Those opposed: Southern antisuffragism, 1890-1920
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Description
Who were the southern antisuffragists? Why would these women oppose their own enfranchisement? How did they differ from 'northern' antisuffragists? Did they differ in same fashion from their opponents in the southern suffrage movement? These are the primary considerations of this monograph. An examination of these questions not only brings into the light a group of previously ignored women, it also helps to inform our understanding of some of the forces at work in the southern suffrage movement as well. Suffragists and antisuffragists were locked in something resembling an organizational ping-pong game: each was forced to respond to actions by the other. To understand completely the strategies and activities of the suffragists, we must look simultaneously at the activities of their opponents (and vice-versa). Therefore southern suffragists appear as prominent actors in an account of the antisuffragists This dissertation examines the prosopography, the ideology, and the organizational activities of the southern antisuffragists. It concludes that, in contradiction to past assumptions, suffragists and antisuffragists did not come from the same social and economic class, nor did they have similar experiences of 'social feminism.' Instead, their backgrounds and experiences differed significantly, the product of their differing economic positions Southern antisuffragists created a conservative countermovement intended to prevent the changes which they contended woman suffrage would impose upon the family structure, class relations, gender roles, and racial settlement of the South at the end of the Nineteenth Century. Southern ' antis' believed that they benefitted the most from contemporary race, class, and gender constructs and would consequently suffer the most as a result of any tampering with the status quo A final chapter gives separate treatment to the 'states' rights' faction of the southern suffrage movement. By opposing the federal woman suffrage amendment, the states' rights suffragists effectively became allies of the antisuffragists at times. The emergence of the states' rights faction meant that the southern suffrage campaigns were three-sided, which not only complicated the suffrage contests in the South, but also has hindered historians' efforts to analyze and interpret the southern suffrage movement