Ratification

Chapter 1 describes two national suffrage organizations’ efforts, in the final years prior to ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. It highlights the split between members of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), over whether a state-by-state approach to suffrage, or a federal suffrage amendment, was the best strategy to achieve the vote for women. That split caused Alice Paul to form a separate organization, the National Woman’s Party (NWP). The chapter foreshadows how that deep division had an impact on the constitutional development of the federal suffrage amendment, after its eventual ratification in 1920.

Alice Paul: Claiming Power

Erica Ryan reviewing Alice Paul: Claiming Power, by J.D. Zahniser and Amelia R. Fry.

Passages: Feminism, Journalism, and the Transatlantic Twenties

After the vote was won, Crystal Eastman hoped to transform successful but single-issue suffragism into a class- and race-conscious, transnationally minded feminism. She ran afoul of Alice Paul, unquestioned leader of the National Woman’s Party, who wanted another targeted single-issue campaign. By 1923, Eastman, Paul, and the organization agreed on the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) as their new “great demand.” In its all-encompassing simplicity, the ERA solved the problem of how a single-issue campaign could seek redress for the huge and complicated problem of gender inequality. Unfortunately, the idea splintered coalitions in the wider women’s movement, alienating the party from a whole network of once-compatible Progressive groups. Eastman, now living in her husband’s native London with their children, worked as a journalist, covering this debate. By 1926, little progress had been made, and she welcomed a fresh tack. She began working with Paul to campaign for equal rights provisions in international treaties.

The Federal Case for Women’s Suffrage

In 1911, following the loss of her mother, Crystal Eastman married Wallace “Bennie” Benedict and moved to his home state of Wisconsin. Unable to find work as a lawyer, she accepted a job as campaign manager for the state’s suffrage drive. After a vicious battle, including opposition from the powerful brewing industry and elected officials, the measure lost two to one. Eastman returned to the Village in 1913, with Bennie in tow. He would soon initiate an affair, inciting a divorce that was finalized in 1916. Meanwhile, Eastman had united with Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, organizing the younger, more confrontational suffrage women to found the militant wing of the suffrage movement that became the National Woman’s Party. The group’s actions inside and outside the US Congress, including spectacular demonstrations and White House picketing to target the “party in power”—Woodrow Wilson and the Democrats—would finally leverage votes for women.

Apostles of Equality: James Brown Scott and the Feminist Cause

Chapter 6 tracks the story of an unlikely alliance between Scott and leading feminist activists Doris Stevens and Alice Paul. The first section provides a short history of the women’s rights movement in the United States and details how Paul and Stevens rose to become key figures in the battle for women’s suffrage. Section 2 tracks the early interest by feminist activists in international politics. As Paul and Stevens moved toward internationalism, Scott moved closer to the positions of women’s rights activists by becoming a supporter of the equality of sexes under nationality law. Section 3 follows the collaboration between Scott and the feminist leaders. Beginning in 1928, the collaboration would peak in 1933 with the approval at the Montevideo Pan-American Conference of two equal rights treaties.

Pioneering International Women’s Rights? The US National Woman’s Party and the 1933 Montevideo Equal Rights Treaties

Histories of equal rights for women in international law normally begin with post-World War II initiatives. Such an approach leaves out two treaties signed at the 1933 Montevideo Pan-American Conference, the Equal Nationality Treaty and the Equal Rights Treaty, which remain forgotten among international lawyers. By reconstructing their inception and intellectual background, this article aims to raise awareness about debates on international law among feminist activists in the interwar years. In turn, the focus on activist work allows for the recovery of the contribution of women to the development of the discipline in that seminal period, a contribution usually obfuscated by men’s predominance in diplomatic and academic roles. By outlining the contribution of two key promoters of the Montevideo treaties – Doris Stevens and Alice Paul of the National Woman’s Party – the article takes a step towards the re-inclusion of women’s rights activists within the shared heritage of international law and its history.

Unequal Women Working for Women’s Equality

Chapter 2 demonstrates how having money at their disposal (or a lack of it) affected suffrage association officers’ ability to make decisions about where and how to carry out the suffrage campaign. It also allowed for the development of new tactics and strategies alongside traditional methods. This chapter posits that gifts from wealthy women, including Mrs. Frank Leslie’s million-dollar bequest, paid for organizers to travel to the states to campaign at the state level; initiated a publicity blitz, including newspapers and parades; and financed the “winning plan” that combined state-level efforts with a focus on the federal amendment, ultimately leading to passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. It offers a new way to understand the split between the two major suffrage associations by focusing on the role of money and conflict between Katharine McCormick and Alice Paul over fundraising. The chapter also examines the conflict that developed when funding disproportionately came from a small number of wealthy individuals. Donors like Alva Belmont tied their gifts to demands, such as who should hold office and where headquarters should be located, causing resentment of money power in the movement.