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The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
With these words, begins the 75 year campaign for women's suffrage. Our foremothers fought many long and arduous battles for the right of us women to vote. They repeatedly petitioned state and federal legislative assemblies, they endured verbal ridicule and physical attacks, they were branded as unchristian, they marched in the cold and the snow and the rain, and they persevered so that today we can exercise our rights as free citizens to affect our own destiny by exercising our right to vote. They understood that as long as women were denied the right to vote, whatever gains were granted to them by men in the current session of Congress could always be taken from them in the next session of Congress. By using our vote to choose representatives who support our agenda, we cease being petitioners in a hostile world and we become power brokers in a friendly world. We can influence our government by using the power of our vote. Money can by access to television, the Internet, the mail, and the other media outlets. But each of us alone decides how to vote when we enter the voting booth and we will not sell our freedom and our rights: we can only give them away by failing to protect them by exercising our right to vote.
August 26, 1995 is the 75th anniversary of women's suffrage. Let us take time to ponder the blessings of liberty fought for by our foremothers and to rededicate ourselves to the unfinished struggle for the rights of women of all races, all classes, and all creeds.
Let us also take time to remember some of our feminist foremothers:
What can you do?
"Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions of the 1848 Women's Rights Convention", written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and published in _The History of Woman Suffrage_, ed. by E. C. Stanton, S. B. Anthony, and M. J. Gage, Vol i, p. 70 ff., Reproduced in _Documents of American History To 1898, Vol 1_, 9th edition, Copyright 1973, Prentis Hall, Henry Steel Commager, editor.
This document can be seen it its entirety here: 1848 Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions
The single most impressive fact about the attempt by American women to obtain the right to vote is how long it took.
Alice Rossi, _The Feminist Papers_ (1973)
The world has never seen a truly great and virtuous nation, because in the degradation of woman the very foundations of life are poisoned at their source.
Lucretia Mott, speech (1848)
both quotes are from the _Beacon Book of Quotations by Women_, compiled by Rosalie Maggio, published by Beacon Press, 1992
Lucretia Coffin Mott (1793-1880) , educated in Boston and Poughkeepsie, taught school. In 1811, Lucretia Coffin married James Mott, a liberal Quaker like herself. Named an official minister of the Quaker church in 1821, Lucretia Mott followed Quaker tradition by speaking out in church and in public about topics of the day. In the 1820's Mott became one of the founders of the abolitionist movement. In a time when women who spoke publicly were thought an affront to God, she broke with the traditions of the larger society by unabashedly speaking in public against slavery and by being elected president of many of the organizations to which she belonged.
Mott attended the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London where she meet Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Although American anti-slavery societies had selected both Mott and Cady Stanton as delegates to the conference, their credentials were rejected by conference organizers. Although Mott and Cady Stanton agreed at this time that women should become advocates for their own rights, 8 years would pass before the first Woman's Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York.
Mott's emphasis remained abolition. After passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, she remained true to her Quaker principles and defied the law by opening her home to fleeing slaves. During the Civil War, her abolitionist sympathies conflicted with her Quaker passivism. She resolved this conflict by remaining a passivist but by raising money for the education of freed slaves and for Swarthmore College, a co-educational institution founded by Quakers in 1864. In 1866 she was elected the first president of the American Equal Rights Association which advocated civil rights for ex-slaves and women.
Mott had an uncommonly happy domestic life and she remained deeply religious throughout her life. She was a conciliator, personally frugal, and publicly generous. She strove hard to improve her world.
_American Women's History_, Doris Weatherford, Prentise Hall, 1994
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Sunshine for Women encourages you to support our feminist sisters by purchasing their books, reading them, disseminating the ideas they contain, but most especially, by making their book available to our sisters, our daughters, and the community at large by requesting your school library, your public library, and area bookstores to carry their books. Remember it is not enough to write literature, history, and theology, we must pass these works on to future generations. Help us to preserve these works for a new generation by putting them on library bookshelves.
last updated August 1995
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