History 790: After Suffrage

October 4, 1999

Gary Quinn

gq1. On page 56, Anderson, in discussing how women who had been against suffrage reacted to getting the vote, mentioned "leading anti-suffragists voted and urged other women to vote", and then pretty much drops that question. You would expect that anti-suffragists would either be against voting or at least not activity encouraging it. Why this change in attitude? It would be simple enough to not vote if you were against having the vote.

gq2. In general, Anderson (especially in chap. 3) stresses that there was not necessarily a single agenda for the newly enfranchised women, but that voting patterns and important issues tended to be related to issues such as class, location, etc (much as there was with male voters), yet she often discusses (as on p. 154), the "success or failure of the women's agenda". It seems to me you can't have it both ways: either women are voting as individuals based on their own situations (like the men) or they are pursuing a women's agenda. I'm not really sure which side of this she comes down on.

gq3. In general, there seems to be a lack of voting statistics broken down by sex (as Anderson admits), yet she seems more than willing to draw conclusions based on what she has. While her conclusions seem to be supported by what she does have, it seems to me that many of her statistic- based arguments are a little weak, without much to back them up.

Ben Ravey

1(BR) Does Kristi Andersoon see the vote as providing for equality in citizenship of women? The quote on page one by Carrie Chaoman Catt demonstrates an initial support of this idea. Yet the chapter see^Ò a more complicated situation over equality in voting. Does Anderson make this question to complicated?

2(BR) The role of women have changed dramatically for women in America from the time of the revolution to the present. Did the passage of female suffrage lead to a catalyst of change in the 1920^Òs or as her quote on pg. 5 from Charles Russell on how universal suffrage only leads to the doubling of unthinking voters? Does Anderson support the former or the latter of these two statements?

3(BR) Anderson discusses the topic of women in political roles and how I was addresses by the suffrage movement. Was the relative uneasiness of women openly claiming right to equal participation in office holding a tactical decision to garner more support for the passage of the amendment or was it a reaction to the belief that Fola LaFollette is quoted on page 112 when she says, ^Ó...all women are inferior to men in administrative efficiency and that the community will suffer where they serve... ? Was this decision a product of the time period?

4(BR) The shift of America towards an urban population base has been discussed before in this class and else where. The study of the dramatic shift if the African-American community has not been so detailed with exception of the book by Trotter. My question deals with how the changing economy of America in general effect the new African-American migrants to the North? Was prosperity reaching to all. Ann Douglas makes the argument in favor of this with the data showing the occupational shift for African-Americans during this period.

Mark Rempel

MKR1: Andersen states historians and politcal scientists have ignored the aftermath of suffrage, implicitly admitting that nothing very interesting happened, with regard to women and electoral politics, until the 1970s (p.1) Andersen asserts the purpose of the book is to "address this neglect." in what ways was the purpose of the book fulfilled and were they successfully analyzed?

MKR2: The body of literature on women's history is vast, as the numerous footnotes to Andersen's book shows. Yet some historians wil assert that women's history is a faddish niche that appeals to women and has no true importance. Of what worth is women's history and are all historians obligated to show an interest in it? For example, if I was a history teacher and assigned the class a book on the history of the American merchant marine, should the class be obligated to show an interest and discuss it as a valid aspect of American history, or would it be dismissed as niche hnistory displaying the interests of the professor and not the importance of the subject? Or, if not the merchant marine, the history of baseball or homosexuals or city parks? My question is, what makes an issue a valid topic for the discussion of history?We all have our fascinations. Mine is cargo ships, others are baseball or sexuality or weapons, or whatever. Do I, as a historian, have the right not to care about women's history?

MKR3: Andersen's book deals with political analysis and she cites political women of the time of the 1920s. One of them, Winifred Starr Dobyns, argued in an article that "parties cannot be changed through the regular party organizations, but the quality of candidates would improve if people vote in party primaries for reform candidates." She wrote, "the idea of reforming from within is a delusion. To join it means to condone its actions, to accept its standards. This is not the way to carry on the fight for decency." (p.43). Did women always perceive their motives and themselves as fighting for decency and reform in the political arena of the 1920s? Were they subversive in attempting to penetrate party politics, on the one hand, and to create new kinds of political institutions, on the other?

MKR4: Andersen cites an article by Emily Newell Blair in which she differentiates between competition (masculine) and cooperation (feminie) (p.38). At the risk of over-simplifying the issue, do women in political activity emphasize cooperation or consensus? On the next page, Andersen cities Emily's sister, Margeratta Newell, who "urged women to start fights, get publicity, gain followers, and take risks."(p.40). The question is, how were women politically active in the 1920s trying to set up the boundaries of debate? Were they cooperative and pacifistic, or were they combative, promoting their interests?

MKR5: What made women suffrage less unthinkable? On p. 32, Andersen cites reforms of the electorol process, increasing urbanization, industrialization, helped to make women suffrage less unthinkable. Is this necessarily so? What other broad social changes enabled women to become integrated into the electoral process?

MKR6: In footnote 8, page 25, Andersen cites the Woman's City Club as advocating "muncipal problems required solutions that guaranteened the well-being of evberyone within the city," and she goes on to state "this often led them to advocate more government responsibility and control." Does this imply that women may tend to be socialists, or only thoseparticular women were socialists? there are some who believe that government is by nature tyrannous and an impediment to freedom, and to imply that more government "responsibility and control" is a threat and not to be advocated. are all women left-leaning? Or are some decidedly right-wing? What are Kristi Andersen's politics? Has she a political agenda in writing this book?

Michael Donohue

Andersen believes that the entry of women into politics extended the progressive era. She sights as evidence a tendency amongst women to accept government intervention in private and economic matters; mentions women's agency in the passing of the Cable Act and the Shepard-Towner Act; and quotes Breckinridge in saying that women helped to pass 436 bills in the 1920's. Would women have had an even greater immediate impast on politics had they obtained the vote in a more ideologically progressive era? What if there had been a defining issue, such as Prohibition?

Michael Donohue

Andersen writes that assumptions about women's domestic responsibilities initially hindered their emergence into the political world. However, At the appex of women's power in the 1920s, the abilities of women as managers, as municipal housekeepers, was touted as electible qualities for female candidates.Indeed, candidates such as Belle Moskowitz utilized perceived gender differences to their advantage. Was this a helpful, or harmful approach to politcs, and do we still see it today in candidates such as "Ma" Richards? How should the "tension between equality and difference" be managed.

Michael Donohue

Andersen makes the case that the perception of women as morally supperior and inherently disinterested in politics helped them to become enfranchised. She also said that perceptions of women as having an independent, and thus interesting viewpoint declined in the late 1920s. Does this fact: that women's political practices were perceived as becoming more like men, help to prove that historians are indeed wrong to assume thatwomen's sufferage had little impsct on women or politics?

Michael Donohue

Andersen believes that the decline of party politics, the effects of immigration and the proximity of the era to the re-alignment of 1896 all helped to lesson the impact that women might have had on politics. Conversely, she constantly argues for the very real impact that they did have. Similarly, her stated purpose is to place women's sufferage in a larger political context, while constantly focusing on what made women's experiences unique. Is she perhaps writing two differnt books in one?

Brent Trublood

BT 1. Kristi Andersen claims that women had a palpable affect on the way that politics was perceived during the 1920's and that they were instrumental in creating some of these changes. She cites as a main example the shift in polling places from male dominated sites such as barber shops and saloons to more gender neutral sites such as schools and churches. She argues that it was the increasing amount of women voters and the growing number of women involved in the polling process that led to these changes. The question that needs to be asked and that was not addressed in her book is that would these changes have occurred even without a sizeable increase in women's participation in voting? Where these changes not just a logical transition that would have inevitably taken place once women got the right to vote and that the impetus for these changes came from men wanting to protect some of the last male-dominated areas from what they might have perceived as female intrusion.

BT 2. When describing the changes resulting from the suffrage movement, Andersen makes the claim that women extended the life of Progressivism. She sites a New Mexico study that concluded that "In matters of health, education, labor, and social justice, women kept the reform impulse alive between World War I and the New Deal...." How accurate is this view that the women's movement was acting as the life preserver of the Progressive movement throughout the conservative 1920's.

BT 3. Andersen's perspective on the women's movement was that it should not be seen as a failure because of low voter-turnout and the lack of continued political progress during the 1920's, but instead should be viewed in the context of what changes occurred because of women's suffrage. This perspective suggests many ways that women helped to affect politics during this era, but in what ways can these changes in politics be used to answer the remaining question of why did women not vote in large numbers, after struggling for so long to gain that right.

BT 4. Andersen writes that women approached politics from an issue oriented perspective rather than from the traditional male view of party politics. How does this compare with an earlier argument of hers that one of the main reasons voter turnout was low in the 1920's was because of the weakening of party compettition in many areas of the country.

Charles Castillo

CC) Allen argued that women had many opportunities after the war as they poured out of colleges. Dumenil argues that although women had more rights than before, the existing system prevented them from gaining true political autonomy and power. Anderson believes that women had a direct impact on the political process after they acquired the right to vote. Who has the strongest argument? What forms of activism support Anderson's argument? How else does she defend her position?

CC) Anderson's thesis works on the premise that changes in women's political involvement were slow in the 1920's, but the results of their activism came much later. She makes this statement, "I believe it makes sense to reconsider women's involvement in electoral and party politics in the 1920's as producing transformations that would not reach fruition for many years". What are the problems with her approach?

CC) Anderson argues that two political cultures existed one male and one female. The male culture has largely dominated and prevented the female culture to be included fully. If women were excluded from the male political culture, the culture that dominated the country's political process, how important was the women's political culture to the framework of American politics?

CC) Women had learned to exist outside the mainstream political process. During the 1920's a similar process had taken place when women began to enter the workplace. How did the experience of becoming the first women doctors, teachers, and lawyers affect them politically?

CC) Anderson claims that in the 1920's both the Democratic and Republican parties opposed women's suffrage. What were some of the relationships between suffrage groups and the major political parties across the country? How did they help or deter future participation locally and nationally?

Michael Lumish

ML 1) In the introduction to chapter 3 (pg 49) Andersen states that "the boundary that created a gendered political arena in which men voted and women did not was not quickly or easily erased" and that this was partly due to "the male political establishment^Òs persisting resistance to shifting this boundary." However, elsewhere Andersen argues that the male political establishment courted the female vote and, also, many women voted against suffrage and many others chose not to vote. Wouldn^Òt this imply that the "persisting resistance to shifting this boundary" came from female sources as well as male sources?

ML 2) On page 142 Andersen argues that "the boundaries negotiated for women in partisan and electoral politics in the 1920s remained in place until they were directly challenged by women beginning in the 1970s." Is this a fair statement? While it is certainly true that women throughout that period (and in the 90s, as well) had not attained an equal measure of participation in partisan and electoral politics couldn^Òt it be argued that they had, in some measure, pushed back the boundaries of participation in the 40s, 50s, and 60s?

ML 3) The 1920s are usually seen as a period of decline for progressivism and reform. Andersen, however, argues that many women^Òs groups in the 20s kept progressivism alive which helped pave the way for the New Deal. As evidence, on page 154, she lists a series of reform-minded legislation that emerged in the twenties. Have observers underplayed the degree of reform in the 1920s? Is Andersen overstating the importance of reform legislation in order to try and show that women did have political impact in the 1920s?

ML 4) On page 150 Andersen claims that "the changing face of electoral politics in the 1920s and the entry of more women into partisan activism helped solidify the new political form of lobbying." She goes on to suggest that women's groups, therefore, "contributed to the decline of party politics and the rise of interest group politics." This argument is only tenable if men were not equally involved in grass-roots lobbying and other alternative forms of political influence. Does Andersen^Òs argument hold water?

Jaime Garcia-DeAlba

JGD- Do you agree that even thought women became gradually accepted into party politics they still could not get past the male chauvinism that existed in politics during the twenties?

JGD- Anderson argues that women created a style of politics that was more sensitive toward citizens' rights, the environment, and the community. Do you agree with Anderson's argument- that the greatest contribution that women voters, candidates, and lobbyists brought to partisan politics was their ability to rally for more liberal legislation than male politicians could have endorsed or enacted?

JGD- Because of women's alternative brand of politics, does Anderson adequately reveal women's limited choice in joining either the Democrats of Republicans? Does Anderson suggest that women continued to function independently within those parties?

JGD- Could women's dislike for partisanship stem from their limited role in partisan culture prior to the enactment of the 19th amendment? Do you agree with Anderson that women were placed in tasks or held office that was perceived by men to be those that pertained to women? Do you believe there was a significant impact on party politics because of women's efforts to change the perception of their role in party politics?

Aimée Klask

1) alk- Although After Suffrage is a historical analysis about women and politics before the New Deal, Kristi Andersen is not an historian. Do you think that anyone can write history, and more precisely, 'good' history? Do you think that her analysis would have been tighter (and written better) if she was an historian? How important is the process of indoctorinization and professionalization that we, as graduate history students, endure?

2) alk- In chapter three, Anderson explains the uniqueness of the enfranchisement of women. "The possible influence of anti-suffrage sentiment, or more broadly, the persistence of the notion that women should not vote or be involved in politics, is unique to the situation surrounding the enfranchisement of women, and does not characterize the enfranchisement of other groups" (57). Do you are agree? Didn't African-Americans and their enfranchisement receive similar sentiments?

3) alk- In chapter five, Anderson explores "Women as Candidates and Officeholders." After her quote from Lucy K. Miller, she begins this chapter by stating that "[t]he idea that women would run for and occupy political offices in large numbers was not a primary focus of arguments for and against women's suffrage" (111). Next, she describes how women as candidates and officeholders was an important issue for many claiming that women running for elective office was extensively examined (112). Further in the chapter, she explains that "[i]n the years before suffrage some assumed, and others feared, that having the vote would automatically give women the right to hold public office" (122). After reading this chapter, it seemed to me that women as candidates and officeholders was if not a primary focus then at least a major concern. In other words, I was pretty confused by the beginning statement of this chapter. Anyone else?

3) alk- Andersen credits the rise in interest groups in politics to the enfranchisement of women (153). Do you agree or is not women's dominance in interest groups during the 1920s and before more of a product of their 'non-enfranchisement'?(It was one of the only ways that they could participate in politics before the vote.) How does Anderson's conclusion about the effects women had on politics contradict or support Dumennil's?

4)alk- Andersen argues the women's enfranchisement, changed the mannerisms of electoral politics. "Observers of the party conventions in the 1920s routinely commented on the changes attributed to women's participation: less smoking, less profanity, more dignified proceedings" (144-145). This observation seems to contradict Allen's depiction of the bad manners revolution of the 1920s. Is Andersen right? Is Allen right? Are they both right? Are they both wrong?

Brent Vincent Gingery

BVG

1.) Anderson acknowledges the difficulty in recounting social change and how it is tempting for historians to make value judgments.(p. 18) In regards to the evolving situation of women and their involvement in electoral and party politics, does Anderson portray the rhetorical glass of women's political participation as "half-full" or "half- empty"? Is this type of judgment-oriented query particularly useful when discussing the women's rights movements?

BVG

2.) In outlining why Progressives embraced women's "disinterestedness" in politics Anderson states, "Ironically, when disinterestedness and intelligence (the sort of intelligence than any good citizen could apply to a social problem) became less gender qualities, women lost their ability to claim a unique authority as moral arbiters."(p. 33) Is this really an ironic manifestation or logical product of women's changing roles? What idea is Anderson trying to intimate?

BVG

3.) Anderson reveals some of the primary motivation that pulled women into politics, "It was widely believed that women ran for office primarily to raise important issues, not to win...In general, exhibiting a lack of personal ambition was the rule for women candidates in the 1920s." (131) Is it safe to assume that women in the 1920s, who were in increasing numbers moving into the workforce and voting for the first time, lacked certain self-concerned inspirations to put their fingerprint on the public political sphere? How does Anderson reconcile this dichotomy of motivations?

BVG

4.) "After Suffrage" is the title of the book, but Anderson argues that the essential changes to national, state and local party politics realized after 1920 were products of the women's suffrage movement. The waning power of political parties, lower voter turnouts, increased "ticket-splitting" were among the changes that, "accompanied woman suffrage into the larger context of the systemic changes taking place at the same time."(p. 12) Would not a more appropriate title for the book be "Before and Beyond Suffrage"? Why, why not?

Lindsay Schubert

LS1) Andersen suggests that arguments among suffragist after obtaining the right to vote about how women should be involved in politics revolved around the question of "whether women¹s relationship to the polity should be based on a moral stance unique to women." (22) Does she argue that women¹s political involvement was more morally defined than traditional male involvement? Does she think politics should include a moral influence? Does she suggest that bringing a new female perspective to politics rather than adding new political demands to the agenda is a progressive move for women in the 1920¹s?

LS2) Andersen claims that "traditional attitudes about women¹s roles also seemed to be more prevalent among the working class." (147) She supports this argument with the fact that wealthier female voters turned out in higher numbers. Is this an effective argument? Or is her evidence more indicative of elements of class structure than of a particular working-class resistance to women¹s incorporation into the public sphere?

LS3) Andersen claims that "especially before 1920, women were forced to enter into coalitions with other groups such as labor unions and male reform groups." (147) One of her main arguments is that, as women entered into politics after gaining the right to vote, they were marginalized into a separate sphere divided by boundaries created by traditional ideas of male and female roles. Do you think she would argue that women would have been able to make more effective political advancements after obtaining suffrage by realigning themselves with such coalitions rather than participating in politics as a specific group? Would this have been a possibility for women in the 1920¹s?

LS4) Andersen¹s explicit goal is to place an understanding of women¹s post-suffrage political involvement in the 1920¹s into a broader political framework. Is she successful? Do her sources reflect a good understanding of that framework?

Chad Pound

1. CP Despite rejecting the idea that one would expect to find a unified women voting block after the attainment of suffrage, Anderson does discuss a rather homogeneous group of women throughout the text. Does the lack of a unified constitute argue that the primacy of local politics? Certainly this is where the women achieved their greatest success.

2. CP I was surprised to find so many women officer holders had succeeded their late husbands. What was the typical protocol for replacing a deceased official? Did the newly appointed women leaders rule as basically lame ducks until the next official election?

3. CP Anderson argues that the success of suffrage helped shift the gender boundaries within politics to not include women but to include "aspects of female political culture." One could argue that the effects of female political culture had entered the political landscape before women entered the electorate. The progressive era could largely be described as municipal housecleaning, a trait of female political culture.

4. CP If the gender boundaries within politics had been as entrenched as Anderson suggests, would the ultimate effect been the increase in male voting over the decade to maintain the boundaries? Did the feminization of the election process aid the political apathy of the era?

Melissa Ashley

MLA1. One problem that I had with After Suffrage was that it seemed like she would bring in quotes or examples without really explaining them or setting them up. For example on page 59, she cites a study by Goldstein that finds a "positive association between social class and female turnout for presidental elections though the relationship was reversed for mayoral elections." Since this statement seems to contradict some of her findings, specifically that women were more likely to be involved in municipal elections, it would be interesting to have this finding explained.

MLA2. Anderson spends a considerable amountof time going over voting statistics and breakdowns for Oregon and Illinois. On page 64 she concludes, "Thus, in Oregon Counties with high proportions of foreign born residents...had lover rates of voter registration, but these were the very counties where women were more likely to be mobilized then men." It would be intersting to know where the "foreign born" residents originated from, especially since she also uses evidence from European studies in her argument.

MLA3. Anderson concludes on page 58 that for the most part poor urban women did not vote. What about poor, urban men?

MLA4. Anderson agrees with Carrie Chapman Catt that "Women enter those inner chambers of the political parties only rarely, and usually only when they had some political resources of their own with which to bargain." (95). But she also argues that women used alternative methods and strategies to accomplush their goals. (147). Are both of these arguments true? Because it seems that Anderson spends a lot ot time arguing that women had no political influence or limited political influence but then offers examples of politically influential women.

Chris Caldeira -

CEC 1) Anderson seems conflicted about how to approach the material when she says "one of the problems with writing...is whether to present the glass as half-empty or half-full...because so many popular and scholarly views of the 1920's assume that suffrage was a failure it seems both necessary and desirable to point out the changes that occurred..." Do you think she chose to focus on women's achievements simply because no one else did, or because she truly felt that their achievements had been overlooked? Does she have passion for her topic? Is passion for a subject necessary for a historian?

CEC 2) Anderson argues that there were several changes occurring after women's suffrage that affected women's roles and participation in politics. Can historians decipher and distinguish the greater contextual changes from women's roles? For example, was it a coincidence that the Progressive reforms "disconnected voting and elections from parties" or did women have a role in this?

CEC 3) Anderson states in Chap. 3 that the "influence of anti-suffrage sentiment, or more broadly, the persistence of the notion that women should not vote or be involved in politics, is unique to the situation surrounding the enfranchisement of women and does not characterize the enfranchisement of other groups." Do you agree? In what ways are women unique in this way? Whey doesn't she include race in this discussion as an example of another enfranchised group and analyze their voting influence and behavior?

CEC 4) Anderson does a good job of analyzing some of women's progress that so many historians have neglected. She cites the doubling of the electorate and increasing numbers of women running for and holding political offices at all levels. But she appears to omit some of the drawbacks of the movement, instead presenting a narrow picture of suffrage. Does she suffer from the same drawbacks those she criticizes?

Terry Lee

TL The first, obvious question that comes to mind is if suffrage was viewed as a failure, if suffrage groups did not encourage women to run for office, and if women didn't vote as a block--then why the resistance to suffrage before 1920? Also, if perhaps these factors couln not have been foreseen, then what effects did suffrage have on the opponents to suffrage?

TL Andersen talks about the elites who debated about parties and patisanship, and the most effective ways for women to proceed in those institutions. It seems interesting though that women did't attempt to turn the suffrage organizations into political parties in their own right. How did women envision their participation in the political process once they got the vote?

TL Like some of the other strange phenomena of the 1920s, it seems like voting was just another fad for most women. Perhaps this is jumping ahead, but didn't some women see enfranchisement as being the vehicle needed to carry them through the tough times of the 1930s? (voting for FDR)

TL Andersen argues that suffrage had an impact on political decision-making and on the shape of the political agenda in the 1920s, while also stating that women were too independent, too unconcerned with party politics, and as the decade wore on, less and less interested in using their hard-earned right to vote. How do we reconcile these differences?