After watching Katja von Garnier’s “Iron Jawed Angels,” I was truly moved by the remarkable and little-known story of a group of passionate women suffragists, led by Alice Paul and her best friend Lucy Burns, who put their lives on the line to fight for American women’s right to vote. We’ve learned about women suffragists throughout the years in school, but actually seeing the struggles Paul and her group of “bandits” had to go through just to be heard made me realize just how sexist people were until the 1920’s. What Paul and her young suffragist activists endured for those eight or so years will never be forgotten. Modern women have suffragists from one hundred years ago to thank for their place in government and that is phenomenal.
“Iron Jawed Angels” begins in 1912 Philadelphia when Alice Paul and Lucy Burns have a meeting with Carrie Chapman Catt and Anna Howard Shaw of NAWSA (National American Woman Suffrage Association, formed in 1890 by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton). Although Paul and Burns have the same overall intentions as Catt and Shaw, the rebellious spirits of the two younger women clash with the more conservative older women and the meeting is unsuccessful. Paul and Burns want to “go big” so to say and shoot for a constitutional amendment for women to have the right for vote, but Catt and Shaw are partial to the state-by-state approach. Still, Paul is permitted to take over NAWSA's Washington, D.C. committee, provided she and Burns raise their own funds.
They begin planning their first big event, a parade to promote women's suffrage, and recruit a team of volunteers during which Paul meets a Washington newspaper political cartoonist, Ben Weissman, causing romantic sparks to fly. Unfortunately, the pa...
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...eleased from prison as he comes out in its favor in a Congressional speech.
By 1920, 35 states have ratified the amendment, but one more state is needed. Tennessee becomes that state when a recalcitrant legislator casts the deciding vote after receiving a telegram from his mother (a real life event). On August 26, 1920, the Susan B. Anthony Amendment becomes law, and 20 million American women win the right to vote.
After watching “Iron Jawed Angels” a second time, it never fails to amaze me just how long it took President Wilson to support womens’ right to vote and even longer it took to legally give women voting rights. Watching “Iron Jawed Angels” gave me a real-life example of what a suffragist really is and what their determination did for our country. I say shame on our government for waiting until they absolutely had to give America’s women a say in politics.
Martin Pugh, in his evaluation of women’s suffrage, focuses his narrative on the Victorian Suffragists, especially from the 1870s to 1890s, arguing- unlike many other historians- that their contribution to the securing of votes for women was instrumental. Presented through 10 essays, focusing on specific topics related to the Suffragist movement, Pugh provides an in depth analysis of both the tactics and political climate the Victorian Women’s Suffrage movement faced. Organised in roughly chronological order, the prose is fluent with constant reference to central ideas featuring in each text, consolidating Pugh’s point.
That, however, didn’t stop the suffragists from protesting day after day. They held banners and “relentlessly attacked the Democratic administration of President Woodrow Wilson for obstructing the extension of the vote to women” (The Women’s Rights Movement).... ... middle of paper ... ... 03 Dec. 2013.
With the rise of woman suffragists in the mid-nineteenth century came the subsequent rise of anti-suffragists. Surprisingly, however, many of those who opposed woman suffrage were women themselves. In fact, in a letter written to the editor of the New York Times in 1873, one woman maintained, "for every one woman who desires the vote, there are ten [at least] who do not wish to do so" (qtd. in Bjornlund 80). But with so much opposition, why was it that the anti-suffragists lost this battle? It all came down to their tactics. While anti-suffragists were genteel and dignified in their approach, a method consistent with the nature of women (Marshall 352), suffragists were more radical and militant. Though diametrically opposed in their strategies, it was essentially the extremist approach of the suffragettes that ultimately resulted in the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
This movie explains the struggle of American women who, in the beginning of the 20th century, started showing resistance of unequal treatment. In the movie, the National Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was the body that has kicked off advocate that the United States government amend the constitution to allow women the rights to vote. The association was leaded by Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman. In the process, Alice Paul, a University of Pennsylvania doctorate graduate, was introduced to the National Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Alice Paul with her friend Lucy Burns, an Oxford graduate, approached the NWASA leaders, Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman, to discuss how to contribute to the suffrage movement. Alice suggested that a parade will get the attention of Washington politicians and the media, but Anna and Carrie were not willing to fund such effort. They authorized Alice and Lucy to setup the congressional union and go ahead with the parade in Washington; Anna told them that NAWSA will not fund the
During America's early history, women were denied some of the rights to well-being by men. For example, married women couldn't own property and had no legal claim to any money that they might earn, and women hadn't the right to vote. They were expected to focus on housework and motherhood, and didn't have to join politics. On the contrary, they didn't have to be interested in them. Then, in order to ratify this amendment they were prompted to a long and hard fight; victory took decades of agitation and protest. Beginning in the 19th century, some generations of women's suffrage supporters lobbied to achieve what a lot of Americans needed: a radical change of the Constitution. The movement for women's rights began to organize after 1848 at the national level. In July of that year, reformers Elizabeth Cady Stanton(1815-1902) and Lucretia Mott (1793-1880), along with Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) and other activists organized the first convention for women's rights at Seneca Falls, New York. More than 300 people, mostly women but also some men, attended it. Then, they raised public awar...
All adult women finally got the vote with the Nineteenth Amendment, also known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, in 1920.
After the success of antislavery movement in the early nineteenth century, activist women in the United States took another step toward claiming themselves a voice in politics. They were known as the suffragists. It took those women a lot of efforts and some decades to seek for the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In her essay “The Next Generation of Suffragists: Harriot Stanton Blatch and Grassroots Politics,” Ellen Carol Dubois notes some hardships American suffragists faced in order to achieve the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Along with that essay, the film Iron-Jawed Angels somehow helps to paint a vivid image of the obstacles in the fight for women’s suffrage. In the essay “Gender at Work: The Sexual Division of Labor during World War II,” Ruth Milkman highlights the segregation between men and women at works during wartime some decades after the success of women suffrage movement. Similarly, women in the Glamour Girls of 1943 were segregated by men that they could only do the jobs temporarily and would not able to go back to work once the war over. In other words, many American women did help to claim themselves a voice by voting and giving hands in World War II but they were not fully great enough to change the public eyes about women.
Through out history, Americans have fought for the rights of freedom in their country, freedoms that have been passed down through dozen’s of generations. Freedom’s such as religion, speech, press, slavery and the right to vote. Americans, though very aware of their freedoms, often take them for granted and forget the struggles that their ancestors went through to obtain them. One example of this struggle is a woman’s right to be treated and looked upon by the government as equals. This was not an easy battle to win, and it took a strong few to begin to bring the struggle that women had faced for centuries to an end.
While the women’s suffrage movement was none violent and mainly carried out by organized meetings, lobbying congressman, and picketing protests, the women that participated in it could do nothing to stop the violence of their oppressors from coming to them. In January 1917, the National Women’s Party, led by suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, began to picket, six days a week, in front of the white house for their right to vote. At first largely ignored, they became under frequent attack with no help from the police. Then starting th...
In 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was sign into the Constitution, granting women the rights to vote.
Suffragists fought very hard for nearly a century to get the Nineteenth Amendment passed. Most people are aware of the great efforts by such suffragists as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, originating in the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. However, what many people do not realize is the eugenic and racist ideas that the suffragists espoused. Why did the suffragists have these ideals, and where did they get them from? The sources discuss the suffragists’ motives in having these ideals, describe how these ideals advanced suffrage, and explain what larger implications this had in America both historically and politically.
It was Theodore Roosevelt, who stated that, “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care”, conveying the idea that with no voice comes no change. In the morning of August 26, 1920, the 19th amendment was ratified, which centralized mainly on the enfranchisement of women. Today, they have the legal right to vote, and the ability to speak openly for themselves, but most of all they are now free and equal citizens. However this victorious triumph in American history would not have been achieved without the strong voices of determined women, risking their lives to show the world how much they truly cared. Women suffragists in the 19th century had a strong passion to change their lifestyle, their jobs around the nineteenth century were limited to just children, family, and domestic duties. It consisted of a very low rate of education, and job opportunities. They could not share their opinion publicly and were expected to support their male family members and husbands during the time. Women knew that the way to enfranchisement was going to be tenacious, and full of obstacles along the way. Therefore a new organization was formed, The National American Women Association (NAWSA), representing millions of women and Elizabeth Cady Stanton as the first party president. This organization was founded in 1890, which strategized on the women getting education in order to strengthen their knowledge to prepare for the suffrage fight. NAWSA mainly focused on the right to vote one state at a time. In 1917, a member named Alice Paul, split apart from NAWSA because of the organization’s tactics and major goals. Due to this split, many other suffragists from NAWSA bitterly divided into a new organization named, National Women’s ...
In the year 1873, a speech was given which would change America and women’s rights forever. For one of the first times in history, a woman is the one standing up for political and social issues during the mid-1800’s. Susan B. Anthony was 52 years old when she was fined $100 for casting an illegal ballot during an 1872 presidential election which in turn Anthony refused to pay the fine and fought for the rights of women. Her persistence and eagerness could be heard and felt in the speeches she gave across the country. After her arrest, Anthony gave a speech which was titled "Is it a Crime for a Citizen of the U.S. to Vote?” which approached the inequality that surround the men and women of the United States before 1875. It was time for change and her perseverance came at the right moment. The mutual feeling other women clutched to helped propel her speech and her ideas into action which lead to their being a success in equality and the 19th amendment being added to the Constitution.
The girls even got to meet with President Wilson. He didn’t want to support the women and hardly listened to the women’s pleads. Another tactic that women used was forming picket lines outside of the White House. Many girls were stationed by the president’s home to try to get Woodrow Wilson to support women’s right to vote. Alice Paul stood out there and read quotes said by the president that were about democracy, freedom and rights, then burned them to show how they meant nothing to him. Wilson did not follow what he said was right, so the women decided to use that against him to fight for their rights. They stood there throughout summer, fall and even winter, standing on hot bricks to keep warm. and every morning the president would tip his hat to them, not showing how much he hated those women. After World War I the people who were in the picket lines got arrested for “obstructing traffic” and were thrown in prison. A third method of obtaining women’s suffrage was the hunger strike. While in prison, Alice decided to strike against the development and not eat. Once everyone else in the facility realized what she was doing, they joined the hunger strike with
Reaction Paper 1: Iron Jawed Angels “Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity” (von Garnier, 2004, part 10) and that is exactly what courage was viewed as when the women’s suffrage movement erupted in the mid 1800’s and it was quite the uphill battle from there. Iron Jawed Angels captures the height of the women’s suffrage movement with Alice Paul, a liberal feminist, as the front woman in the battle against Congress. Paul’s determination to pass a constitutional amendment can be seen through her dauntless efforts to go against the societal norms of the time to fight for women’s rights. Through the first wave of the women’s suffrage movement seen in Iron Jawed Angels, the struggles women endured for equality have a lasting impact on American society.