Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T19:25:36.002Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Radical Demand Effect: Early US Feminists and the Married Women's Property Acts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2015

Holly J. McCammon ,
Sandra C. Arch  and
Erin M. Bergner
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Numerous scholars consider the economic origins of the late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century US married women's property acts. Researchers investigate how economic downturns and women's inroads into business spurred lawmakers to reform property laws to give married women the right to own separate property. Such economic explanations, however, are only a partial story. Our investigation reveals the important role of women's collective activism in winning these legal changes. Women mobilized for property rights often as they pressed for voting rights and, in one case, as they campaigned for an equal rights amendment. We examine circumstances leading to passage of married women's property acts in seven states to show that as women mobilized for property rights alongside voting rights or a broader equal rights law, a radical demand effect unfolded. Lawmakers often considered demands for woman suffrage or an equal rights amendment as more far-reaching and thus more radical and threatening. Such feminist demands, then, provided a foil for property-rights activism, and the contrast led lawmakers to view property demands as more moderate. In addition, as they pressed for these combined reforms, women often engaged in hybrid framing that allowed them to moderate their demand for property reforms by linking their property goals to beliefs already widely accepted. The confluence of these circumstances led political leaders to deem property changes as more moderate and acceptable in an effort to steer feminists away from their radical goals. In the end, the radical demand effect created a political opportunity for passage of the married women's property acts.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 38 , Issue 1-2 , Spring/Summer 2014 , pp. 221 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alimi, Eitan Y. (2006) “Constructing political opportunity: 1987—The Palestinian year of discontent.” Mobilization 11 (1): 67–80.Google Scholar
Amsler, Margaret H. (1963) “Equal rights measure misleading in content.” Waco News-Tribune, February 14, 13-A.Google Scholar
Anner, Mark (2009) “Two logics of labor organizing in the global apparel industry.” International Studies Quarterly 53 (3): 545–70.Google Scholar
Assembly of the State of New York (1842) “Report of the Committee on the Judiciary.” Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, Vol. VII, No. 189, April 12. Albany, NY: Thurlow Weed.Google Scholar
Assembly of the State of New York (1844) “Report of the Committee on the Judiciary.” Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, Vol. III, No. 96, February 26. Albany, NY: Carroll and Cook.Google Scholar
Assembly of the State of New York (1848a) “Petition.” Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, Vol. V, No. 129, March 15. Albany, NY: E. Crosswell.Google Scholar
Assembly of the State of New York (1848b) Journal of the Assembly of the State of New York. Albany, NY: Charles Van Benthuysen.Google Scholar
Austin History Center (Austin, TX) (1905) Jane McCallum papers. Box 6, Folder B.3, Item 4, pamphlet titled, “Legal status of women in Texas.”Google Scholar
Basch, Norma (1982) In the Eyes of the Law: Women, Marriage, and Property in Nineteenth-Century New York. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Bennion, Sherilyn Cox (1981) “The pioneer: The first voice for women's suffrage in the west.” The Pacific Historian 25 (4): 15–21.Google Scholar
Bennion, Sherilyn Cox (1990) Equal to the Occasion: Women Editors in the Nineteenth-Century West. Reno: University of Nevada Press.Google Scholar
Big Spring Daily Herald (1963) “Women would lose by equal rights, panel says.” March 29, 3-A.Google Scholar
Bishop, William G., and Attree, William H. (1846) Report of the Debates and Proceedings of the Convention for the Revision of the Constitution of the State of New York. Albany, NY: Office of the Evening Atlas.Google Scholar
Blackstone, William (1765) Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book the First. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bonham, Jeriah (1883) Fifty Years’ Recollections. Peoria, IL: J. W. Franks Printers.Google Scholar
Brand, Margaret (1950) “Legislation is a local project.” Texas Business and Professional Woman, September, 2.Google Scholar
Braukman, Stacy Lorraine, and Ross, Michael A. (2000) “Married women's property and male coercion: United States courts and the privy examination, 1864–1887.” Journal of Women's History 12 (2): 57–70.Google Scholar
Brogan, Maryrice (1962) “Texas clubwomen scrapping mad, but expect to win fight.” Houston Chronicle, January 21, section 9, 8.Google Scholar
Broussard, Joyce L. (2010) “Naked before the law: Married women and the servant ideal in Antebellum Natchez,” in Payne, Elizabeth Anne, Swain, Martha H., Spruill, Marjorie Julian, and Eagles, Brenda M. (eds.) Mississippi Women: Their Histories, Their Lives. Vol. 2. Athens: University of Georgia Press: 57–76.Google Scholar
Caldwell, Margaret Winston (Mrs. Alex S.) (1912) “An open letter to members.” Memphis News Scimitar, November 23, 5.Google Scholar
Caldwell, Margaret Winston (Mrs. Alex S.) (1913) “Tennessee women are urged to work for vital legislative bills.” Nashville Banner, January 18, 16.Google Scholar
Carrozzo, Peter M. (2001) “Tenancies in antiquity: A transformation of concurrent ownership for modern relationships.” Marquette Law Review 85 (2): 423–65.Google Scholar
Carter, Susan B., Gartner, Scott Sigmund, Haines, Michael R., Olmstead, Alan L., Sutch, Richard, and Wright, Gavin (2006) Historical Statistics of the United States, Millennial Edition, Vol. 3, Part C. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chicago Tribune (1860) “Legal disabilities of married women.” November 13, 2.Google Scholar
Chicago Tribune (1861) “From Springfield.” February 21, 1.Google Scholar
Chused, Richard H. (1983) “Married women's property law: 1800–1850.” Georgetown Law Review 71: 1359–1425.Google Scholar
Cole, Judith K. (1990) “A wide field for usefulness: Women's civil status and the evolution of women's suffrage on the Montana frontier, 1864–1914.” American Journal of Legal History 34 (3): 262–94.Google Scholar
Collaway, Carrie C. (1913) “The task which Tennessee suffragists have set for themselves.” Knoxville Sentinel, January 19. Knox County Public Library, Lizzie Crozier French Scrapbook, 30.Google Scholar
Cutler, Hannah M. Tracy (1853) “Dear Mrs. Davis.” The Una 1, February 1, 14.Google Scholar
Daily Advocate (1913) “Woman rights bill to engrossment.” February 3, 1.Google Scholar
Daily Illinois State Journal (1861) “Debate on the rights of married women.” February 6, 3.Google Scholar
Daily Yellowstone Journal (1887) “Tuesday, March 1, 1887.” March 1, 2.Google Scholar
Dallas Morning News (1913) “Woman's property bill finally passed.” February 7, 2.Google Scholar
Deere, Carmen Diana, and Doss, Cheryl R. (2006) “The gender asset gap: What do we know and why does it matter?” Feminist Economics 12 (1–2): 1–50.Google Scholar
Dibrell, Mrs. J. B. (1908) “The address of the president.” The Club Woman's Argosy, December, 7–9.Google Scholar
Dougan, Michael B. (1987) “The Arkansas married woman's property law.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 46 (1): 3–26.Google Scholar
Eckhardt, Celia Morris (1984) Fanny Wright: Rebel in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, Sara M., and Boyte, Harry C. (1986) Free Spaces: The Sources of Democratic Change in America. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Farnham, Eliza W. (1843) “Rights of women: Reply to Mr. Neal's lecture.” Brother Jonathan, June 24.Google Scholar
Ferree, Myra Marx (2005) “Soft repression: Ridicule, stigma, and silencing in gender-based movements,” in Davenport, C., Johnston, H., and Mueller, Carol (eds.) Repression and Mobilization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press: 138–55.Google Scholar
Fink, Rob (2003) “Hermine Tobolowsky, the Texas ELRA, and the political struggle for women's equal rights.” Journal of the West 42 (3): 52–57.Google Scholar
Ford, Jon (1963a) “Senate okays equal legal rights for women.” San Antonio Express, February 6, 1.Google Scholar
Ford, Jon (1963b) “Heroes or heels?” San Antonio Express, May 12, 6-B.Google Scholar
Fort Worth Star Telegram (1963) “Major step toward women's rights.” April 21, 12.Google Scholar
Fox, Ruth (1958) “Legislative chairman.” Texas Woman, May 11, 13.Google Scholar
French, Lizzie Crozier (c. 1913) “Shall Tennessee women be bond or free?” Knoxville Sentinel. Knox County Public Library, Lizzie Crozier French Scrapbook, 11.Google Scholar
Fuller, Margaret (1843) “The great lawsuit.” The Dial 4 (1): 1–47.Google Scholar
Fus, Dennis Anthony (1972) “Persuasion on the plains: The woman suffrage movement in Nebraska.” PhD diss., Indiana University, Department of Speech.Google Scholar
Gammage, Judie Karen Walton (1982) “Quest for equality: An historical overview of women's rights activism in Texas, 1890–1975.” PhD diss., North Texas State University, Department of History.Google Scholar
Gamson, William A. (1975) The Strategy of Social Protest. Homewood, IL: The Dorsey Press.Google Scholar
Geddes, Rick, and Lueck, Dean (2002) “The gains from self-ownership and the expansion of women's rights.” American Economic Review 92 (4): 1079–92.Google Scholar
Geddes, Rick, Lueck, Dean, and Tennyson, Sharon (2009a) “Determination of the dates of passage of the married women's property acts and earnings acts.” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Geddes, Rick, Lueck, Dean, and Tennyson, Sharon (2009b) “Human Capital Accumulation and the Expansion of Women's Economic Rights.” Unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
General Assembly of the State of Georgia (1867) Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Georgia, 1866. No. 204. Macon, GA: J. W. Burke and Co. Google Scholar
General Assembly of the State of Vermont (1919) Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Vermont. No. 90. Montpelier, VT: Capital City Press.Google Scholar
Ginzberg, Lori (1992) Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ginzberg, Lori (2005) Untidy Origins: A Story of Woman's Rights in Antebellum New York. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Haines, Herbert H. (1984) “Black radicalization and the funding of civil rights: 1957–1970.” Social Problems 32 (1): 31–43.Google Scholar
Henry, Josephine K. (1880) Married Women's Property Rights, under Kentucky Law. Versailles: Kentucky Equal Rights Association.Google Scholar
Herttell, Thomas (1839) Remarks Comprising in Substance Judge Herttell's Argument in the House of Assembly of the State of New York in the Session of 1837. New York: Henry Durell.Google Scholar
Hoff, Joan (1991) Law, Gender, and Injustice: A Legal History of U.S. Women. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Idaho Historical Society (Boise, ID) (1902) Idaho State Federation of Women's Clubs Records, Box 4, Item 1, “Third annual meeting,” October 14.Google Scholar
Interior Journal (Semi-Weekly) (1893) “Newsy Notes.” June 12, 4.Google Scholar
Johnson, Yvonne J. (2010) “Introduction,” in Yvonne Johnson (ed.) Feminist Frontiers: Women Who Shaped the Midwest. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Garth (1963) “Connally urges legislative aid.” Abilene Reporter-News, January 16, 1.Google Scholar
Keyssar, Alexander (2000) The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Khan, B. Zorina (1996) “Married women's property laws and female commercial activity: Evidence from United States patent records, 1790–1895.” Journal of Economic History 56 (2): 356–88.Google Scholar
Knickerbocker (1844) “The rights of women.” 23 (1): 79.Google Scholar
Kolmerten, Carol A. (1999) The American Life of Ernestine L. Rose. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Lazarou, Kathleen (1986) Concealed under Petticoats: Married Women's Property and the Law of Texas, 1840–1913. New York: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
Lebsock, Suzanne D. (1977) “Radical reconstruction and the property rights of southern women.” The Journal of Southern History 43 (2): 195–216.Google Scholar
Legislature of the State of California (1872) “Report of Special Committee in Relation to Granting Women Political Equality.” Appendix to the Journals of the Senate and Assembly of California. Sacramento, CA: T. A. Springer.Google Scholar
Lesh, Carolyn (1986) “Hermine Tobolowsky.” Dallas Morning News, October 19, E1–E2.Google Scholar
Maney, Gregory M., Woehrle, Lynne M., and Coy, Patrick G. (2005) “Harnessing and challenging hegemony: The U.S. peace movement after 9/11.” Sociological Perspectives 48 (3): 357–81.Google Scholar
McAdam, Doug (1996) “Conceptual origins, current problems, future directions,” in McAdam, Doug, McCarthy, John D., and Zald, Mayer N. (eds.) Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings. New York: Cambridge University Press: 23–40.Google Scholar
McCammon, Holly J. (2012) The U.S. Women's Jury Movements and Strategic Adaptation: A More Just Verdict. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McCammon, Holly J., Campbell, Karen E., Granberg, Ellen M., and Mowery, Christine (2001) “How movements win: Gendered opportunity structures in the state women's suffrage movements, 1866–1919.” American Sociological Review 66 (1): 49–70.Google Scholar
McDevitt, Catherine (2010) “Women, real estate, and wealth in a southern U.S. county, 1780–1860.” Feminist Economics 16 (2): 47–71.Google Scholar
McMahon, Stephanie Hunter (2010) “California women: Using federal taxes to put the ‘community’ in community property.” Wisconsin Journal of Law, Gender & Society 25 (1): 35–72.Google Scholar
Memphis News Scimitar (1912) “Open letter to members.” November 23, 5.Google Scholar
Mercury (1869a) “Salutatory.” January 24, 2.Google Scholar
Mercury (1869b) “Facts for women: The property rights of married women.” September 4, 1.Google Scholar
Million, Joelle (2003) Woman's Voice, Woman's Place: Lucy Stone and the Birth of the Woman's Rights Movement. Westport, CT: Praeger.Google Scholar
Nashville Banner (1912a) “Tennessee Federation of Women's Clubs.” October 12, 3.Google Scholar
Nashville Banner (1912b) “Some legislators who favor woman's property rights bill.” December 28, Part 2, 5.Google Scholar
Nashville Banner (1913a) “Legislation recommended.” January 2, 8.Google Scholar
Nashville Banner (1913b) “Legislation for women.” January 7, 9.Google Scholar
Nashville Banner (1913c) “Women work for property rights.” February 5, 2.Google Scholar
Nashville Banner (1913d) “For property rights.” February 8, 7.Google Scholar
National Bureau of Economic Research (2012) “U.S. business cycle expansions and contractions.” www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html#announcements (accessed October 22, 2012).Google Scholar
Neal, Jonathan (1843) “Rights of women.” Brother Jonathan, June 17.Google Scholar
Ossoli Circle (2012) “Ossoli Circle: Our founder, Lizzie Crozier French, 1851–1926.” www.discoveret.org/ossoli/HISTORY%28A%29.html (accessed June 28, 2012).Google Scholar
Pierson, Michael D. (2003) Free Hearts and Free Homes: Gender and American Antislavery Politics. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Pioneer (1870a) “The convention.” February 5, 2.Google Scholar
Pioneer (1870b) “Woman-suffrage at the capital.” March 12, 1.Google Scholar
Pioneer (1870c) “Address delivered by Mrs. Barber, Wednesday, March 23, 1870.” March 26, 1.Google Scholar
Pioneer (1870d) “Plea in behalf of woman-suffrage, before the Assembly Committee, Sacramento, California, March 18, 1870.” April 2, 2.Google Scholar
Rabkin, Peggy (1980) Fathers to Daughters: The Legal Foundations of Female Emancipation. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Ray, Angela G., and Richards, Cindy Koenig (2007) “Inventing citizens, imagining gender justice: The suffrage rhetoric of Virginia and Francis Minor.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 93 (4): 375–402.Google Scholar
Riley, Glenda (1988) The Female Frontier: A Comparative View of Women on the Prairie and the Plains. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Rogers, Chester (1962) “Equal Rights Act drive pushed.” Houston Chronicle, April 22, Section 2, 1.Google Scholar
Sawada v. Endo 57 Haw. 608, 561 P.2d 1291 (1977).Google Scholar
Schuele, Donna Clare (1999) “‘A robbery to the wife’: Culture, gender and marital property in California law and politics, 1850–1890.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program.Google Scholar
Scott, Anne Firor (1970) The Southern Lady: From Pedestal to Politics, 1830–1930. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Senate of the State of New York (1848) Journal of the Senate of the State of New York. Albany, NY: Charles Van Benthuysen.Google Scholar
Shammas, Carole (1994) “Re-assessing the married women's property acts.” Journal of Women's History 6 (1): 9–30.Google Scholar
Siegel, Reva B. (1994) “The modernization of marital status law: Adjudicating wives’ rights to earnings, 1860–1930.” Georgetown Law Journal 82 (7): 2127–211.Google Scholar
Smith, Jeffrey E. (2010) “‘Turning the world upside down’: The life and words of Frances Dana Gage,” in Johnson, Yvonne (ed.) Feminist Frontiers: Women Who Shaped the Midwest. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press: 1–19.Google Scholar
Smith, Timothy (2010) Mississippi in the Civil War: The Home Front. Oxford: University Press of Mississippi.Google Scholar
Snow, David A., Rochford, E. Burke Jr., Worden, Steven K., and Benford, Robert D. (1986) “Frame alignment processes, micromobilization, and movement participation.” American Sociological Review 51 (4): 464–81.Google Scholar
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady (2002 [1898]) Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences, 1815–1897. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books.Google Scholar
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, Anthony, Susan B., and Gage, Matilda Joslyn (1881) History of Woman Suffrage. Vol. 1. New York: Fowler and Wells.Google Scholar
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, Anthony, Susan B., and Gage, Matilda Joslyn (1886) History of Woman Suffrage. Vol. 3. Rochester, NY: Charles Mann Printing Co. Google Scholar
State of New York (1848) Laws of the State of New York. Chapter 200. Albany, NY: Charles Van Benthuysen.Google Scholar
State of Texas (1963) General and Special Laws of the State of Texas. Chapters 472–73. Austin: State of Texas.Google Scholar
Statutes of California (1850) Statutes of California Passed at the First Session of the Legislature. San Jose, CA: J. Winchester.Google Scholar
Tarrow, Sidney (1998) Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tator, Nettie (1872) Address of Mrs. Nettie C. Tator before the Joint Committees of the Senate and Assembly of the State of California. Sacramento, CA: Hopkins and Bynon, Steam Book and Job Printers.Google Scholar
Tennessee 58th General Assembly (1913) Public Acts of the State of Tennessee. Nashville, TN: McQuiddy Printing Co. Google Scholar
Tennessee Bar Association (1912) Proceedings of the Thirty-First Annual Meeting of the Bar Association of Tennessee. Knoxville: Tennessee Bar Association.Google Scholar
Tennessee Federation of Women's Clubs (c. 1912) Fifteen Reasons Why the Law of Tennessee Governing the Property Rights of Married Women Should Be Changed. Nashville, TN: Brandon Printing Company.Google Scholar
Tennessee State Library and Archive (Nashville, TN) (1910a) Tennessee Federation of Women's Clubs Records, 1893–1992, Box 15, Folder 10, “Booklet Tennessee State Federation of Women's Clubs 1910.”Google Scholar
Tennessee State Library and Archive (Nashville, TN) (1910b) Tennessee Federation of Women's Clubs Records, 1893–1992, Box 5, Folder 1, “Knoxville 1910,” September 27.Google Scholar
Tennessee State Library and Archive (Nashville, TN) (1911) Tennessee Federation of Women's Clubs Records, 1893–1992, Box 17, Folder 4, “Our civic responsibilities,” by Mrs. Lou Looney.Google Scholar
Tennessee State Library and Archive (Nashville, TN) (1912–13) Tennessee Federation of Women's Clubs Records, 1893–1992, Box 15, Folder 11 “Tennessee Federation of Women's Clubs Yearbook, 1912–1913.”Google Scholar
Tennessee State Library and Archive (Nashville, TN) (1914) Tennessee Federation of Women's Clubs Records, 1893–1992, Box 17, Folder 6, “Gist of the eighteenth annual convention,” May.Google Scholar
Texas State Legislature (1913) General Laws of the State of Texas. Austin, TX: Von Boeckmann-Jones Co. Google Scholar
Texas State Library and Archives Commission (Austin, TX) (1909) Erminia Thompson Folsom Papers, Box 1985/119–2, Folder 2–6, pamphlet titled, “The legal status of woman in Texas,” by Mrs. W. B. Wynne.Google Scholar
Texas Tech University, Special Collections Library, Southwest Collection (Lubbock, TX) (1953) League of Women Voters of Texas Records, Box 27, Folder 21, speech given at Southern Methodist University, “Some bills in the current legislature of particular interest to women,” March 6.Google Scholar
Texas Tech University, Special Collections Library, Southwest Collection (Lubbock, TX) (1955) Hermine Tobolowsky Papers, 1932–1995, Box 2, Folder 13, letter from H. W. Smith (Dun and Bradstreet) to Hermine Tobolowsky, January 6.Google Scholar
Texas Tech University, Special Collections Library, Southwest Collection (Lubbock, TX) (1956a) League of Women Voters of Texas Records, Box 74, Folder 20, letter from Mrs. Horton Wayne Smith to Club Presidents Re: Status of Women meeting, May 8.Google Scholar
Texas Tech University, Special Collections Library, Southwest Collection (Lubbock, TX) (1956b) League of Women Voters of Texas Records, Box 9, Folder 10, memo from League of Women Voters of Texas to Women's Organization in Texas, June 1.Google Scholar
Texas Tech University, Special Collections Library, Southwest Collection (Lubbock, TX) (1956c) League of Women Voters of Texas Records, Box 13, Folder 49, “Legal status of women: A kit for action,” July.Google Scholar
Texas Tech University, Special Collections Library, Southwest Collection (Lubbock, TX) (1962) League of Women Voters of Texas Records, Box 116, Folder 18, “Discussion guide: Legal status of women,” July.Google Scholar
Texas Woman (1959) “Legislative committee plans chain reaction.” October, 4.Google Scholar
Texas Woman's University, Blagg-Huey Library, Woman's Collection (Denton, Texas) (c. 1959) Texas Federation of Business and Professional Women Records, Box 31, Folder “Women's rights/ERA,” “An educational program.”Google Scholar
Thurman, Kay Ellen (1966) “The married women's property acts.” Unpublished M. A. thesis, University of Wisconsin, Law School.Google Scholar
University of North Texas, Willis Library Archives (Denton, TX) (1963) Sarah T. Hughes Papers, Box 1917, Folder 3, letter to Hermine D. Tobolowsky, August 7.Google Scholar
Wallis, Sarah (1874) “Report of the Special Committee.” Common Sense, July 11, 108.Google Scholar
Warbasse, Elizabeth Bowles (1987) The Changing Legal Rights of Married Women, 1800–1861. New York: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
Ward, Hortense (1913) “Shall women have adequate laws?” Texas Magazine 7: 239–42.Google Scholar
Wellman, Judith (2004) The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Woman's Rights Convention. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Woman's Journal (1871) “Legal disabilities of women in California.” August 5, 247.Google Scholar
Wright, Frances (1829) “Rights and wrongs of women.” Free Enquirer 1: 213.Google Scholar
Wright, Frances (2006) “When one legal entity becomes two: The Married Women's Property Act of 1913 and its impact on divorce proceedings in Shelby County, Tennessee.” M.A. thesis, The University of Memphis, Department of History.Google Scholar
Wyden, Peter (1961) “The revolt of Texas women.” The Saturday Evening Post, January 14, 25, 55–56.Google Scholar
Zeigler, Sara L. (1996) “Uniformity and conformity: Regionalism and the adjudication of the married women's property acts.” Polity 28 (4): 467–95.Google Scholar