Mothers & the Family
The Women’s Suffrage Movement in the United States lasted for 72 years, all in support of women winning the right to vote that eventually happened on August 18th, 1920. However, many women involved in the movement struggled between balancing the life of motherhood and advocating for women’s rights because it was out of the norm for women to be involved in politics. We found a variety of artifacts about mothers and their fight for suffrage and how they managed to balance these two conflicting aspects of life.
One of the iconic suffragettes was Emmeline Pankhurst who was also a mother. In an article entitled Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) Suffragette Leader and Single Parent in Edwardian Britain, Pankhurst’s life as a mother and suffragist leader was discussed. Pankhurst’s husband died when her son was young, so she faced a lot of challenges as a single mother while she was working to propel the women’s suffrage movement (Purvis, 2011, p. 87). She became impoverished as a single parent, but she was still a leader in Britain and helped create the Women’s Social and Political Union (Purvis, 2011, p. 87). Emmeline Pankhurst was crucial to making the women’s suffrage movement successful while parenting her son by herself. Pankhurst was a great example of the challenges that women face which is why looking back at all of the women’s suffrage movement artifacts is so impressive. Looking at the artifacts educates people on how women juggled their roles as mothers and feminist suffragist leaders.
For example, in a letter from the Meekison collection [Figure 1], Harriet Taylor Upton was writing to Vadae G. Meekison about the hardships she faced as a suffragist and a mother saying that women could not do as much when they had to care for their children. Upton highlights how if every mother could participate as much as Meekison did, then the movement could have accomplished their goals faster but not every mother has the opportunity to. This was a great example of how the different identities held by women during the women’s suffrage movement were very interconnected.
In the second to last paragraph, Harriet Taylor Upton praised Meekison for being a great mother while advocating for the women’s suffrage movement. Upton suggested that if more women worked with as much passion as Meekison in motherhood and in the suffrage movement, they would have accomplished their goal they mentioned earlier. This particular letter from the Meekison file was significant because it highlighted the difficulty that most mothers had when trying to support the suffragist movement.
Juggling motherhood and taking care of the home while also wanting to be involved in politics was something that many women suffragists faced. We found artifacts about women talking about how the women’s suffrage movement inspired them to work towards other opportunities. For example [Figure 2], one of the opportunities Jessica G. Finch wanted to pursue was to be involved in politics, which was against the cultural norms. Women were expected to stay at home, take care of the children, cook, clean, etc. so when the movement got more widespread, women realized they could do more than just be housewives.
There were many artifacts that came out before/during the Women’s Movement that highlight how women were supposed to act and behave in different scenarios. There was a book titled How to Get a Husband written by Betty Van Deventer book [Figures 3a-c] that gave women advice on how to behave, act, talk, dress, etc. in order to obtain a husband. The book was suggesting that women become basically robots to attract a husband. Women were not supposed to criticize their husband or bother him in any way. The artifact exemplifies how suppressed women’s viewpoints and behaviors were. Suffragists were working to give women a voice in their vote so they would not need to be reliant on a husband.
Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management [Figures 4a & 4b] is a set of guidelines for housewives to follow if they were to keep a functioning household. There were numerous tasks allotted to women for them to complete every day, from dusk till dawn. The housewife was in charge of keeping the home up and running. There were numerous sections of the book that stated each aspect of a woman's duty on the home. As you can see from this artifact, the women’s suffragist movement challenged many mothers to put aside the conventional role as being housewives and be more involved in the fight for emancipation. This meant that children were either being raised by nannies, family members, or the women simply weren't allowed to participate in actions fighting towards equality because they were forced to take care of the home life. Many American women faced what historians call “The Cult of True Womanhood," which meant they had to decide if traditional motherhood was their main focus or if they wanted to be an activist fighting for the future of their children to be built on equality for both sexes.
Another one of the artifacts we found was an advertisement for baby formula [Figure 5]. This was a new technology that gave women more freedom because they were not tethered to their baby for the whole time, he or she was reliant on milk. The advertisement highlighted that new technology which was, in a way, similar to the invention of the washing machine, because it freed up women’s time. Before these new technologies, women were expected to spend more time on being mothers and homemakers. Without baby formula, mothers were expected to spend a lot more time feeding their children. When they got baby formula, mothers were able to spend more time on what they wanted to do which could have been working on the suffragist movement.
Another artifact we reviewed was the article NO "NICE NELLY", written by author Gwen Matheson & V. E. Lang [Figure 6]. This article reviewed the life of Nellie McClung, which discusses how Nellie was said to believe, “...women had to learn to help themselves and especially overcome the martyr-complex that had been ingrained in them through centuries,” (Matheson 103). Nellie was successful in her attempts of being remembered far beyond motherhood. She has been remembered as a woman who fought for women’s rights, “personhood” against sweatshops, drunkenness and unwanted births. Women like Nelly have been an essential part of the Women’s Suffrage Movement.
On the other hand, people involved in the Anti-Suffragist movement made it even more difficult for suffragists to thrive. In an article we read in class that connects to our topic is titled, Covering a Countermovement on the Verge of Defeat: The Press and the 1917 Social Movement against Woman Suffrage, written by author Teri Finneman. In this article Ms. Finneman discusses how Anti-Suffragists would create myths to make the public believe changing the "status quo" is unjust and wrong, making people unsure or even fearful of change for women. Finneman says that the problem with countermovement’s reaching the media is that, "Media has the power to determine normal and abnormal social and political activity to say what is politically real and legitimate and what is not (Finneman, p. 5).” This shows how the media had an effect on what society thought was right or wrong. Media helped determine that women were subordinate to men and that they were meant to be housewives and care for their children, unlike men who were involved in politics and working. The media was controlled by men who had no interest in the movement, making it harder for the suffragists to get positive media. This article helps support our claims of how women/mothers involved in the Suffragist Movement went against the social norms that the media laid out and instead fought to make a difference in changing the status quo of everyday life.
Works Cited
Finneman, Teri. “Covering a Countermovement on the Verge of Defeat: The Press and the 1917 Social Movement against Woman Suffrage.” American Journalism, vol. 36, no. 1, 2 July 2019, pp. 124–143., doi:10.1080/08821127.2019.1572416.
Purvis, June. “Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928),Suffragette Leader and Single Parent in Edwardian Britain.” Women’s History Review, vol. 20, no. 1, Feb. 2011, pp. 87–108. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2011297429&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
STUDENT CONTRIBUTORS:
Tierra Jones, Macy Anderson, Emily Malloy, Annika Thomas