NWHM Woman Suffrage Exhibition

TWO GROUPS AND TWO STRATEGIES TO GAIN THE VOTE


	Suffrage ribbon with photo of Susan B. Anthony.

Men and women who had worked for abolition and women's rights before the Civil War formed the Equal Rights Association to renew their work after the conflict ended. Yet, the Equal Rights Association could not agree on a single strategy to achieve women's right to vote. By 1869, the Association had split into separate, antagonistic camps. By 1870, two new organizations emerged from the wreckage of the Equal Rights Association: the National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony (who had joined the cause in 1850), and the American Woman Suffrage Association headed by Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe. Stanton and Anthony's National Association espoused a radical platform of sweeping social change to improve the status of women, and favored a constitutional amendment to achieve the woman's vote. The very name of their periodical, The Revolution, was evidence of their radical approach to women's rights.



Julia Ward Howe helped found the American Woman Suffrage Association. She was a leader in the woman’s club movement and writer of the famous Civil War song, "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."				Lucy Stone, social reformer, lecturer, and advocate for women’s rights, helped to found the American Woman Suffrage Association, founded The Woman’s Journal, and kept her maiden name after marriage.

Lucy Stone, a pioneer in women's rights, and Julia Ward Howe, a leader in the women's club movement and author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," founded the more moderate American Woman Suffrage Association. This group favored passage of woman suffrage voting laws at the state level. Their periodical, The Woman's Journal, had a more polite, literary tone and generally considered topics within "woman's sphere."


	Classically clad female figure approaching the United States Capitol, with sunburst in background.

Both groups engaged in organizing and educational campaigns throughout the country. Women gave speeches on the lecture circuit, distributed thousands of educational leaflets and pamphlets about votes for women, and rallied support through presentations to women's clubs and temperance (anti-alcohol) groups. Both associations waged relentless and grueling campaigns to support suffrage referenda in the states. The National Association also lobbied Congress. Year after year, Anthony led groups of women lobbyists to urge passage of a constitutional amendment for woman suffrage. Despite all these efforts, Congressional hearings were rarely held, and the question of suffrage was never sent to the floor of Congress for a vote.