Reform and Politics, 1920–1945

After ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 granting women the vote, Carrie Chapman Catt declared, “We are no longer petitioners, we are not wards of the nation, but free and equal citizens.” Women won the vote, but the battle for political integration and full citizenship still had to be fought since obtaining the franchise did not resolve issues of women’s economic and financial status or their role in public life. Anti-suffragists transformed opposition to suffrage into a prolonged campaign to restrict women’s citizenship rights throughout the inter-war years. They contested women’s claims to full economic protection by the state, equal property and nationality rights, trial by their peers through inclusion on juries, and custody over their children. Laws which accepted wage differentials, racial bias, and unequal citizenship also perpetuated discrimination against women. While the primary focus in this chapter is on women’s political status, the use of federal and state legislation to enhance or diminish women’s place in the economy is also examined because increasingly government rather than contracts between worker and employer controlled the economic treatment of women.