 1910, leaders shifted campaign tactics from attempting to convince legislators to support suffrage to persuading the (male) electorate to secure a state referendum for women.