The Anti-Suffrage Movement The Home, Hearth, And Mother Crowd
PHOTO: Not all women were on board with the 19th Amendment which would give them the right to vote.
by Robert Hanaford Smith, Sr.
Weirs Times Contributing Writer
When Dr. Anna Shaw, the President of the National American Women’s Suffrage Association, was asked why there was no marriage in Heaven, her answer was, “Because there are no men in Heaven.”
Writers of the present day express their amazement concerning the fact that when some women were campaigning for the right of women to vote a hundred years or more ago that there were other women who were campaigning against allowing women to vote.
Perhaps Dr. Shaw’s comment was one of the reasons that some women chose to be anti-suffragists.
It has been stated that there were as many anti-suffrage groups in New Hampshire as there were suffrage groups. Dr. Shaw referred to the anti-suffragist organizations as “the home, hearth, and Mother crowd.” Certainly not all, and probably just a few, suffragists proclaimed the anti-men rhetoric used by Dr. Shaw.
The Women’s Movements of one-hundred years ago did not have much resemblance to those of today. Certainly many women were desiring to have more influence in the affairs of their communities and states, but most seemed willing to accept distinct roles between men and women, and women in general did not want to be like men. Many New Hampshire women, though perhaps not most, were content to leave politics and voting to the men, though that may be unthinkable to the women (and men) of today.
The New Hampshire legislature voted to ratify the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States on September 10, 1919 by a vote of 212 to 143 in the House of Representatives and by a margin of 14 to 10 in the Senate. New Hampshire women have been allowed to serve on school committees since 1871 and to vote in school elections since 1878, but not until after the 19th Amendment was adopted by the affirming vote of the 36th state to approve it on August 2020 could New Hampshire women vote in the general elections. Of course it was only the men that voted and we don’t know what the result would have been if the voters were female.
The seemingly highly accepted opinion is that the New Hampshire anti-suffrage movement was supported by mainly upper-class, wealthy, influential, white, Protestant women who were afraid that somehow their status in society would be diminished if women who didn’t enjoy the same privileges and life-style that they did were allowed to vote. This opinion seems to be based on the fact that the financial backing came mainly from some women who had prominent positions in society and were well-to-do, or,in a word, wealthy.
But it appears that the same could be said of the support for the suffrage organizations. To assume that the women who were not wealthy, many of whom were mothers and home-keepers, were mostly in favor of women voting is likely a wrong assumption. Neither suffragists or anti-suffragists can be said to have come from one or more particular group of people. Some of the most liberal women who supported things like free love and birth control felt that women voting would not help their causes. The more conservative women were concerned that the change that would allow women to vote would lead to “the loss of the privilege of womanhood”, and the “disruption of the social order.”
It was felt that suffrage was a threat to femininity and the value of domestic or home life.
The suffrage supporters were many, and the effort to persuade the men to let the women vote started many years before the anti’s, as they were called, organized in an effort to keep voter qualifications as they were.
It is not surprising, however, that the opposition would not start organizing until they felt that the suffrage effort might succeed. So the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage was formed and New Hampshire organized a State Chapter of the NAOWS.
Books were written to explain the reasons why some women (and men) opposed giving women a vote. On a national level the Ladies Home Journal’s policy was disapproval of suffrage. President Theodore Roosevelt was in favor of women’s suffrage, but his cousin’s widow, Kate Roosevelt was an anti-suffrage activist in New York City who said that a woman’s right to vote was “simply unnecessary.”
Mrs. Edith Wendell was a summer resident of Portsmouth who organized and was the first President of the Portsmouth Anti-Suffrage Association. In the northern part of the state Mrs. Lydia Jackson of Littleton represented the anti’s and pointed out that many members of women’s clubs supported the opposition movement. Another anti group was The New Hampshire Association Opposed to Further Extension of Suffrage to Women.
The Anti-Suffrage people may not have objected to Dr. Shaw’s characterization of their movement because some of their own did feel that a woman’s time should be given to “children, kitchen, and church.” Anti-Suffrage people were certainly not anti-women people, or necessarily opposed to the advancement of women in society.
One was a native New Hampshire woman who was an anti-suffragist was also a great promoter of women’s education and contributions to society. She was the author of the poem “Mary Had A Little Lamb “ and is credited with persuading President Abraham Lincoln to issue a proclamation for a national Thanksgiving Day. Her name is Sara Josepha Hale, a native of Newport, New Hampshire. Though Hale died 40 years before the 19th Amendment was ratified and before any major anti-suffrage movements, it is interesting that one in her position as a prominent woman editor and writer and advocate of education for women, was opposed to women voting. She felt that women could exercise a quiet influence over men without the vote, and that women were still the ones that shaped morality in the society.
The pro-vote women obviously won, and by 1923 New Hampshire had three women serving in the legislature. They were Mrs. Emma Bartlett of Raymond, Mrs. Effie Yantis of Manchester, and Mrs. Gertrude Caldwell of Portsmouth. According to The Granite Monthly magazine they all had common goals as representatives: “to work for measures aimed at social betterment, raising the standard of health and morals in the state, and the bringing about of certain reforms with as little hardship as possible to all concerned.”