Author: McConnaughy, Corrine M.
Title: The Woman Suffrage Movement in America: A Reassessment.
Publisher: New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
This book examines the coalitional politics involved in the women's suffrage movement. Dr. Corrine McConnaughy, a political scientist at George Washington University, urges us to "forget Susan B. Anthony" and see instead how cross-organizational efforts gained women the franchise. She traces the work of farmers' organizations, labor unions as well as the incentives of the men in the Populist and Progressive parties who had the primary political authority to grant new voting rights - especially those in state legislatures. She found that "women's voting rights spread in waves" - "in fits and starts" based on moments when partisan politics allowed for the suffragists to ally with those who needed them to achieve a particular victory. Through a mix of qualitative and quantitative evidence, the book uses a model of programmatic enfranchisement to explain the success and failures of efforts for woman suffrage provisions in five states - Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, New Mexico and Michigan - and in the US Congress. Dr. McConnaughy describes the successful and failed coalitional politics between the suffrage movement and important constituencies of existing male voters.
0 Replies