Pod Insights American History Tellers ENCORE: The Fight for Women's Suffrage | The Trial of Susan B. Anthony | 2 About this episode On Election Day 1872, Susan B. Anthony walked into a polling place in Rochester, New York and boldly cast her ballot. Her action was an escalation in women’s fight for the vote. Days later, she was arrested for voting illegally. It was all part of a daring new strategy for suffrage called the “New Departure.” At first, the strategy found a charismatic champion in a new women’s rights advocate, Victoria Woodhull. But Woodhull’s penchant for controversy would soon jeopardize the entire suffrage cause.
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0:21 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's election day, 1872. You take a deep breath as you walk into a cigar store near your home in Washington, DC. You're a woman in your 40s, and you want access to the vote for all Americans, including women. You've been going to suffrage meetings for a few years now, but you've never done anything like this. Today, the cigar store is a polling place, and you're here to cast a ballot for the first time in your life. Half a dozen men are standing in line to vote. They shoot you confused looks as you step in to join them.
0:54 Speaker 01 Morning, gentlemen.
0:56 Lindsay Graham? You straighten your bonnet and throw your shoulders back, trying to shake off the feeling that you don't belong. As your turn comes, you approach the official sitting behind a long table at the back of the room.
1:07 Speaker 01 Hello. I'd like a ballot, please.
1:10 Lindsay Graham? The poll worker raises his eyebrows and smirks.
1:14 Speaker 02 You would like a ballot? Is this some kind of joke?
1:18 Speaker 01 Not at all, sir. I have every right to vote in this election.
1:22 Speaker 02 Says who? It's black men who can vote now. I don't remember them giving the vote to black ladies.
1:29 Speaker 01 The Fourteenth Amendment states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."
1:43 Lindsay Graham? The man gives you a bewildered stare, but you continue.
1:46 Speaker 01 It also says that "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."
1:57 Speaker 02 Look, I'm no lawyer. Now, why don't you get out of here so we can keep this line moving? You're holding everyone up.
2:03 Speaker 01 I am a citizen of the United States, and the Fourteenth Amendment protects my privileges as a citizen. That includes voting. Now I demand my ballot.
2:13 Speaker 02 Miss, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.
2:18 Lindsay Graham? You cross your arms defiantly, trying hard to stand your ground, ignoring your trembling knees.
2:24 Speaker 01 Well, I guess you'll have to do it the hard way. I'm not going anywhere.
2:31 Lindsay Graham? The poll worker stands and comes out from behind the table, grabbing you by the elbow.
2:36 Speaker 01 Excuse me!
2:38 Lindsay Graham? You struggle to fight him off as he dragged you to the door.
2:41 Speaker 01 This is a violation of my rights. If you refuse me my rights as a citizen, I will bring charges against you in court.
2:52 Lindsay Graham? And without a word, the poll worker pushes you out into the street and slams the door in your face. You smooth out the wrinkles in your dress, trying to regain your composure as passersby look on. You're devastated to have been turned away, denied the chance to vote, but you're not surprised. Really, it only makes you more determined to keep fighting for your rights.
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4:05 Lindsay Graham? From Wondery, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story.
4:27 Lindsay Graham? When Americans went to the polls on Election Day 1872, dozens of daring women were among them. Officially, women did not have the right to vote, but these suffragists tried to cast their ballots anyway, defying laws and confusing poll workers. After the Civil War, the Fifteenth Amendment had extended voting rights to black men, but not to women. For critics of women's suffrage, this marked the end of the debate, but the suffragists refused to back down. They cited another recently passed amendment, the Fourteenth, which guaranteed citizenship rights to all persons born in the United States. To them, persons included both men and women, and they went to the polls to test their case. It was a start of a new, more confrontational phase for suffrage,
5:12 Lindsay Graham? one in which women would use direct action and civil disobedience. Their efforts moved suffrage into the national spotlight, just as a scandalous new leader rose to the forefront of the cause and a pioneer of the movement faced jail time. This is Episode Two: The Trial of Susan B. Anthony.
5:33 Lindsay Graham? In the 1870s, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony's National Woman Suffrage Association continued to push for a federal suffrage amendment. Stanton and Anthony felt it was the only way to guarantee access to the polls for women across the country and to ensure that whatever gains they made could not be rolled back by hostile state legislatures or courts. In contrast, Lucy Stone's rival group, the only slightly differently-named American Woman Suffrage Association, took a more conservative approach, focusing on obtaining the vote through changes to individual state constitutions. But both strategies faced an uphill battle. Around the country, women's suffrage was still seen as a radical movement that could endanger the social order.
6:17 Lindsay Graham? The vast majority of American women did not belong to either association. Most suffragists were educated, elite women, and they remained a long way from convincing the rest of America to accept the idea of equal voting rights for both genders. Their task was made even harder in the wake of a series of dramatic changes to the Constitution. In the aftermath of the Civil War, Congress passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Collectively, they're known as the Reconstruction Amendments, and they extended civil and legal protections to formerly enslaved people, including expanded access to the ballot box for black men, but not women. But one Missouri suffragist had a different interpretation, one that would inject new energy into the movement.
7:00 Lindsay Graham? In 1867, Virginia Minor was devastated by the death of her only child in a shooting accident. She channeled her pain into fighting for women's rights, and that same year founded Missouri's first suffrage association. Two years later, in 1869, Minor addressed a suffrage convention in St. Louis, where she argued that women did not need to wait around for a new constitutional amendment. She insisted that the 14th Amendment already conferred voting rights to women. Minor pointed to Section 1 of that amendment, which protected the citizenship of persons, with no mention of gender. Her argument hinged not only on the word "persons," but also on the idea that national citizenship rights included the right to vote, and that states could not take that
7:45 Lindsay Graham? right away. Standing before the St. Louis Convention, Minor declared, "I believe that the Constitution of the United States gives me every right and privilege to which every other citizen is entitled. For while the Constitution gives the states the right to regulate suffrage, it nowhere gives them the power to prevent it." Minor's argument became known as the "New Departure," because it was a radically different path forward than anything that had come before. The idea was that women already had rights, they simply had to seize them by going to the polls and voting. This "New Departure" unleashed a new, more activist era of the suffrage movement, and in 1871, it would be popularized by a sensational new leader. Victoria Woodhull had grown up in rural Ohio,
8:30 Lindsay Graham? where her abusive con man father hawked her as a faith healer. She married young, at age fifteen, to escape her exploitive family, only to endure her husband's alcoholism and adultery. She divorced him, and remarried a few years later to a radical anarchist. Woodhull herself eventually found notoriety and financial success as a clairvoyant with a knack for picking stocks. In 1870, she and her sister Tennessee became America's first female stockbrokers when they opened a brokerage firm on Wall Street. They made a fortune advising clients, including the railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt. And they used the money they earned to start a newspaper, covering taboo topics such as feminism, free love, and suffrage.
9:14 Lindsay Graham? In January 1871, Woodhull became the first woman to speak before a US House committee. She asked Congress to affirm that the Fourteenth Amendment implicitly guaranteed women the right to vote. And overnight, the new departure had found a magnetic new standard bearer. Congress rejected Woodhull's request, but Anthony and Stanton were watching from the galleries, and they were impressed. Anthony declared, "If it takes youth, beauty, and money to capture Congress, Victoria is the woman we are after." The National Woman Suffrage Association immediately adopted the new departure as their official strategy, a strategy they urged women to test by going to the polls and suing any officials who tried to stop them. They hoped the courts would affirm their constitutional argument.
9:59 Lindsay Graham? And over the next few months, women tried to register to vote in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and California. But much of the activity centered on Washington DC, where women felt they had a strong case because the District of Columbia was governed by federal law, not a state constitution. In the spring of 1871, seventy white and black women marched into DC's Board of Registration and asked to be put on the voter rolls. Frederick Douglass joined them in support, but the officials rejected them. Several of the women then sued the registrars. Their legal challenge failed, but their attempts inspired other suffragists to launch their own test cases. And through it all, Victoria Woodhull remained a powerful spokeswoman for the new departure strategy.
10:42 Lindsay Graham? But while she drew attention to the suffrage movement with her celebrity, she also sparked controversy. After her disastrous first marriage, Woodhull had become a proud advocate of free love. During a speech in November 1871, she defiantly told a heckler, “Yes, I am a free lover. I have an inalienable constitutional and natural right to love whom I may, and to change that love every day if I please.” Woodhull was attacking the double standard that denied women the sexual freedoms that men enjoyed. But in 19th century America, her views were scandalous. Newspapers accused her of prostitution and bigamy. The American Women’s Suffrage Association was horrified. One of its leaders, the famous Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, attacked free love from his pulpit.
11:27 Lindsay Graham? But Stanton, and the even more buttoned-up Anthony, stood by Woodhull. Stanton wrote, “We have had enough women sacrificed to this sentimental hypocritical prating about purity. This is one of man’s most effective engines for our division and subjugation.” But as the 1872 election drew near, Stanton and Anthony’s support for Woodhull was tested. At a mass meeting of the National Women’s Suffrage Association in May, Woodhull took the stage and announced her candidacy for president. Anthony was appalled, and feared Woodhull was trying to seize control of the organization to bolster her own celebrity. She had a janitor turn off the lights while Woodhull was talking. But Woodhull refused to be silenced. She became the first woman to formally run for president, as the nominee of her own
12:12 Lindsay Graham? tiny equal rights party. Stanton chose to stand with her, viewing Woodhull as an inspiring choice over conventional male candidates. But Anthony could not fathom Stanton’s support for Woodhull’s controversial candidacy. It nearly ruined their friendship. And Woodhull faced her own ruin, continuing to suffer attacks for promoting free love. But in the fall of 1872, with the election looming, she decided to strike back and expose the hypocrisy of one of America’s most respected moral authorities.
12:47 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's October 1872. You're an assistant to Victoria Woodhull. You walk into the New York City offices of her publication, Woodhull and Claflin Weekly, armed with a stack of letters. Ever since your boss started her presidential run, letters to the editor have been pouring in.
13:05 Speaker 01 Good morning, Mrs. Woodhull.
13:09 Lindsay Graham? You dump the letters at your desk and pull up a seat to begin organizing them. Woodhull glances at the pile and gives a wry smile.
13:16 Speaker 05 More hate mail?
13:17 Speaker 01 Well, we won't know for sure until we open them.
13:21 Lindsay Graham? But as you look up, you realize your boss isn't listening. She's hunched over a typewriter, furiously pounding the keys.
13:27 Speaker 01 What are you working on? A new speech?
13:30 Speaker 05 No, a story for the Weekly. I just need to put the finishing touches on it before the printer's deadline. Reverend Beecher has no idea what's coming for him.
13:40 Lindsay Graham? You don't like the sound of that. Reverend Beecher is one of the nation's most beloved religious leaders and Woodhull's nemesis. You've talked her out of attacking him before, but she seems incapable of letting the matter drop. She pulls out the sheet of paper and hands it to you.
13:56 Speaker 05 Here. Proofread what I've got so far.
14:01 Lindsay Graham? You pace the room as you skim the article. The more you read, the more your stomach churns.
14:06 Speaker 01 Mrs. Woodhull, I thought we agreed this was a bad idea.
14:11 Lindsay Graham? But Woodhull just flashes you a devilish grin.
14:14 Speaker 05 The world has got to know that Beecher is nothing but a spineless hypocrite. He's practicing the same free-love ideas he routinely denounces from his pulpit. And he has the audacity to attack my supposed immorality?
14:27 Speaker 01 It's true, the standards for men are different. But...
14:31 Speaker 05 But what? Why should there be a double standard? Why should married men accuse us of low morals, then have affairs with whomever they wish?
14:40 Lindsay Graham? Woodhull returns to her typewriter.
14:43 Speaker 01 Please, I'm urging you. I really think this could be your undoing.
14:50 Speaker 05 Hardly. I'm anticipating our biggest sales run yet.
14:54 Speaker 01 But you can't expect to keep your advertisers. They won't like you writing about something so torrid. And you've got your political future to think about. People will drag your name through the mud.
15:07 Speaker 05 As if they don't do that already. The attacks on me have been relentless.
15:11 Speaker 01 But they can get worse, much worse. And you're not the only one whose reputation will suffer.
15:18 Lindsay Graham? Woodhull gives you a brief sympathetic smile, then turns back to her story. It's clear nothing will keep her from the warpath. She's determined to get revenge on her enemies, starting with Reverend Beecher. But you fear it will cost her everything.
15:36 Lindsay Graham? On November 2nd, 1872, Woodhull published a story in her newspaper targeting America's most famous preacher, Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, a leader of the American Women's Suffrage Association. Woodhull revealed that for years, Beecher had been having an affair with the wife of a close friend. The story was true, and a subsequent scandal captivated the nation. News of the affair and its fallout dragged on for years, damaging Beecher's reputation, although the church eventually exonerated him. But Woodhull paid a price too. Soon after her article was published, federal marshals arrested her for circulating obscene printed material through the US mail. She was thrown in jail, where she remained on Election Day.
16:18 Lindsay Graham? Woodhull's brief meteoric career as a leading suffragist was over. She'd pushed the rigid boundaries that dictated what American women could say and do, but she tarnished her name and the reputation of the entire suffrage movement along the way. Still, while Woodhull sat in jail, her words and actions inspired other women to go to the polls. On Election Day in November 1872, more than 150 women across America attempted to vote. Most were turned away, including Sojourner Truth, who tried to vote in Battle Creek, Michigan, where she paid taxes and owned a home. On the Friday before the election, Susan B. Anthony went to a barber shop in Rochester, New York to register to vote. When officials there tried to deny her request, she persuaded
17:01 Lindsay Graham? them to change their minds. She read the Fourteenth Amendment aloud and explained the new departure argument. And after an hour of debate, the officials relented and she registered. Then on Tuesday morning, Anthony and fourteen other women arrived at the polls. Anthony was stunned to be allowed to cast her ballot for President Ulysses S. Grant. Thrilled with her success, she wrote to Stanton, "Well, I have been and gone and done it. Positively voted the Republican ticket. Not a jeer, not a word." Anthony's vote made national news, but the celebrations would not last. Just two weeks after Election Day, Anthony and the other fourteen women were arrested. But Anthony was not defeated. Instead, she
17:43 Lindsay Graham? hoped to use her case to affirm the constitutionality of women's suffrage once and for all. After decades of fighting for her right to vote, Anthony was finally about to have her day in court.
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18:59 Speaker 07 Hi, I'm Kenya Paris. And I'm Malcolm Gladwell. We're back for season two of our Audible original podcast, The Unusual Suspects. We'll sit down with extraordinary guests from the worlds of art, film, literature, comedy, and wellness to hear from their unexpected stories of success. And who do we have this season? Well, we'll talk with Grammy winning artist Anderson Paak, athlete Richard Roll, portrait artist Amy Sherald, Oscar winning director Ron Howard, legendary writer David Sedaris, and many more. These conversations are more intimate than last season, wouldn't you say? I would. Listen to season one of The Unusual Suspects wherever you get your podcasts and sign up for a free trial Audible to listen to season two in the Audible app or by subscribing to Apple Podcasts.
19:52 Lindsay Graham? In January 1873, Susan B. Anthony was formally indicted by a grand jury of 20 men. Anthony was accused of breaking an 1870 federal law known as the Enforcement Act. It was designed to protect black male voters from harassment and violence in the post-war South, but it also dealt with election fraud. And now the grand jury used it to charge Anthony with knowingly, wrongfully voting without having a lawful right to vote, being then and there a person of the female sex. The 14 women Anthony had voted with were also arrested, but their cases were dropped. Prosecutors decided to focus exclusively on the 53-year-old Anthony, one of the most widely recognized leaders of the suffrage movement. The trial was set for the spring.
20:36 Lindsay Graham? Anthony resolved to use the months leading up to it to publicize her cause in Rochester, New York, and the surrounding area. She visited all 29 districts of Monroe County where the trial was being held. She hoped to appeal directly to the male citizens that would make up her jury, educating them on women's suffrage and the new departure argument. And in town after town, she delivered her stump speech entitled, "Is It a Crime for a Citizen of the United States to Vote?" In her speeches, Anthony referenced the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, Thomas Paine, James Madison, and the Supreme Court, all in an effort to support her argument that when she voted, she was simply exercising her right as a citizen.
21:17 Lindsay Graham? She pointed to Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which affirmed that all persons born in the United States are citizens, and declared, "The only question left to be settled now is, are women persons? I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardyhood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens. And no state has a right to make any new law or enforce any old law that shall abridge their privileges or immunities." Anthony's widely-publicized lecture tour frustrated her prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Richard Crowley. Convinced that Anthony had prejudiced the jury pool, Crowley persuaded the presiding federal judge to move the trial to a neighboring county. And it was there, in June 1873, that the trial of United States v. Susan B.
22:02 Lindsay Graham? Anthony finally got underway. The judge was Ward Hunt, who had just received an appointment to move up to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Anthony described him as a small-brained, pale-faced, prim-looking man. And it appeared that he had an equally dim opinion of Anthony, and his mind was made up about her case before the trial even began. Anthony's lawyer tried to put her on the stand, so she could testify to her state of mind the day she voted. But Judge Hunt forbid Anthony from testifying on her own behalf. Reading from an opinion he had prepared in advance, he affirmed that the Constitution allowed the states to prohibit women from voting. He instructed the jury, entirely composed of men, to render a guilty verdict. Anthony was furious.
22:46 Lindsay Graham? After just two days in court, Judge Hunt prepared to hand down his sentence. But Anthony refused to be silenced.
22:57 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's June 19th, 1873, in a courthouse in Canadega, New York. You're a judge, and you've spent the past two days trying Susan P. Anthony for the crime of illegal voting. In your mind, the case is open and shut. Anthony broke the law, and you're ready to get her sentencing over with. Soon you'll be leaving for Washington to take your seat on the Supreme Court.
23:19 Speaker 02 Will the prisoner please stand?
23:22 Lindsay Graham? You peer down at Anthony as she rises, wearing her usual grim expression.
23:27 Speaker 02 Has the prisoner anything to say before I proceed with sentencing?
23:31 Speaker 01 Yes, Your Honor. I have many things to say. In your guilty verdict, you have trampled underfoot every vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights, my judicial rights are all alike ignored. Robbed of the fundamental privilege of citizenship, I am degraded from the status of a citizen to that of a subject. Not only myself, but all of my sects are doomed to political subjection by Your Honor's verdict.
24:06 Speaker 02 The prisoner's counsel has presented these arguments already.
24:09 Speaker 01 May it please, Your Honor. I am not arguing the question, but simply stating the reasons why the sentence cannot, injustice, be pronounced against me. Your denial of my citizen's right to vote is the denial of my right of consent as one of the governed, the denial of my right to a trial by a jury of my peers, the denial of my sacred rights to life, liberty, property, and...
24:39 Speaker 02 The court cannot allow the prisoner to go home.
24:42 Lindsay Graham? Anger is building in your chest. You fear you've already let her say too much.
24:47 Speaker 01 But Your Honor would not deny me this one and only protest against this high-handed outrage upon my rights.
24:55 Speaker 02 Silence in the courtroom.
24:57 Lindsay Graham? You bang your gavel, but Anthony keeps talking.
25:00 Speaker 01 May it please the court to remember, since the day of my arrest, this is the first time that I have been allowed to speak before judge or jury.
25:09 Speaker 02 The court orders the prisoner to sit down. It will not allow another word.
25:14 Speaker 01 When I was brought before your honor for trial, I hoped for a broad and liberal interpretation of the Constitution and its recent amendments. But failing to get that, I ask not for leniency at your hands, but rather the full rigors of the law.
25:31 Speaker 02 Silence. The court has heard enough.
25:35 Lindsay Graham? Anthony finally sits down, and you angrily wipe the sweat from your brow. You're furious to have lost control of your courtroom to this radical. But you remind yourself that ultimately she has no power here. You're the one still in charge, and you can make sure that her ridiculous attempt to gain access to the polls ends right here in your courtroom.
25:59 Lindsay Graham? At her sentencing, Anthony delivered a blistering speech, ignoring Judge Hunt's attempts to silence her. When she finally sat down, Hunt handed down her sentence, a $100 fine. But Anthony insisted she would not pay it. She was hoping to be hauled off to jail for contempt so she could launch an appeal. But Hunt knew that her eventual goal was to appeal the case all the way to the Supreme Court, so he didn't take the bait. Instead, he announced that she would not be jailed for refusing to pay the fine, and the case was closed. Newspapers across the country reported the dramatic trial, drawing sympathetic attention to Anthony's cause. Anthony took advantage of the publicity, ordering 3,000 copies of the trial transcript printed and distributed to officials, activists, and libraries.
26:44 Lindsay Graham? A local New York newspaper declared, "If it is a mere question of who got the best of it, Ms. Anthony is still ahead. She has voted, and the American Constitution has survived the shock." Fining her $100 does not rule out the fact that women voted, and the world jogged on as before.
27:04 Lindsay Graham? As the battle for the vote continued in the courts, suffragists took to another form of direct action to push for their rights. Some refused to pay their taxes as long as they were denied the vote, demanding “no taxation without representation.” At a town meeting in Glastonbury, Connecticut, in November 1873, two elderly sisters named Julia and Abby Smith announced their refusal to pay their property taxes. They declared it a protest against their disenfranchisement. In response, the local sheriff auctioned off their cows. The sisters endured ridicule and mocking press coverage, but their tax rebellion gained momentum. That December, Boston celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party,
27:47 Lindsay Graham? and suffragist Lucy Stone planned a New England Women’s Tea Party, attended by 300 people. Over the stage of Boston’s Faneuil Hall, the organizers draped a banner proclaiming “Taxation Without Representation is Tyranny.” The message was clear: suffragists were linking their fight to America’s revolutionary origins. Twice as many women joined a similar protest in New York, and soon Susan B. Anthony urged women nationwide to refuse to pay their taxes. The protests brought publicity, but few women owned taxable property, and the strategy failed to have a wide impact. Then, in 1875, a Supreme Court decision dealt the movement a heavy blow.
28:28 Lindsay Graham? The case had begun in October 1872 with Virginia Minor, the woman who first raised the new departure argument. Minor tried to register to vote in St. Louis, but was denied. Her husband sued the registrar on her behalf, since Minor, as a married woman, was not legally allowed to sue in the state of Missouri. Minor hoped her lawsuit could become a test case to affirm the new departure interpretation of the 14th Amendment. In the case, Minor v. Happersett, made its way through the courts over the next two years, all the way up to the Supreme Court. But in March 1875, the High Court rejected the suffragists’ new departure argument. The justices ruled that women did not have the right to vote under the 14th Amendment,
29:11 Lindsay Graham? and that suffrage was up to the states to determine, not the federal government. After the ruling, activists were forced to set the New Departure Strategy aside. Women stopped attempting to cast their ballots. Courts and judges had repeatedly ruled against them, and suffragists were forced to accept that the vote could not be achieved through the courts. Instead, if they were going to continue to make their case for women's suffrage, they would have to do it through other means, and increasingly, that included public protest. In the summer of 1876, America commemorated its 100th birthday with a centennial exposition in Philadelphia. Suffragists hoped to be included in the Fourth of July celebrations, but their requests were denied. The event chair told them, “We propose to celebrate what we have done the past hundred
29:56 Lindsay Graham? years, not what we have failed to do.” But Anthony decided to crash the event. As male speakers took the stage in Independence Hall, Anthony and a group of fellow suffragists stood at the back of the crowd, waiting for their moment. After a reading of the Declaration of Independence, Anthony told her fellow protestors, “Now is our time.” The group stepped forward, shocking the crowd by storming the stage. Anthony arrived at the podium in her heavy velvet dress, which she wore in spite of the heat. She presented the politician presiding over the event, Senator Thomas Ferry, with a copy of the protestors’ Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States. Ferry bowed to her and accepted the document. The protestors then moved throughout the audience, passing out copies of the manifesto.
30:40 Lindsay Graham? Afterward, they marched outside to Independence Square, where Anthony read the Declaration aloud to a large crowd. The document was a more radical version of the Declaration drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton nearly thirty years earlier at Seneca Falls. It spoke of suffrage, protection against taxation without representation, and the right to be tried by a jury of one’s peers. Suffragists were stepping up their bold claims to the legacy of America’s founders, and they were gaining attention through civil disobedience. But with the New Departure Strategy dead, the movement’s leaders knew they would have to forge a new path to the polls. That path no longer lay through the federal government and the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, it was through the states, whose constitutions determined which groups could and could not vote.
31:26 Lindsay Graham? So suffragists looked to the West, where new states and territories were emerging, some of which were open to enfranchising women. On this new frontier, activists would fight a new battle, territory by territory, state by state. It would not be easy, but they knew it might be their only remaining chance of finally winning the right to vote.
31:51 Speaker 07 Hi, I'm Kenny Beres.
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32:46 Lindsay Graham? In 1876, Colorado became the 38th state admitted to the Union. One year later, it became a battleground in the fight for women's voting rights. In an election scheduled for October 1877, a women's suffrage referendum would be on the ballot. And if it passed, Colorado would become the first state to enfranchise women. Suffrage activists had reason to be optimistic. Eight years earlier, in November 1869, the neighboring territory of Wyoming had become the first place in the nation to grant voting rights to women. And just two months later, Utah Territory followed. The young territorial governments of the West were more open to experiments in political reform.
33:26 Lindsay Graham? Many towns and territories supported suffrage as a way to attract new white female settlers. They hoped wives and mothers would have a positive influence on rugged frontier communities. But there were limits to the impact these territorial victories could have. Since Wyoming and Utah were not yet states, citizens there could not participate in federal elections. So for suffragists, Colorado was a far bigger prize. If women won the vote there, they could cast their ballots for US senators, congressmen, and the president. Throughout the suffrage campaign in Colorado and elsewhere in the West, the movement's leaders from the East lent their support. Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others crisscrossed the
34:07 Lindsay Graham? country on trains and stagecoaches, raising money, giving speeches, and working with local organizers on the ground. They were joined in their efforts by a powerful ally, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, or WCTU. This fast-growing organization attracted women from all walks of life who wanted to fight alcohol consumption and the damage it inflicted on families. One of the WCTU's most charismatic leaders was a teacher and suffragist named Frances Willard. Willard had co-founded the Temperance Union in 1874 after watching her brother die from alcoholism. She argued that it was not enough to close saloons and suspend liquor licenses. She insisted that if women were to achieve the social changes they wanted, they needed
34:50 Lindsay Graham? political power, and she made suffrage part of the WCTU's official platform. Suffrage had long been viewed as a radical movement, and Willard was keenly aware of the need to widen its appeal to conservative, middle-class women. Under the banner of "home protection," Willard rebranded suffrage to fit in with women's traditional domestic responsibilities. She argued that in order for women to protect their homes from the scourge of alcohol, they needed the vote. Susan B. Anthony applauded Willard's efforts, pleased to see another movement take up the suffrage fight. And the Women's Christian Temperance Union became an important training ground for the next generation of suffrage activists, including Black members, rare for any organization.
35:33 Lindsay Graham? Many Black women in the South became activists through their work in the WCTU, drawn by its call for community uplift. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a veteran of the universal suffrage movement, helped lead the union's Department of Colored Work, urging white women to cooperate with Black activists as equal partners in the fight. A decade after its founding, the WCTU grew to 70,000 members across 44 state chapters, making it the largest women's organization in the country. It helped make suffrage acceptable among small-town, middle-class women and spread the movement throughout the West. But by tying suffrage to the temperance movement, activists like Willard created a powerful enemy.
36:14 Lindsay Graham? The liquor industry feared that women would try to ban alcohol at the ballot box, so they stepped up an aggressive and well-funded campaign to defeat suffrage. As the 1877 Colorado referendum on women's suffrage drew near, both the National and American Women's Suffrage Associations got involved, with Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone traveling through mountain towns in support of the campaign. But when the results of the October 2 election were tallied, the measure was soundly defeated. Activists blamed liquor interests for turning voters against suffrage. And over the next decade, the liquor industry became even more determined to fight suffrage in the West. The movement for the vote had never before faced such an organized, well-financed, and determined adversary.
37:04 Lindsay Graham? Imagine it's election day in November 1882, in the town of Bellevue, Nebraska. You're standing at the bar in a saloon that doubles as a polling place. Behind you, men wait in line to vote. For the past year and a half, you've been working tirelessly to persuade voters to add women's suffrage to the state constitution. It hasn't been easy. You've been fighting a liquor lobby that is convinced women voters will enact temperance laws. You flag down a bartender who's stacking glasses behind the counter. He raises an eyebrow at the sight of you.
37:34 Speaker 02 Can I help you, miss? You know a saloon is no place for a woman.
37:38 Speaker 05 Where's the official in charge of this polling place?
37:41 Speaker 02 You're looking at him.
37:42 Speaker 05 Well, then, you can help me. I'd like to see a ballot.
37:46 Lindsay Graham? You point to the ballots he has stacked up behind the bar.
37:50 Speaker 02 I don't think so.
37:51 Speaker 05 I just want to make sure everything is as it should be.
37:54 Speaker 02 That's my job, not yours.
37:57 Lindsay Graham? You throw up your hands and mock defeat.
37:59 Speaker 05 Fine, fine.
38:02 Speaker 05 I guess I'd better let you get back to it. Looks like you've got a thirsty customer down the bar.
38:07 Lindsay Graham? But as the bartender looks away, you reach over the counter and grab a ballot from the stack.
38:12 Speaker 02 Hey!
38:13 Lindsay Graham? You quickly read it, front and back. You're shocked.
38:16 Speaker 05 There's something wrong with this ballot. The suffrage referendum question isn't even on it.
38:22 Lindsay Graham? The bartender grabs the ballot out of your hand.
38:24 Speaker 02 The ballots are just fine.
38:26 Speaker 05 No, that looks like an illegally printed ballot. Where did you get them?
38:31 Speaker 02 A man dropped them off this morning.
38:33 Speaker 05 Which man? What was his name?
38:36 Lindsay Graham? The bartender hesitates, then leans close and lowers his voice.
38:40 Speaker 02 Look, if you must know, it was a representative of the Brewers Association. He threatened my business if I didn't use these specially printed ballots. Get the picture? Now, will you please be on your way? I've told you this establishment is no place for ladies.
38:56 Speaker 05 I can't believe this. You realize this is fraud?
39:02 Lindsay Graham? But the bartender just shrugs and walks away. You're shocked that the liquor industry would use such blatantly underhanded tactics. Defeated, you turn around and walk past the man in line to vote, exercising a right you fear might never be your own.
39:20 Lindsay Graham? In 1882, Nebraska held a referendum to add suffrage to its constitution. But in the run-up to Election Day, the beer industry sponsored sweeping election fraud. Representatives for the Brewers Association distributed illegally printed ballots that omitted the suffrage question entirely and engaged in a widespread campaign of miscounting votes and ballot box stuffing. Amid the rampant fraud, suffrage won just one-third of the vote. Two years later, Oregon held its own suffrage referendum. The state's leading suffrage organizer, Abigail Scott Dunaway, knew that temperance had become political poison and publicly criticized prohibition. But her efforts in Oregon failed. Even though she came out against banning alcohol, the liquor industry still went on the offensive.
40:06 Lindsay Graham? They even sent men from neighboring Washington Territory down to Oregon to vote against the referendum. And elsewhere, hard-won victories were rolled back. In 1883, Washington Territory enfranchised women. But just three years later, liquor interests filed a legal case to undo the victory and won. In 1887, the Territorial Supreme Court reversed the law on a technicality. Susan B. Anthony had finally accepted the state-by-state approach out of pragmatism and the Supreme Court defeat of the new departure argument. But she had never given up on her dream of a federal suffrage amendment. She believed that was still the best way to quickly guarantee suffrage nationwide. And with her few allies in Congress, she continued the fight.
40:49 Lindsay Graham? In 1878, a pro-suffrage California senator had introduced an amendment to the United States Constitution prohibiting disenfranchisement on the basis of sex. Anthony and Stanton testified before Congress on its behalf. But the bill was shelved for the next decade. When the Senate finally scheduled a vote in 1887, it was rejected 34 to 16. But afterward, Anthony remained optimistic. When a reporter asked her about the defeat, she cried, "A defeat? Why, no. It was a triumph for us. You see, we have on our side one-third of the United States Senate." Despite the slow progress, Anthony knew that suffrage had made important gains. Suffragists had extended the movement beyond elite circles of Boston and New York to
41:33 Lindsay Graham? ordinary women in towns and territories across the country. They had formed organizations and gained experience that would help them build real, lasting momentum in the years to come. And soon, a new generation of activists would take up the reins, carrying the fight into the 20th century.
41:51 Lindsay Graham? From Wondery, this is episode two of "The Fight for Women's Suffrage from American History Tellers." On the next episode, new leaders emerge in the movement, including Black women who challenged discrimination in white-led suffrage groups. And across the Atlantic, radical British suffragettes make headlines for shocking acts of protest, inspiring a dramatic new phase in the struggle for the vote.
42:15 Lindsay Graham? American History Tellers is only possible because of listeners like you, so thank you. And don't miss an episode. Be sure to follow American History Tellers on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. And to find out more about me, including my other podcasts, my live show, the history tours I'm arranging, and all sorts of other things, go to historyishuman.com. That's historyishuman.com.
42:50 Lindsay Graham? If you'd like to learn more about the suffrage movement, we recommend Suffrage: Women's Long Battle for the Vote by Allen Carroll DeBois, and Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All by Martha S. Jones. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsay Graham for Airship. Audio editing by Molly Bach. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Music by Lindsay Graham. Voice acting in this episode by Ace Anderson, Kat Peoples, and Cynthia San Luis. This episode is written by Ellie Stanton, edited by Dorian Marina. Our senior producer is Andy Herman. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman and Marshall Louie for Wondery.
43:34 Speaker 06 Imagine you're reading Pride and Prejudice, except you're not reading it. Harris Dickinson and Marissa Abella are reading it to you on Audible. Her barbs sting you. His coldness sends a shiver up your spine. Your heart aches. Your ears burn. You yearn for Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy to profess their undying love for one another. You can't bear it any longer. Well, maybe a chapter longer. Performance is so good, you'll give love a second chance. Audible. Stories that speak to you.
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