Women's Suffrage

Illinois Leads the Country

Hilary Storm
Oregon High School, Oregon

Millions of people did not vote in the 1996 presidential election. Some people may not be aware of the incredible fight that groups of people had to wage for the right to vote. In the past, voting was one of the major barriers between men and women. In the early decades of the 1900s Illinois women made a daring step towards the future.

The Illinois legislature passed a bill to allow women the right to vote in 1913. The struggle for women in other states continued through World War I, though, and suffragette campaign posters pointed out that women were willing to fight and die for the country.

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They were not going to quit pushing forward until they gained the right to vote and reached the voting booth.

The women's suffrage movement surprisingly did not start with the idea of a woman's right to vote. Rather, it started with influential women who fought for African American and immigrant rights. These women began to also notice other areas of discrimination. Some women began to see their influence in the world as well as their exclusion from the voting process.

During the late 1800s, powerful women, such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, held women's rights discussions. With the contributions of Mary Livermore they were able to form the Illinois Woman Suffrage Association. Frances Willard confirmed their stance by saying: "The idea that boys of twenty-one are fit to make laws for their mothers, is an insult to everyone." While in 1891 women received the right to vote in school elections, their main goal of voting for the higher offices was not achieved yet. Under the leadership of Evanston attorney Catharine Waugh McCulloch, the state suffrage association, renamed the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association (IESA), kept pressure on the General Assembly for the next twenty years.

One of the hardest tasks the IESA had to overcome was society's impression of women. A senator received a letter from a man representing the "Man Suffrage Association" who claimed, "women had done nothing to deserve the vote, that they were merely the passive and often unwilling and hostile instruments by which humanity is created." In retaliation against those statements many women began to take a more active role in their defense. An easterner by the name of Elizabeth Stanton was one such woman. She later wrote that "the history of mankind was a history of repeated injuries on the part of men toward women, its objective being an absolute tyranny over women." Ruth Hanna McCormick, an Illinoisan, had strong influence with Springfield newspapers. Chicagoan Antoinette Funk suggested that those people who did not want to vote for women's suffrage should at least refrain from fighting passage of the bill.

This broadside argued that women were performing jobs traditionally held by men, and women were asking for only one thing in return: the right to vote.

Over the years many bills were sent out that asked for women's inclusion in the presidential elections. In the General Assembly, the speaker of the house helped one such bill receive some favorable consideration. If there was sufficient support for the bill, the Speaker believed it would come down to a vote. It turned out that the bill received a great deal of support throughout Illinois. The bill ended up passing the Senate. On June 11, 1913, the bill was brought up for the house's consideration. Pro-suffrage efforts included visits to the homes of absent representatives to encourage them to vote in favor of their cause. Their efforts proved fruitful. Governor Edward F. Dunne signed the bill into law, making Illinois the first state east of the Mississippi River to allow women to vote in the presidential elections. Illinois led the way towards women's voting rights. Many Illinois women continued the struggle in Washington, D.C. to gain the right for women in the rest of the country.

Despite the fact that many people do not take voting seriously anymore, they should understand the cause that their mothers and grandmothers took upon themselves. They risked a lot for their right to vote and succeeded at what was thought impossible.—[From Melanie Buckley, Illinois Women; Agness Geneva Gilman, Who's Who in Illinois History; Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection <http://www.loc.gov>; Mark Sorensen, Ahead of Their Time <http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/~sorensen/suff.html>; Douglass Project, Why Women Should Vote <http://douglass.speech.nwu.edu/adda_a03. htm>.]

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