What is Women’s Equality Day? The U.S. Congress designated August 26 as “Women’s Equality Day” in 1973. The date was selected to commemorate the 1920 certification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution granting women the right to vote. This was the culmination of a massive, mostly peaceful civil rights movement by women that had its formal beginnings in 1848 at the United State’s first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. The observance of Women’s Equality Day not only commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment, but also calls attention to women’s continuing efforts toward full equality.
The word “suffrage” means the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums. Ellen Carol DuBois began writing “Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote” as a tribute to the 75-year-long battle to gain voting rights for women, and with the hope of celebrating the first woman president. It is an event-heavy history book that draws the reader onto stages and street corners across the country, introducing us to the suffragettes and abolitionists of the movement. We learn of the good and the bad; the suffragettes and their male supporters were determined to gain enfranchisement and some of their actions, looking back, are objectionable. Bubois writes unflinchingly about suffragettes who adopted the “Southern Strategy” of disenfranchising African American men in favor of advancing the white suffragette movement. There were also powerful friendships and partnerships between black and white women who together took up the banner of the universal suffrage framework. An excellent book that reminds us of the strength of our past as we face the work of our future.
The final chapter contains the Declaration of Sentiments, a list of demands that called for women’s equality and suffrage. For a light-hearted look into the suffrage movement, check out this children’s picture book about two women, their kitten and their little yellow car. Nell Richardson, Alice Burke and Saxon take to the road in “Around America to Win the Vote” by Mira Rockliff. If you would like to know more about suffragettes and cats, the National Park Service provides Women’s Suffrage and the Cat for our enjoyment.
Another look into the history of women’s equality is “Fearless Women: Feminist Patriots from Abigail Adams to Beyoncé “
by Elizabeth Cobbs. It contains eight chapters, each focusing on the stories of women fighting for a right. The right to learn, the right to earn, the right to physical safety. Chapter 4 of this book discusses the right to vote through the suffrage work of Mary Church Terrell, an African American advocate for voting rights, and Rosa Cavalleri, an Italian American immigrant whose abusive husband and poverty who spoke to groups of wealthier Americans to inspire change. Yet discussion regarding women’s suffrage permeates the book. In the chapter about lobbying, we learn that in 1924 Missouri amended the state constitution to prevent noncitizen voting in Federal elections. By the 1940’s, most states had decided to allow only citizens to vote in state, local and school elections. Before these measures were taken by states, people could recruit non-citizens to skew the votes. Elizabeth Cady Stanton objected to immigrants, newcomers in our states, having more influence than someone like herself, a woman whose grandparent had fought in the Revolution and who was keenly interested in the welfare of the nation.
A history beginning between the world wars, “Women, Money, Power: The Rise and Fall of Economic Equality,” by Josie Cox, examines gender inequality in hiring practices, wages, parental responsibilities and societal expectations. It’s written in a warm, sympathetic voice introducing the women who participated in winning WWII by building bombers, working on factory lines and running businesses. It contains the struggle of women to reach their full potential as engineers, scientists and other professionals regardless of the societal and patriarchal barriers, and the efforts of generations of women who continue to fight for equal pay and equal rights.
A gentle reminder of our timeline:
- 1848 First women’s rights convention
- 1868 Fourteenth Amendment
- 1917 US entered WWI
- 1920 Nineteenth Amendment
- 1941 US entered WWII
- 1963 Equal Pay Act
- 1965 Voting Rights Act
- 1973 Women’s Equality Day first celebrated
Let’s continue with a lighter tone: “All Stirred Up: Suffrage Cookbooks, Food, and the Battle for Women’s Right to Vote” by Laura Kumin. While Kumin recognizes that we usually think of picket signs and women in white when the Suffrage Movement is mentioned, she makes the argument that the hearts and minds of common women are important, too. Most women weren’t necessarily visible but could gently influence their menfolk. Leaders of the Suffrage Movement empowered their sisters in the domestic arts by publishing articles and recipes. The latter was often bound up as fundraising products, and contains recipes, household hints and care of infants and the infirm. Some of them also contain messaging to further the suffrage campaign with hopes to “show that a woman with domestic skills and an interest in home and hearth could also be a suffragist, devoted to gaining the right to vote.” The recipes in this book are derived from books published by Suffrage influencers between 1886 and 1916. Kumin has also adapted some of the recipes to the modern kitchen.
As a result of reading this book, I’ve decided to look for suffrage cookbooks. We have two available, via Hoopla, but it’s not like I can write in the margins. And I like to mark up my cookbooks.
As a final reason to celebrate Women’s Equality Day, I would draw your attention to the history of the Columbia Library itself. In 1917 the Tuesday Club and other local women’s groups wanted to apply to get a Carnegie Library. At that time Mexico and Fulton both had Carnegie Buildings. Under the Carnegie formula the building would be provided, but the town would be responsible to maintain it and pay for staffing, books, etc. The issue to support a library was on the ballot in 1917 and was defeated. Women got the right to vote in 1920. Columbia-area women organized to get the library issue on the ballot and it passed in 1922. And that’s the really short version of one library’s heritage.
