Between 1880 and 1900, the Oregon Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) significantly impacted the lives of Oregon women. Not simply an organization of middle class white women, the Oregon WCTU enlisted Native American and African American women, and persistently advocated for improved conditions for working women. The WCTU aspired to be more than a simple temperance union, taking on a broad social agenda which had as its goal the social emancipation of women. It successfully secured positive changes for women in the areas of sexuality, labor, personal safety, education, and prison life in addition to successfully advocating several temperance issues on the state and national level. The union also served to solidify the bond between women, mobilizing them into a social class. Despite their commitment to improving the lives of women, not all WCTU members were supportive of the suffrage movement. Open conflict between the WCTU and the state suffrage association, led by Abigail Scott Duniway, highlights the complexity of women's politics in Oregon at the end of the nineteenth century. Divisions between women on the issues of suffrage and temperance reveal early disagreements as to the best route to increased freedom for women. Such division led to a delay in achieving equal suffrage in the state of Oregon. Despite their disenfranchisement, women's work in the public arena shaped the development of communities and the state of Oregon. Through petition circulation, public speaking, industrial schools, labor union organization, and political lobbying, Oregon women influenced the decisions made by voting men. The activities of Oregon women at the end of the nineteenth century suggest that women wielded political power long before they gained the right to vote. / Graduation date: 1999

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This thesis examined the news coverage and editorial coverage the New York Times gave Susan B. Anthony’s participation in the women’s suffrage movement from the time Miss Anthony joined the movement in September 1852 until her death in March 1906. Using various books on Miss Anthony as well as the New York Times index, a chronological list of events and activities involving Miss Anthony’s participation in the woman’s suffrage movement was complied. Pages of the New York Times then were examined on the dates and near the dates of Miss Anthony’s activities to learn what coverage the newspaper had given her or the movement.The study showed that when the woman’s suffrage movement began in the early 1800s, women had few of the rights they enjoy today. Society of the time believed a woman’s place was in the home and that only man, as head of the household and chief breadwinner, should enjoy the right of suffrage. However, people who supported the woman’s suffrage movement believed women should enjoy the same employment opportunities and wages men of that day enjoyed and saw the ballot as the women could achieve those opportunities.Having shown the society of the early 1800s as well as the reasons for the woman's suffrage movement, the thesis focused on Miss Anthony's activities in the movement to show the coverage the New York Times gave her and the movement both news-wise and editorially throughout her life. The thesis found the New York Times covered her activities and those of the movement factually, based on the historical books written about her life and activities. However, the study found the newspaper's editorial opposition to the movement lacked the facts to support its emotional, and often illogical, feelings against the movement. Only when Miss Anthony was found guilty of voting did the New York Times stand on firm ground in opposition to her actions because it presented facts based on the United States Constitution to support its statements.The thesis concluded the New York Times reported its news stories factually and accurately, but used emotional appeals which lacked facts to support its opposition to the woman's suffrage movement. The thesis also concluded the New York Times reflected the society it served, a society that believed woman belonged in the home instead of out in a man's world, demanding the ballot in order to achieve equal rights with man.

The main purpose of this study is to provide a re-assessment of the early twentieth century women's suffrage movement, thereby challenging much of the existing historiography of this subject. The approach is based upon the premise that it is not possible to understand the nature and significance of the women's suffrage movement through accounts of the lives of a few of its charismatic leaders. A far broader analytical framework is necessary. This begins with the nature of the arguments about women and their place in society, which were utilised in support of votes for women. It then extends to an analysis of the success gained in conveying such ideas to a wide body of women, who in the case of Britain, if not elsewhere in Europe and North America, were drawn from all social classes. The final step is to assess the impact of the women's suffrage movement upon the broader political system in which it operated. For the eventual success of the movement in gaining votes for women cannot be explained solely in terms of its own internal dynamics. Rather it is necessary to examine the inter-action between the way the various suffrage organisations viewed and related to the current political environment, and the way political leaders and parties viewed and acted in response to suffrage activities. This analytical framework unites two strands of historical research which at present seem to have developed in isolation from each other. That is, it combines the concern of the new feminist historiography with the evolution of modern sex-roles, with the more traditional political and constitutional historians' interest in women's suffrage as a problem for party politics and public order.

This thesis challenges the conventional wisdom that the W.S.P.U.'s strategy choices were unimportant in regard to winning women's suffrage. It confirms the hypothesis that the long-range strategy of the W.S.P.U. was to escalate coercion until the Government exhausted its powers of opposition and conceded, but to interrupt this strategy whenever favorable bargaining opportunities with the Government and third parties developed. In addition to filling an apparent research gap by systematically analyzing these choices, this thesis synthesizes and tests several piecemeal theories of social movements within the general framework of the natural history approach. The analysis utilizes data drawn from movement leaders' autobiographies, documentary accounts of the militant movement, and the standard histories of the entire British women's suffrage movement. Additionally, extensive use is made of contemporary periodicals and miscellaneous works on related movements.

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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In the fall of 1917, between 30,000 and 40,000 Indianapolis women registered to vote. The passage of the Maston-McKinley partial suffrage bill earlier that year gave women a significantly amplified voice in the public realm. This victory was achieved by a conservative group of Hoosier suffragists and reformers. However, the women lost their right to vote in the fall of 1917 due to two Indiana Supreme Court rulings.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / As white settlers and pioneers moved westward in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, some of the first to settle the Indiana territory, near the Ohio border, were members of the Religious Society of Friends (the Quakers). Many of these Quakers focused on social reforms, especially the anti-slavery movement, as they fled the slave-holding states like the Carolinas. Less discussed in Indiana’s history is the impact Quakerism also had in the movement for women’s rights. This case study of two of the founding members of the Indiana Woman’s Rights Association (later to be renamed the Indiana Woman’s Suffrage Association), illuminates the influences of Quakerism on women’s rights. Amanda M. Way (1828-1914) and Mary Frame (Myers) Thomas, M.D. (1816-1888) practiced skills and gained opportunities for organizing a grassroots movement through the Religious Society of Friends. They attained a strong sense of moral grounding, skills for conducting business meetings, and most importantly, developed a confidence in public speaking uncommon for women in the nineteenth century. Quakerism propelled Way and Thomas into action as they assumed early leadership roles in the women’s rights movement. As advocates for greater equality and freedom for women, Way and Thomas leveraged the skills learned from Quakerism into political opportunities, resource mobilization, and the ability to frame their arguments within other ideological contexts (such as temperance, anti-slavery, and education).