This version was derived from Women's Suffrage.doc
©
Robert E. Schnare, former Connecticut State Librarian, generously gave his research papers on the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association to Dr. Herbert F. Janick, Professor of History at Western Connecticut State University. Dr. Janick deposited the collection in the Ruth Haas Library, Archives and Special Collections, in order to make the collection accessible to students researching Connecticut history.
Open for research without restrictions.
Permission to publish materials must be obtained in writing from the:
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date (if known); The Connecticut Woman Suffrage Movement Collection; MS 003; box number; folder number;
In August 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment was approved by the required number of states, and American women had thus achieved the right to vote. Connecticut's male leadership was stubborn on this issue until the end. Connecticut's United States Senators, Frank Brandegee (1864-1924) and George McLean (1857-1932), voted against the Amendment. Connecticut delegates to the 1920 Republican Convention were instrumental in crippling the suffrage plank in the party platform. Governor Marcus Holcomb shrugged off a petition with the signature of 103,000 women and refused to call a special session of the General Assembly to consider ratification.
The official resistance of Connecticut to extending the vote to women obscures the existence of an organized suffrage movement in the state. In 1869 the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association was born. Under the direction of Isabella Beecher Hooker (1822-1907) for thirty-six years, the CWSA achieved some success. In 1903 and 1909 women were allowed to vote on school and library matters. The combination of aging leadership in the CWSA and the resistance of the conservative, rural-dominated General Assembly, however, made more significant advances impossible.
In 1910 a group of young, middle-class women led by Katherine Houghton Hepburn (1878-1951), Katherine Ludington (1869-1953), Emily Pierson (1881-1971), Caroline Ruutz-Rees (1865-1954), Valeria Parker (1879-1959), and Grace Seton (1872- 1959) took control of the CWSA. College-educated and often with careers outside the home in education, medicine, and literature, they advanced arguments of both idealism and expediency to promote their cause. Working closely with the Connecticut National Woman's Party, organized in 1916 by Alice Paul (1885-1977) and other militants, they concentrated on a new strategy of building support for the Federal Amendment. Between 1917 and 1920 a network of women, by means of petitions, letters, meetings, publications, and political threats, sought in vain to convince the Connecticut General Assembly to act favorably on the Nineteenth Amendment.
Following the national passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, few Connecticut females were elected to office in the next decade. By 1931 only forty-seven women had served in the General Assembly, and none had gained positions of influence. The Republican-dominated state government ignored issues of interest to women such as childcare. During the 1920s women were forced to operate outside the power structure through such organizations as the Connecticut Association of Collegiate Women, the League of Nations Association, and especially, the League of Women Voters, to perpetuate the unity and reform zeal that was the strength of the woman suffrage movement.
For Further Reading: There is a vast literature on woman suffrage in the United States. Two key books are Eleanor Flexner,
Sources:
The collection comprises 2 linear feet of material and consists mainly of sources for Schnare's paper on the Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association. The collection dates from 1906-1980, the bulk of which dates from 1906-1925.
Researchers are encouraged to examine the entire collection especially the folders marked Sources, Miscellaneous Data and Information, Bibliographies, General Information, and Miscellaneous Information folders. In many cases there is information concerning an event or person among more than one Source folder.
Sources (box 1, folders 1-8) contain research notes, bibliographies, inventories, indexes, newspaper articles, clippings, and a biography and notes regarding Senator Frank B. Brandegee (folder 6) who opposed woman suffrage. Folders 7 and 8 contain
The Early Years of the CWSA (folders 9-11) contain bibliographies, manuscript sources, clippings, and a list of women voters in Waterbury for 1899. A thesis entitled
Also included are copies of correspondence to and from Governor Simeon Baldwin (1911-1915) and Governor Marcus H. Holcomb (1915-1921) during the turbulent years of the woman suffrage movement in Connecticut (box 1, folders 40-41, and folders 23-28). The correspondents include various Connecticut suffragists, governors and leagues that dealt with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.
Of special interest are the original suffrage news bulletins
The Organization of American Historians (box 1, folder 39) contains
The Hartford Equal Rights Club Records (box 2, folders 52-53) contains the activities of the club previous to the granting of suffrage to women and newspaper clippings of historical interest concerning the organization of the club in March 1885 and its early career. The Club's Constitution is also included.
Biographies of state officials and their voting records on woman suffrage can be found in General Information (box 2, folders 55-56). The folders also contain original pamphlets and programs published by the CWSA and the Connecticut League of Women Voters.
The National Women's Party files (box 2, folders 63-68) contain information pertaining to the 19th Amendment, journal articles, bibliographies, book reviews, research notes, copies of letters, archival sources, and a paper entitled
An original copy of
Folders are arranged alphabetically.
The files are grouped into 1 series:
[The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.]
A list of Danbury women who registered to vote following attaining the right to do so. Voting was limited to local elections.
Woman Suffrage Conn. 1895-1909
Woman Suffrage Conn. 1910-1914
Clippings Woman Suffrage 1872-1874
Suffrage Registration 1914
Suffrage Registration 1884
Constitution and registration of Suffrage ? 1869
Judiciary Committee Feb.27, 1917
Hearings p.1042
File No.299 House of Representatives-CT.
House Bill H.R. 771 - Butler
Harper-History of W. S. Movement.
Workers' Meeting, 1920
Joint Special Committee, May 1870.
Suffrage Materials
Congressional Records
Harding's Acceptance