Social:
Author: Myrtle Bastien
School/Organization:
University City High School
Year: 2009
Seminar: American Political Culture
Grade Level: 9-12
Keywords: African American, African American women, class discrimination, disenfranchised, gender discrimination, High School, important struggle, partisan interests, racial discrimination, right to vote
School Subject(s): African American History, American History, Political Science, Social Studies
Why was the struggle for the franchise for African Americans and for African American women in particular so difficult? There is no simple answer to the question, but records reveal that several leading factors, including racial, gender, and class discrimination, as well as partisan interests, all played an important role of African American men and women not having the right to vote. This unit will provide teachers and students with the opportunity to analyze and explore many aspects of this important struggle, which despite great progress still continues today.
Although women did not receive the vote via the 15th Amendment in 1870, they were enfranchised in a few states in the late 19th century; many more in the early 20th century; and the 19th Amendment, which went into effect in 1920, meant that women were eligible to vote everywhere in the U.S. after then. African American women, however, often still found themselves disfranchised by literacy tests, lengthy residency requirements, poll taxes and a host of other racially discriminatory devices that were not eliminated until the end of the 1960’s.
This unit is recommended for high school use, and it can be adapted for other grade levels.
Download Unit: Bastien-2.pdf
Did you try this unit in your classroom? Give us your feedback here.
My curriculum concerns African Americans and the Woman Suffrage Movement. The emphasis is placed on women in Pennsylvania. Suffrage means the right to vote. It has been a subject of controversy throughout our history. It is the fundamental right of our system, which relies on “the consent of the governed”. During the early years of the republic, voting was restricted to white men who owned property. Later in our history we see that eventually all men met the requirement for suffrage, but women, particularly African American women, were still denied the right to vote. I chose this topic because African American women have been largely left out of the written history of the Woman Suffrage Movement. Yet many African American women supported women’s suffrage. Such notables as Frances Ellen Watkins Harper attended the conventions of the mostly white American Woman’s Suffrage Association in the 1870’s. They did so as part of a longer history of African American women’s involvement in struggles for voting rights. Often these focused first on overcoming racial barriers to voting applied to African American men, as African American women believed that if the men in their community voted, their voices would be heard. Prominent people such as Robert Purvis wrote in his document, “Appeal of Forty Thousand” in favor of a natural right of all citizens of Pennsylvania to vote. African Americans did vote in Pennsylvania after the Revolution, but they were then prohibited from voting in 1838. By 1871, the Fifteenth Amendment enabled African Americans to regain their suffrage, but African American voting precipitated riots and led to the unpunished murder of Philadelphia civil rights leader Octavius Catto. After African American men officially gained the vote, even if it was widely challenged and suppressed, African American women became more involved in the Women Suffrage campaign. There is in fact an insufficient accounting of the place of African women in the history of the Woman Suffrage in current scholarship and teaching. Here I attempt to place what I have researched on this important topic in the history of the American people. After the American Revolution, women voted only in New Jersey, and they lost the franchise there in 1807. African American men voted in many northern and some southern states in the early Republic, but they often faced special restrictions, and many states like Pennsylvania began denying them the vote in the late antebellum era. The result was a series of political struggles for the suffrage for both African Americans and women that often included violence. Although African American men officially gained the vote via constitutional amendment in 1870 and many voted through the 1890s, Jim Crow disfranchisement laws prevented many from voting up until enforcement of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Supreme Court long upheld Jim Crow franchise restrictions but gradually began to hand down decisions that extended and protected the right to vote. Although women did not receive the vote via the 15th Amendment in 1870, they were enfranchised in a few states in the late 19th century; many more in the early 20th century; and the 19th Amendment, which went into effect in 1920, meant that women were eligible to vote everywhere in the U.S. after then. African American women, however, often still found themselves disfranchised by literacy tests, lengthy residency requirements, poll taxes and a host of other racially discriminatory devices that were not eliminated until the end of the 1960’s. The last group that was given the right to vote in America was eighteen year olds, who protested being drafted to serve in a Vietnam War when they could not vote on the officials deciding their fate. Many of those serving as disfranchised citizens were African American. Why did all this happen? Why was the struggle for the franchise for African Americans and for African American women in particular so difficult? There is no simple answer to the question, but records reveal that several leading factors, including racial, gender, and class discrimination, as well as partisan interests, all played an important role of African American men and women not having the right to vote. This unit will provide teachers and students with the opportunity to analyze and explore many aspects of this important struggle, which despite great progress still continues today. This unit is recommended for high school use, and it can be adapted for other grade levels.
For more than the past 200 years, groups that were once denied the right to vote have struggled to gain that right. The history of suffrage in America has been a continuous struggle to extend the right to vote to nearly all adults in America. By participating in the Teachers Institute of Philadelphia seminar on American Political Culture, I have gained more understanding of the great arguments that have taken place within the United States over the ideas or beliefs in popular self-government and individual rights and liberties used by the American revolutionary leaders to justify their break with Britain—though they were not prepared to extend rights of self-government to all the members of their new republics. Being a Social Studies teacher in the city of Philadelphia, the cradle of liberty, the place of the writing and signing of our Constitution, which states “We the People…” have established the government of the United States, I seek with this unit to enable students to acquire knowledge about the struggle for Women’s Suffrage, a struggle which led to the franchise being held by nearly all adult Americans. The start of the women’s suffrage movement was actually a dispute over the call for a World’s Anti-slavery Convention in London, England issued by British abolitionists in June 1840. They never dreamed that women would answer their call. But the delegates of notables from Philadelphia included Lucretia Mott, Sarah Pugh, Abby Kimber, Elizabeth Neal and Mary Grew, who all insisted on attending the conference but were not formally suited with the official delegates. Instead they were required to sit in a special roped-off section at the back. Readers should note that these women were not only Quakers but refined and educated, leaders in Philadelphia’s Female Anti -Slavery Society. The prejudices against women at the convention grew hostile and bitter, forcing a motion that a committee of five be appointed to prepare a correct list of the members of the Convention, and instructions to include all persons bearing credentials from any Anti-Slavery body. This motion made it possible for women to be recognized as delegates. Indeed there was a great debate over sitting women, but would they have sat black men such as Frederick Douglass or a Robert Purvis at the convention? The controversy showed that even supporters of rights for African American women were often not ready to support rights for women. It seemed impossible at that time for all but the most liberal of men to understand what liberty meant for women. After this searing experience, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton agreed to hold a woman’s rights convention on their return to America. Thus a mission for the emancipation of women was inaugurated. During the 19th century, as male suffrage was gradually extended in much of the English– speaking world, women became increasingly active in the quest for their own suffrage. In Great Britain the cause for women suffrage greatly benefited from the support of the philosopher John Stuart Mill, influenced by his wife Harriet Mill. Ms. Lydia Becker also became a leading advocate of the rights of women to vote and started a committee in Manchester England. Other committees were formed, and in 1897 they united as the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, with Millicent Garret Fawcett as president. The British suffragettes struggled for social and political rights, but did not allow other issues to interfere with their main goal. Though the British suffragettes inspired their American counterparts and won the vote for women over 30 in 1918, they did not achieve equal voting rights for men and women until 1928. The female abolitionists who went to the convention in Great Britain during the year of 1840 came home to United States convinced of the need for a movement for women. This movement has in the century and half since then inspired other movements for social change. American champions of women’s suffrage led by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton first seriously formulated their demand for the right to vote at the famous Seneca Falls convention upstate New York in July, 1848. During this historical time period, forces of freedom and change intersected the forces of stability and tradition. It was the Jacksonian Era or the “Age of the Common Man,” and the principle of universal suffrage for white males had come to be widely recognized, removing a number of largely economic voting restrictions. But bans on African American voting and women voting continued. Beginning in 1849, and for more than 50 years thereafter, Susan B. Anthony became perhaps the most important of the great leaders who fought for woman to obtain the right to vote. Methods that woman suffragists used to draw attention to their cause, beginning with the little convention at Seneca Falls and growing to a movement that used meetings, speeches, petitions, literature, and more for the purpose of securing legislation favorable to women, continue to be used by champions of women’s rights today. But though the Civil War and struggles for control of the country after the war prompted the Republican Party to end slavery and then to enfranchise African American men, women remained excluded from the vote. The passing of the 14th and 15th Amendments, neither of which explicitly protected women, agitated and outraged women activists for equal rights, and their lack of the ballot became increasingly upsetting. Section 1 of the “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law, which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Readers of course will realize that the 14th Amendment was intended to protect the legal rights of the freed slaves. But in Section 2, states were threatened with loss of representation in Congress only if they disfranchised men, not women, despite the protests of women’s suffrage proponents. The 15th Amendment (1870) came about as the product of both African Americans themselves arguing for their constitutional rights and from the efforts of Republicans, many of whom sought meaningful equality for the freed people and all of whom wanted to win elections, to gain political strength against those who sought to defeat the African American, particularly the southern Democrats. Its language stated: Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article Indeed Amendment 15 prohibits the government from denying a person’s right to vote on the basis of race. This amendment was a great victory for African Americans; but it did not prevent states from denying the franchise on the basis of sex. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and others refused to endorse the amendment, because it did not grant women the ballot. In 1871, the year following the ratification of the 15th Amendment, a voting rights petition sent to Congress requested that suffrage rights be extended to women. Many men argued that women had no place at the polling booth. Angered by those remarks, women and their male allies organized parades, drew petition, picketed the White House, and when they were arrested went on hunger strikes in jail. Other suffragists applauded the 15th Amendment, however. They argued that once African American men were enfranchised, women would achieve their goal. From this divide, two organizations emerged. Stanton and Anthony formed the National Women Suffrage Association to work for suffrage on the federal level and press for the granting of property rights to married women, while Lucy Stone created the American Women Suffrage Association, which aimed to secure the ballot through state legislation. In 1890, with the suffrage campaign in the doldrums, the two groups united, forming the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). It eventually led the successful fight for the 19th Amendment, sometimes known as the “Susan B. Anthony Amendment,” which granted women the suffrage in 1920. Also important was the National Woman’s Party, led by Alice Paul, a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, who called not just for the vote but for stricter equality between men and women in all spheres of life than many NAWSA members were prepared to accept. When the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, Philadelphia was one of the largest state in which women had not previously had the right to vote. Women like Dora Lewis and Caroline Katzenstein were active in the Pennsylvania national branches of both the National American Women Suffrage Association and the National Woman’s Party. Pennsylvania’s prior history in regard to voting presented a checkered past. By examining the history of the Constitution of Pennsylvania from the time of independence in 1776 to 1873, we can see an actual regression in who could vote. Qualifications of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 seemed to allow African Americans the right to vote. But in 1838, a new state constitutional amendment explicitly denied African Americans the right to vote. Robert Purvis, the Amherst-educated African American abolitionist who had joined with William Lloyd Garrison to found the American Anti-Slavery Association in 1833, sought to prevent this deprivation through publishing “The Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens Threatened with Disfranchisement.” His efforts showed the strong desire of African Americans to vote. But as the convention was being formed in 1837, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declared in Fogg v. Hobbs that African Americans were not “freemen” within the meaning of the 1790 state constitution, so delegates could claim they were not departing from founding understandings in depriving African Americans of the vote. Democracy in Pennsylvania regressed instead of progressed. Even though the 14th and 15th Amendment completely left women out, women activists still tried to turn the broad language of the 14th Amendment, especially, to their advantage, along with state constitutional provisions. Carrie Burham a white women residing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, indicated that she was a citizen, not just a woman, and tried to vote on October 1871. She argued that according to the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1838, she was eligible to cast a ballot. She indicated that she was older than 21, had resided in the state for more than a year, and had paid taxes. She contended that she was a “freeman” and that the 14th Amendment protected her right to vote because she was a United States citizen. By the same logic, the African American women of the state should have also been entitled to vote, so her argument extended to them as well. That may have been why African American women began attending Suffrage Association conventions thereafter. By 1896 the National Association of Colored Women was formed, linking more than 100 African American Clubs around the country, which provided an organized way for African American women to advance their interests, including interests in voting. Philadelphia women continued to play important roles in the suffrage movement. In 1913 Alice Paul and Lucy Burns formed the Congressional Union to work toward the passage of a federal amendment to give women the vote. The group was later renamed the National Women’s Party. Members picketed the White House and practiced forms of disobedience while picketing, in the manner of the British suffragettes. But the proposed 19th Amendment to the Constitution drove a wedge between more radically egalitarian and more traditional feminists, and especially between black and white advocates of women’s political rights. Many southern whites warned that granting women the right to vote would increase the number of black votes. Consequently, even as white women worked for the vote for themselves, many were not willing to work to oppose the “Jim Crow” practices, like grandfather clauses and literacy and poll taxes applied in discriminatory ways that prevented African Americans from voting. Nor did they oppose laws restricting women to certain occupations, laws that Alice Paul saw as barriers to full equality, but many white women saw as appropriate to their gender and also as further barriers to racial equality. On August 26, 1920 the 19th Amendment to the Constitution granted women the right to vote, signed into law by Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby- a victory for all women, but many racial barriers to voting persisted in Pennsylvania as elsewhere. Alice Pauls’ proposed Equal Rights Amendment also did not win ratification in the 1920s, nor has it ever been adopted at the national level. Nonetheless, progress in Pennsylvania did continue. In1938, Crystal Bird Fauset, a Philadelphia Democrat, became the first African American woman in the U.S. to elect to a state assembly, a victory that could not have occurred without voting rights and other political rights for women. Today in 2009, the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania reads very differently than it did in the 19th century. Article I of the Constitution is a “Declaration of Rights,” and Section 28 states explicitly: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania because of the sex of the individual.” The U.S. Constitution may not contain the “Alice Paul Amendment,” but the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania does. As students read sources on these topics, questions should be raised about whether many traditional accounts of the Woman Suffrage Movement fail to represent adequately African American women’s struggles against disenfranchisement. It should be noted that the standard account of the right to vote ended in 1920, with the ratification of the 19th Amendment, but struggles to win real voting rights for African Americans, including African American women, continued for nearly fifty years or more.Women’s Suffrage
Women’s Suffrage in Great Britain
Women’s Suffrage in the United States
14th Amendment (1868) did use universal language:
Pennsylvania
Students will be able to understand and learn:
This unit employs recommended strategies for preparing students for new knowledge, guiding them through the learning of new material, and assessing their success, while prompting them to reflect on what they have learned. Here is a summary of these strategies: 1). Preview Vocabulary 2). Preview Analyze Connect 3). Reciprocal Teaching 4). Summarize and Synthesize through writing 5). Comprehension Constructors 6). Structured Notebook These strategies can be implemented in the following general steps: Form a mental image of time period Clarify misunderstandings Have students read ahead and reread. Classes can involve both SSR (Sustain Silent Reading) and Read Aloud activities. Assessments Response Reflection and Reaction Vocabulary Activity-Related Words Reflection and Reaction-Short Essay Reflection and Reaction-Summary Materials/Documents Primary Sources Using: Maps, Census, Letters, Photos Textbooks: American Vision and African American HistoryHigh School Plan: Six Strategies for School Wide Success
Pre Reading, Teacher will activate:
During Class, Teacher will set questions for Reading:
After Reading, Teacher will have students summarize major ideas; read authentic passages, narratives from letters, etc.
Students will note that some groups are not allowed to vote. Test students’ knowledge by conducting the “Who Can Vote?” Conduct the discussion on whether those groups who cannot vote should be allowed to do so. Are there groups on the list who have the right to vote but might face obstacles in casting their ballot and having it conducted? What are the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendment? When were they ratified? Is it true that the 15th Amendment excluded women? Did African American Women, directly or indirectly, gain or lose from the 15th amendment? What meaning did African Americans attach to the 15th Amendment? What reasons did Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and other opponents of the 15th Amendment give to justify their opposition to the 15th Amendment? Why did the majority of African American women not join in with white suffragists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in opposing and working to defeat the Fifteenth Amendment? How did the arguments many white suffragists make in support of the 19th Amendment drive a wedge between African American women and white suffragists? Disenfranchise: To deprive of the right to vote. When white American Democrats regained power after Reconstruction, they passed laws that made voter registration almost impossible for the African American to vote. Elections were made more complicated and many African Americans were forced off the voting rolls, making it impossible for African Americans to elect representatives. Enfranchisement: To give rights of a citizen and or group of people the right to vote State’s rights: The 10th Amendment states taht the powers not delegated to the U. S by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. This amendment was the basis of the doctrine that became the antebellum rallying cry of the Southern states, which sought to restrict the ever-growing powers of the federal government. Jim Crow: Term associated with segregated public spaces and amenities AERA: The American Equal Rights Association organization that from 1866 to 1869 worked to secure equal rights to all Americans citizens, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color, or sex. 14th Amendment: This Amendment to the Constitution compels states to accept their native-born and naturalized residents as citizens and to guarantee their rights as citizens. U.S. vs. Reese, 1876: Supreme Court case in which the U.S. Supreme Court began upholding such practices as the poll tax, the literacy test, and the grandfather clause. This helped to undermine African Americans and their rights included in the 15th amendment to the U.S. Constitution NAWSA: National American Women’s Suffrage Association, formed in 1890 from two earlier societies that stimulated movement for women. The National Suffrage Association and the American Women’s Suffrage Association were two rival groups that split after the Civil War over the 15th Amendment. The NSA opposed the 15th Amendment because it didn’t include women, while the AWSA was willing to supportit and still continue the fight for voting rights for women. The groups also differed on many other issues. The NSA addressed many women’s concerns such as property rights, divorce, education, etc., while the AWSA concentrated on voting rights for women. 19th Amendment (1920): This Amendment to the United States Constitution granted women the right to vote by banning restrictions on the basis of sex. The 24th Amendment (1964): Finally abolished poll taxes for federal elections 1965 Voting Rights Act: Many African Americans and their allies were jailed, beaten and even killed in the struggle for voting rights and other reforms brought on as a result of the Civil Rights Movement. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for not allowing African Americans to vote. By the late 1960’s, great progress had been made in ensuring that African Americans could utilize the right to vote as promised in the Fifteenth Amendment. Harper vs. Virginia State Board of Election (1966): Supreme Court decision ruling poll taxes illegal in state and local elections as well as national ones.. 26th Amendment (1971): The final extension of the franchise occurred during the Vietnam War. The argument that if 18 year olds served in the military, then they were old enough to vote, served to win support for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing that the franchise would not be denied to those 18 or older on account of age. At the end of the unit students will also be able to determine the following: Women’s Rights are a continuing struggle in United States. There is an old saying that “It is a man’s world”. This really describes United States of the past. Women are still working for an American dream of equal opportunity. I am hoping that through this unit, students will get a sense of seeing history through the eyes of the women I listed who were making decisions, not just for themselves, but for all Americans. I hope that students actually get a sense of the historian’s craft, discovering for themselves how to analyze evidence, establish a valid interpretation, and be able to construct a relevant contribution to women’s history. List of historical figures studied in the unit: Alice Paul Elizabeth Cady Stanton Susan B. Anthony Lucy Stone Caroline Katzenstein Dora Kelly Lewis Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Charlotte Forten Margaretta Forten Lucretia Mott Frances Jackson Coppin Sojourner Truth Robert Purvis Frederick Douglass Modern but deceased Women of Philadelphian Delores Tucker Connie Clayton Ruth Hayre Goldie WatsonReading Assignment: Read “Brief History of Suffrage” and discuss the following questions:
After the session, the instructor will lead the group into a dialogue centered on the following questions:
Discussion and Note Taking
Rosalyn Terborg-Penn. African American Women in the Struggle for the Vote, 1850-1920. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998. An invaluable overview of the unit’s themes and content. Benjamin Quarles.”Frederick Douglass and the Women’s Rights Movement.” Journal of Negro History Vol. 25: January, 1940, pp. 35-44. An important article of Douglass’s relationship to the struggle for women’s suffrage. Rhonda Y. Williams. Black Women, Black Power: A Historiography for Teachers special online feature of the OAH Magazine of History Vol. 22: July 2008, http://www.oah.orgn/pubs/magazine/bpower/rwilliams.html. A valuable guide to additional secondary sources on the topic of African American women’s struggles for empowerment. Pennsylvania Men’s League Caroline Katzenstein Papers Dora Lewis Letter to daughter, Louise Lewis, Apr. 14, 1920, Dora Kelly Lewis Collection The Status of Women by Susan B. Anthony Letter from Alice Paul to Caroline Katzenstein, July 31, 1918, Caroline Katzenstein PapersRecommended Readings for Students:
Recommended Readings for Teachers:
Primary Sources:
Web Sites:
This unit is designed to fulfill the following national, state, and district standards: National Standards in Civics and Government from the Center for Civic Education: Category Voting Rights What are the Foundations of the American Political System? How Does the Government Established by the Constitution Embody the Purposes, Values, and Principles of American Democracy? What Are the Roles of the Citizens in American Democracy? Pennsylvania State Standards History: 8.1 A-D Historical Analysis and Skills Development. 8.1.6. A Understand chronological thinking and distinguish between past, present and future time 8.1.9.A Analyze chronological thinking. 8.1.12.A Evaluate chronological thinking 8.1.3.B Develop an understanding of historical sources. 8.1.6.B Explain and analyze historical sources. 8.1.9.B Analyze and interpret historical sources. 8.1.12.B Synthesize and evaluate historical sources. 8.1.3.C. Understand fundamentals of historical interpretation. 8.1.6.C. Explain the fundamentals of historical interpretation. 8.1.9.C Analyze the fundamentals of historical interpretation. 8.1.12.C Evaluate historical interpretation of events. 8.1.3.D Understand historical research. 8.1.6.D Describe and explain historical research 8.1.9.D Analyze the fundamentals of historical interpretation. 8.1.12.D Synthesize historical research Pennsylvania History: 8.2 8.2.3. A Understand the political and cultural contributions of individuals and groups to Pennsylvania history 8.2.6.A Identify and explain the political and cultural contributions of individuals and groups to Pennsylvania from Beginnings to 1824. 8.2.9.A Analyze the political the political and cultural contributions of individuals and groups to Pennsylvania history from 1787 to 1914. 8.2.12.A Evaluate the political and cultural contributions of individuals and groups to Pennsylvania history from 1890 to Present. 8.2.3.B Identify and describe primary documents, material artifacts and historic sites important in Pennsylvania history. 8.2.6.B Identify and explain primary documents, material artifacts and historic sites important in Pennsylvania history from 1787 to 1914. 8.2.12. B Identify and evaluate primary documents, material artifacts and historic sites important in Pennsylvania history from 1890 to Present. Identify and analyze primary documents, material artifacts, and historic sites important in Pennsylvania history from 1787 to 1914. History: 8.3 A-D Identify and evaluate conflict and cooperation among social groups and organization in Pennsylvania history from 1890 to the present. Identify and analyze primary documents, material artifacts, and historic sites important in United States from 1787 to 1914 Identify and evaluate primary documents, material artifacts, and historic sites important in United States history from 1890 to the present. Evaluate how continuity and change has influenced United States history from1890 to the present. Identify and analyze conflict and cooperation among social groups and organizations in United States history from 1787 to 1914. Identify and evaluate conflict and cooperation among social groups and organizations in United States history from 1890 to the present.