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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2020
From nearly the moment the woman's suffrage movement began at Seneca Falls in 1848, anti-suffragists actively campaigned against it, claiming that woman suffrage would only destroy both American politics and the American family. However, despite their best efforts, states in the American West passed equal suffrage laws. Interestingly, once it passed in their states, anti-suffragists in the American West—albeit begrudgingly—exercised their right to vote. As equal suffrage continued to expand, the Western anti-suffragist strategy became the strategy of anti-suffragists everywhere. This essay examines three states that represent pivotal moments in the development of the anti-suffrage movement: Colorado, California, and Oklahoma. Shortly after Colorado passed equal suffrage in 1893 and California passed equal suffrage in 1911, anti-suffragists organized state and national associations. By the time Oklahoma passed its equal suffrage law in 1918, anti-suffragists were not only voting—they were also willing to run for office. Anti-suffragist strategy and rhetoric relied on how suffrage worked in the West, or at least anti-suffrage perceptions of it. In other words, women's suffrage in the West served as a catalyst for the anti-suffragist movement.
1 “No Suffrage for Her,” Rocky Mountain News, May 5, 1897, 3.
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9 Putnam, “Origin of Anti-Suffrage Movement.”
10 Goodier, No Votes for Women, 42. Anti-suffragists in Massachusetts formally organized the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women the following month, May 1895. Marshall, Splintered Sisterhood, 25.
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15 Goodier, No Votes for Women, 29.
16 Van Rensselaer, “Should We Ask for the Suffrage?,” https://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:864229?n=41.
17 Major, Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer, 161.
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23 “Failure of Suffrage in Colorado; Why It Fails,” The Woman's Protest, July 3, 1912, 4.
24 “Failure of Suffrage in Colorado; Why It Fails,” The Woman's Protest, July 3, 1912, 4.
25 Suffragist Anna Howard Shaw described it as “a Bunker Hill” in reference to the revolutionary defeat the Americans suffered at the hands of the British. “It Was a Bunker Hill,” Denver Evening Post, Dec 3, 1896, 3.
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28 Washington passed an equal suffrage referendum in 1910.
29 Englander, “We Want the Ballot for Very Different Reasons,” 229.
30 “Ballot Talk Before Men: The Women Present Adverse Views on Suffrage,” Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1911, II6.
31 “Ballot Talk Before Men” Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1911, II6.
32 “Ballot Talk Before Men” II6.
33 “Ballot Talk Before Men” II6.
34 Dora Oliphant Coe, “Anti-Suffrage Platform,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 21, 1911, II4. See also Coe, “Women and the Law,” Los Angeles Times, 2 Sept. 2, 1911, II4.
35 “Yellow Flag Checkmated,” Oct. 3, 1911, II6. Whether speaking or writing for anti-suffrage, Mrs. William Force Scott only ever referred to herself by her married name, suggesting, at least in public, her married identity was her only identity.
36 While Goodier notes the timing, she does not engage in further analysis. Goodier, No Votes for Women, 44.
37 Dora Oliphant Coe, “Irrational Ratiocination,” Los Angeles Times, May 22, 1911, II4.
38 As Mary Ann Irwin reminds us, “from 1850 to 1929 and well beyond, formal politics in California was mostly a white affair.” California Women and Politics: From the Gold Rush to the Great Depression (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011), 339Google Scholar.
39 Irwin, California Women and Politics, 339.
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41 Dora Oliphanat Coe, “And Now What?,” Los Angeles Times, Oct. 14, 1914, II4.
42 Coe, “And Now What,” II4.
43 Coe, “And Now What,” II4.
44 Coe, “And Now What,” II4.
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47 Cott, The Grounding of Modern Feminism, 37.
48 Several states had passed some measure of suffrage, such as presidential suffrage or municipal suffrage, including Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, and Louisiana.
49 Goodier, No Votes for Women, 116.
50 Goodier, No Votes for Women, 118.
51 Goodier, No Votes for Women, 119.
52 Goodier, No Votes for Women, 13.
53 “Antis to Continue Fight on Suffrage: President of National Association Says Efforts Will Be Made to Get State Rejections,” New York Times, Sept. 18, 1919, 8.
54 Frances Benson, “No Time to Quit,” The World, June 9, 1919, Oklahoma State Archives, box 14, folder 1.
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56 “The Family or the Herd,” The Woman Patriot, June 1, 1921, 4.
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58 “No Effect on Last Election,” The Woman Patriot, Mar. 12, 1921, 4.
59 “Our Fight Has Just Begun,” The Woman Patriot, 4. Italics from the author.
60 “Our Fight Has Just Begun,” The Woman Patriot, 4. Italics from the author.
61 Johnson never married or had children. She would later write in her memoirs that she would “‘live vicariously in and through thousands of other people's marriages’” and since she would not have children of her own, she would “strive to comfort and to console and guide countless others.” Reese, Linda Williams, Women of Oklahoma, 1890–1920 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press: 1997), 264Google Scholar.
62 Johnson, Edith, “Are You Liked at Home?”; Illusions and Disillusions: Touching Upon Topics in Every Day Life (Oklahoma City: Edith Cherry Johnson, 1920), 11Google Scholar.
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64 Johnson, “Is Suffrage the Biggest War Work?,” 6.
65 Johnson, “Will Oklahoma's Women Abolish ‘Living Hells?,’” Daily Oklahoman, Jan. 29, 1919, 6.
66 Johnson, “Will Oklahoma's Women Abolish “Living Hells?,’” 6.
67 Johnson, “Women Must Not Stoop to Mud-Slinging Way,” Daily Oklahoman, Apr. 4, 1919, 6.
68 Johnson, “She Will Go to Polls with a Babe in Her Arms,” Daily Oklahoman, May 30, 1919, 6.
69 Johnson, “Woman's Sacred Duty: Will She Perform It?,” Daily Oklahoman, July 26, 1919, 6.
70 Johnson, “Woman's Sacred Duty,” 6.
71 Louise B. James, “Alice Mary Robertson—Anti-Feminist Congresswoman,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 55 (Winter 1977–1978): 457.
72 Tom P. Morgan, “Miss Alice of Muskogee,” Ladies Home Journal, Mar. 1921, 21.
73 “Miss Robertson of Oklahoma,” New York Times, Nov. 13, 1920, 10.
74 Winnifred Huck of Illinois was elected after her father died during his term, and Mae Nolan of California was the first widow to succeed her husband in Congress.
75 “The Lady from Oklahoma,” The Woman Patriot, Nov. 13, 1920, 4.
76 Edith Cherry Johnson, “Will Robertson Succeed Where Rankin Failed?,” Daily Oklahoman Jan. 10, 1921, 6.
77 Johnson, “Will Robertson Succeed Where Rankin Failed,” 6.
78 “The Lady from Oklahoma.”
79 “Will Alice Robertson Succeed Where Jeannette Rankin Failed?”
80 “The Lady from Oklahoma.”
81 Johnson, “Will Alice Robertson Succeed Where Jeannette Rankin Failed?”
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85 “The Fury of Women Scorned,” 2.
86 “Harding Receives Anti-Suffrage Delegation,” The Woman Patriot, June 1, 1921, 1.
87 McGirr, Lisa, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 8Google Scholar; and Nickerson, Michelle M., Mothers of Conservatism: Women and the Postwar Right (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.