What is it about?
This article explores the history of how women won the right to vote in the United States, and argues that it took both approaches -- the moderates working patiently through the political process and the militants frightening the establishment into action -- to make victory.
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Why is it important?
For a long time, historians have debated this issue of credit, often seeing Carrie Chapman Catt and Alice Paul as pursuing conflicting strategies. This article argues instead that while they may have been rivals -- and their personal enmity is well-documented -- their one-two tactical punch actually benefitted the cause.
Perspectives
I am a former political journalist who returned to the university several years ago to pursue a PhD in history. As I began to study the women's rights movement, I was struck by this tendency by historians to award credit to one party or another. Having witnessed politics up close, including the gay rights movement, it seemed to me more likely that both approaches -- the moderate and the militant -- helped push the issue over the finish line.
Johanna Neuman
American University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Faux Debate in North American Suffrage History, Women s History Review, December 2016, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/09612025.2016.1265052.
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