Anti-women’s suffrage

Anti-women’s suffrage pamphlets. Ca. 1900.

In 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave women the right to vote.  The amendment’s passage followed a fierce political battle in which well-organized anti-suffrage forces campaigned mainly in print.  Opponents argued against women’s suffrage based upon supposed differences between men and women, citing women’s physical fragility, weak morality, and poor judgment.  Pervading these texts are dire predictions of what would happen if women’s suffrage were to pass, such as a rise in communism and the destruction of domestic life.

Link: University of Rochester article Kate Gannett Wells, Anti-Suffragist