National American Woman Suffrage Association Founded, 1890
In 1869, the women's suffrage movement split over the 15th Amendment, which granted the vote to black men, but not to women. Some women, like Lucy Stone, thought that any increase in the franchise was a step in the right direction; others, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony thought that an amendment allowing black men to vote without granting women's suffrage was dangerous. In 1890, with Reconstruction over, and the fight over the 15th Amendment long past, the two camps reconciled and founded the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
The founding of NAWSA marked an important step in the national fight for the right to vote, but most of the work was done on a local level. In the absence of an amendment to the national constitution, it was the states that controlled the "time, place, and manner" of elections, and that included whether or not women could participate. In addition, state legislatures would ultimately have to ratify any amendment that Congress passed. Starting with Wyoming, suffragists had a string of successes in the west, where the fight was made easier because of the absence of the social divisions present in the east. By 1910, the battle for women's suffrage had become a mass movement, and in 1916, NAWSA found itself on the conservative side of the movement. Alice Paul, the founder of the rival National Women's Party (NWP), used confrontational methods based on the tactics of the British suffragists. The NWP demonstrated in front of the White House even as the country entered World War I, risking vilification at a time of increased jingoism. In contrast, NAWSA presented itself as patriotic, demanding democracy at home while the country was fighting for democracy abroad. By 1919, suffragists mobilized to win passage of the 19th Amendment.
OCP Resources
National Woman Suffrage Association. Financial report of the National Woman Suffrage Association. [Washington, D.C.?]: National Woman Suffrage Association.
United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Privileges and Elections. Arguments in behalf of a sixteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting the several states from disfranchising United States citizens on account of sex: before the Committee on Privileges and Elections of the United States Senate. [Washington, D.C.: G.P.O., 1879?].
Channing, William Henry. The history of woman suffrage. [S.l.: s.n., 1881?].
International Council of Women. Report of the International Council of Women: assembled by the National Woman Suffrage Association. [Washington, D.C.?] National Woman Suffrage Association, 1888.
Phillips, Wendell. Speeches on rights of women. Philadelphia: Press of A.J. Ferris, 1898.
Cobbe, Frances Power. The Duties of women: a course of lectures. New York: National-American Woman Suffrage Association, 1898.
Woman suffrage hearing. [Massachusetts: s.n., 1901?].
Organizing to win by the political district plan: a handbook for working suffragists. [New York: National American Woman Suffrage Association, 1909-1915?].
Woman suffrage in practice, 1913 / by the International Woman Suffrage Alliance. New York: National American Woman Suffrage Assocation, 1913.
Web Resources
American Memory at the Library of Congress has digitized selections from the National American Woman Suffrage collection. 167 online books, pamphlets and other artifacts document the suffrage campaign.