Module 7: The Struggle For Womens Suffrage

"The young women of today, free to study, to speak, to write, to choose their occupation, should remember that every inch of this freedom was bought for them at a great price. It is for them to show their gratitude by helping onward the reforms of their own times, by spreading the light of freedom and of truth still wider. The debt that each generation owes to the past it must pay to the future”.- Abigail Scott

"American dream" is a type of ethic or belief that leads many individuals in the United States to work for themselves. This set of principles, which includes concepts on human rights, Liberty, Democracy, and Equality, is without question founded on the principle that every citizen, wherever or under any situation, is free to seek peace and happiness. The notion that through hard work and perseverance, everyone can rise "from wealth to prosperity" is a critical element of the American dream. The US dream is a double promise of prosperity and mobility (Digital history). In concrete terms, no decent well-being either.

For about half a hundred years, women's rights to vote in various states and localities first originated in the United States, often on a limited scale, and then nationally in 1903. In the early 1800s, support for the election of women began to take root and resulted from the broader campaign for women's rights. In 1848, the Seneca Falls Conference, the first Convention on Women's Rights, adopted a resolution in favor of women's suffrage in response to resistance from some organizers who found the idea too progressive (Bois & Carol). However, during the first national convention on women's rights in 1850, voting became an essential aspect of the movement's activities. In 1869, the first Nationwide Political Organization: two rival bodies, one headed by Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and one led by Lucy Stone.

  Suffrage advocates became pioneers in many of today's revolutionary policy tactics. These involve pressuring government representatives – as they did in local and national election campaigns; pushing male electors in the state of New York to say 'aye' to a state-wide vote campaign, and picketing the White House (Bois & Caro). Civil right members had used the growing consumer culture by making political ephemerals, such as flights, insignia while cartoons and boldly wearing white, influencing their public manifestations of symbolism and visual effect during a period when women were rare even to meet openly.