Jennifer A. Lemak & Ashley Hopkins-Benton 
Votes for Women 
Celebrating New York’s Suffrage Centennial

The work for women’s suffrage started more than seventy years before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 when Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and one hundred supporters signed the
Declaration of Sentiments asserting that ‘all men and women are created equal.’ This convention served as a catalyst for debates and action on both the national and state levels, and on November 6, 1917, New York State passed the referendum for women’s suffrage. Its passing in New York signaled that the national passage of suffrage would soon follow. On August 18, 1920, ‘Votes for Women’ was constitutionally granted.




Votes for Women, an exhibition catalog, celebrates the pivotal role the state played in the struggle for equal rights in the nineteenth century, the campaign for New York State suffrage, and the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. It highlights the nationally significant role of state leaders in regards to women’s rights and the feminist movement through the early twenty-first century and includes focused essays from historians on the various aspects of the suffrage and equal rights movements around New York, providing greater detail about local stories with statewide significance.



The exhibition of the same name, on display at the New York State Museum beginning November 2017, features artifacts from the New York State Museum, Library, and Archives, as well as historical institutions and private collections across the state.

Table of Content

Acknowledgments

List of Contributors



A Special Message from
Governor Andrew M.Cuomo

Message from
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

Message from
Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul

Message from Board of Regents
Chancellor Betty A. Rosa and Commissioner of Education
Mary Ellen Elia



Introduction




Section 1. Agitate! Agitate!, 1776–1890



In Writing and In Speech



Petitioning the New York State Government



Ernestine L. Rose



Reform Breeds Reform



What Was It Like for a Woman in the Early Nineteenth Century?



Elizabeth Cady Stanton



Seneca Falls, 1848



Rochester, 1848



Essay—“All Men and Women Are Created Equal”: The Legacy of Seneca Falls


Judith Wellman



Defining citizenship



Lucretia Mott and Martha Coffin Wright



Ladies as Merchants?



1850: First National Women’s Rights Convention, Worcester, Massachusetts



Amelia Bloomer and
The Lily



Dress Reform



Susan B. Anthony



Lifelong Partners: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony



Addressing the New York State Legislature, 1854



Matilda Joslyn Gage



Sojourner Truth



1860 Convention, New York City



After the Civil War



The American Equal Rights Association



The Fourteenth Amendment



The 1867 New York State Constitutional Convention



The Fifteenth Amendment



Essay—Breaking the Law for Freedom: The Campaign of Non-Violent Civil Disobedience for the Vote


Sally Roesch Wagner



The Suffrage Movement Splits: NWSA and AWSA



The 1872 Election and Sixteen Rochester Women



Essay—“Bound Together by the Ties of Humanity”: Sarah Jane Smith Thompson Garnet


Susan Goodier



Pre-Suffrage Women Who Ran for President




History of Woman Suffrage



The Woman’s Bible



Essay—A “Monstrous Absurdity”: The 1886 Suffrage Protest of the Statue of Liberty


Lauren C. Santangelo




Section 2. Winning the Vote, 1890–1920



Creation of the National American Women Suffrage Association



The New York State Woman Suffrage Association



Clubwomen Lead the Charge, 1890–1910



Lifting as We Climb



Essay—“Give Her of the Fruit of Her Hands”: Women’s Suffrage Activity on the Buffalo-Niagara Frontier


Shannon M. Risk



Elizabeth and Anne Miller: A Mother-Daughter Suffrage Team



Harriet May Mills



Women, Suffrage, and Capital Punishment: The Roxy Druse Case



Woman’s Christian Temperance Union: Ally or Enemy to Suffrage?



The New York Suffrage Campaign of 1894



Essay—“Just Cause to Feel Proud”: Chautauqua County’s Leading Role in Grassroots Suffrage Activism


Traci Langworthy



The New Woman: Changing Women, Changing Leaders, and Changing Strategies



Madam C. J. Walker



Harriot Stanton Blatch



Women’s Political Union



Carrie Chapman Catt



Courting Working Women and Immigrants: Lillian Wald, Henry Street Settlement



Shirtwaist Workers: the Uprising of 20, 000 and the Death of 146



Frances Perkins



Suffrage Goes Public



Albany’s Artist and Suffragist



Alice Paul and the Federal Amendment



Women Opposed to Suffrage



Gearing Up for the New York State Referendum: the Politics of Suffrage



Essay—“These Model Families”: Romance, Marriage, and Family in the New York Woman Suffrage Movement


Jessica Derleth



1915 Vote: The Empire State Campaign Committee Versus the Women’s Political Union



1917 vote



Essay—Recognizing Rights: Men in the Woman Suffrage Campaign


Karen Pastorello



Fight for the Amendment



The “Winning Plan”



The United States Goes to War



Voting on the Amendment



League of Women Voters




Section 3. The Continuing Fight for Equal Rights, 1920–present


Equal Rights Amendment



Essay—“An Infusion of Hope”: New York Women in the Post-Suffrage Era


Robert Chiles


The Birth Control Movement



The Modern First Lady: Eleanor Roosevelt



Early Pioneers in New York State Government



Betty Friedan and Pauli Murray Create an NAACP For Women



Publishing the Stories Women
Want to Read



“Fighting Shirley Chisholm—Unbought and Unbossed”



Battling Bella Abzug



The Year of the Woman



Creative Women’s Collective



Preserving Memories and Carrying Forward the Message



Conclusion

Notes

Index

About the author

Jennifer A. Lemak is Chief Curator of History at the New York State Museum. She is the author of
Southern Life, Northern City: The History of Albany’s Rapp Road Community and (with Robert Weible and Aaron Noble)
An Irrepressible Conflict: The Empire State in the Civil War, both also published by SUNY Press.
Ashley Hopkins-Benton is a Senior Historian and Curator at the New York State Museum and the author of
Breathing Life into Stone: The Sculpture of Henry Di Spirito.