Womens Suffrage Essay examples

Submitted By porta25
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Pages: 5

The role of women in America greatly shifted by the ending of the 19th century. As women began to express their idea and views, they took their ambition a step further by demanding suffrage and creating their own association to unite all the women striving for the same goal. During the era of women’s suffrage the NAWSA adopted moderate and conservative tactics contrary to the NWP’s. However, because of NWP’s militant technique, the lobbying and petitioning, and a proposal of a federal amendment to the constitution,the NWP was most responsible for the suffrage victory in 1920.
Having been influenced by the English suffragette’s method of acquiring women suffrage through aggressive measures such as chaining themselves to railings and setting fire to mailbox contents, Alice Paul along with Lucy Burn sought to introduce a militant style to acquire suffrage. One of the most popular ways of showing protest was the practice of picketing. It was most commonly seen for the volunteers of the NWP to picket in Washington in front of the White House to which their goal was to gain as much public attention as possible (Angels). By the time the U.S. entered WW1 in 1917, the picketing increased as the NWP and especially Alice Paul found it insulting that the United States was going to fight for democracy in Europe when in the U.S. American women were not given the right to express themselves in government. To demonstrate the opposition to war the NWP volunteers who picketed the White House would display banners that had comments such as “Kaiser Wilson” to express their views of Wilson’s insincerity (Angels). The NWP’s provocative methods such as burning in a caldron historical documents and speeches that President Woodrow Wilson had delivered led to the infuriation of people passing by and their picketing often resulted in violence as the NWP’s signs and banners were torn down and the volunteer were Because of the people’s hysterical attitude during the war in the U.S., any negative criticism against the American government was silence and so much of the members of the NWP were arrested under false accusations such as obstructing sidewalk traffic (Angels & Vote). To continue their protest while in prison, Alice Paul followed by other members of the NWP went on hunger strikes. Wanting to put a stop to this, officials at Occoquan workhouse would force feed leaders Alice Paul and Lucy Burns which as outcome brought enormous attention to the suffrage dilemma and getting Wilson’ attention. This methods may have been seen as very controversial, however these tactics were fundamental to their victory in 1920. A technique that had been employed since the earliest movements for women suffrage was the use of lobbying and petitioning. Initiating in 1848 at the Seneca Falls convention, women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mottcreated resolutions which they used to inform the general public. As contrary to NAWSA’s approaches of getting support from already establish clubs and leagues mainly made up of upper-class women, the NWP sought support from working class women which included women working in mills and factories in large cities (Angels). With all those signatures through petitioning, NWP would then demonstrate to the political representatives the determination that women throughout the nation had to achieve suffrage. The NWP focused much of their lobbying efforts on President Woodrow Wilson who remained largely unmoved by the delegations of the NWP and who believed that women’s suffrage was something to be determined locally and at state level. Street speaking also was used by the party to catch the attention of the masses to support the party as did Inez Millholland, the party’s campaigner, would talk against President Wilson during his reelection campaign (Angels & Votes). Because of the NWP’s involvement with the middle class women and recurrent speeches the NWP was able to pressure President Wilson to finally past the