Just to be clear... a convict, the mentally ill, a drunkard and a proprietor of white slaves are "lesser" when it comes to making decisions about society -- if you ask me.

A 'lunatic' does not possess the capacity to make good decisions (i.e., vote) and the others embrace antisocial behavior... so...

(I do have to admit, I'm not sure what a physical injury or handicap has to do with anything.)

The second image, of what women can be without the vote and what men can be with the vote, contains an especially interesting image.

In addition to including a Convict, Lunatic, Drunkard and someone unfit for service, it also includes a "Proprietor of white slaves." There are some interesting racial and class politics at play here!

I must say I am impressed with this write, and it's pictures. I must also add that these, "espoused ideologies", fit right well with my feminist and political ideal of today. Thank you, and remember to stand up and fight for the rights of children, ladies and mothers. No leaving them behind, now that the suffrage movement has come and gone.

Great blog! And very impressive coming from a high school senior! I don't mean to be ageist, it's just that I was very uneducated, or to put it bluntly, stupid, in high school :)

She looks forward to attending Haverford College.

Yay Bi-Co! High-five from a Bryn Mawr alum! (Your post was excellent too, of course, but first things first. :D)

I'd be curious to know whether the ideologies that were espoused that were non-egalitarian were exemplified in the lives of the suffragettes lives or if they merely functioned as a rhetorical device against the argument that votes for women somehow threatened to topple society as it existed.

If these images are in any way surprising to you, you have an immense amount to learn about feminist history.

Continuing with the theme of the second image, there was a great deal of racist rhetoric in the suffrage movement. One prominent line of argumentation in the suffrage movement was that it was unjust for non-white men or white immigrant men to have the right to vote if white women did not. The rhetoric was often aimed at uniting whites against non-whites, more so than uniting women.

The second image is also not surprising when you realize that most women's rights activists during this period were also supporters of eugenics. You see, the women's rights movement was a part of the broader Progressive movement of the period. Eugenics was a key part of the Progressive movement and it did culminate in the forced sterilization of tens (if not hundreds, records are spotty) of thousands of women and "invalids" in the United States. To T, who says he doesn't understand what physical disabilities have to do with anything - there were literally millions of Progressives during this period who felt that people born with physical disabilities were genetically inferior and did not deserve to procreate, much less have the right to vote.

Another major part of the Progressive Era that many early feminists were involved in was the temperance movement - which eventually led to Prohibition, which made most alcoholic beverages illegal in the U.S.

Most feminists (and most Progressives in general) from this era were also adamant supporters of restricting immigration, especially from non-white regions (which in that time period was often construed to include southern or eastern Europe). Susan B. Anthony and Margaret Sanger are two famous early "feminists" (an anachronistic term when applied to them, but I think it's a fair label) who were very strongly in favor of restricting immigration and spoke very poorly of the genetic stock of most recent arrivals to the U.S.

If you're willing to go further back in history, I recommend the book "Southern Horrors: Women and the Politics of Rape and Lynching" by Professor Crystal Feimster from Yale. It's about the early women's rights movement in the Southern U.S., from the Reconstruction period til the Depression. It describes the dynamics of lynching, which was an interplay between race and gender. A great percentage of the black men who were lynched in that period (possibly the majority) were lynched under the pretext of having committed rape. As far as most historians can tell, the majority of these accusations were false. Southerners used rape laws and the primacy given to testimony by white women (over blacks) as a way of enacting violence against blacks that defied social restrictions or that in some way ended up being targeted. It also tracks the reactions to lynching of white and black proto-feminist leaders during this period. The black women in the movement dedicated a great deal of their time to combating lynching and pointing out the injustice inherent in Southern society. In contrast, most white women in the movement were pro-segregation and pro-lynching (often encouraging the white women who accused black men of rape to choose the most violent and torturous punishments for their supposed attacker, as was their right in the Southern legal system) and they spent a great deal of their time and resources persuading white men to disassociate from any socialization with blacks.

Unfortunately most students know nothing about this history unless they pursue it's study in college. It has been whitewashed from most public school curriculum, which seek to portray the women's rights/feminist movement in as positive and unblemished a light as possible. It's a shame really. Modern sociology and history tell us that events from even the distant past can have monumental social ramifications in the present. If we studied feminism's race, class and ideological context to a greater degree it might shed more light on the social structure we face today in American society. Why don't we? I suspect because people in academia are afraid of the ramifications that delving into this past might pose for modern-day political liberalism. Thus, the only real historians who are pursuing this path of analysis are usually racial/ethnic minorities or political conservatives.

I know that I'm missing the main point, but I want that poster. It would look completely great on this one wall in my apartment and would make a great conversation piece. Getting through the conversation about it successfully would be like running the gauntlet. But, if you make it through, you'll be welcome to visit whenever.

Brava, Allison! I'm a high school history teacher, and my goal in life is basically to help more people be able to do the kind of critical analysis of evidence that you're already skilled at. Good luck at Haverford!

Slightly off-topic, but has anyone noticed how the "drunkard" in the second image appears to be holding a shillelagh? Yeah. File that one under "obliviousness to own privilege".

Give her credit, she is a high school student. And if we are to judge her on that fact, then she did an EXCELLENT job. She was willing to take the class and take part in the exchange of ideas by posting on this site to share with her adult peers. Bravo.

I view the message differently in the second image. It's simply an ad based on their current value system. Most of you are judging the posters with todays world views and moral fibers, and that's not a sound argument. What's at issue is the story in-between.

good, but info. not enough.............

The middle is good but for the "proprietor of white slaves". A little racism had to be thrown in even for a good cause...