March 15 is the birthday of Susan B. Anthony – she would have been 197 if she were still alive today. Born in Massachusetts and raised as a Quaker, she played a pivotal role in the women’s suffrage movement.
In Special Collections, you will find the book Woman Suffrage: History, Arguments, Results, also known by the National American Woman Suffrage Association as “The Blue Book.” This 1917 revised edition, edited by Frances M. Bjorkman and Annie G. Porritt, covers practically the entire field of suffrage claims and evidence and was designed especially for the convenience of suffrage speakers and writers and for the use of debaters and libraries.
Included in this volume are “Twelve Reasons Why Women Should Vote:”
1. BECAUSE those who obey the laws should help to choose those who make the laws.
2. BECAUSE laws affect women as much as men.
3. BECAUSE laws which affect women are now passed without consulting them.
4. BECAUSE laws affecting children should include the woman’s point of view as well as the man’s.
5. BECAUSE laws affecting the home are voted on in every session of the legislature.
6. BECAUSE women have experience which would be helpful to legislation.
7. BECAUSE to deprive women of the vote is to lower their position in common estimation.
8. BECAUSE having the vote would increase the sense of responsibility among women toward questions of public importance.
9. BECAUSE public-spirited mothers make public-spirited sons.
10. BECAUSE about 8,000,000 women in the United States are wage workers, and the conditions under which they work are controlled by law.
11. BECAUSE the objections against their having the vote are based on prejudice, not on reason.
12. BECAUSE to sum up all reasons in one – it is for the common good of all.
Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote. The 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote.
Would you like to read more? Visit us in Special Collections! We are located on the second floor of the Bartle Library (off of the North Reading Room).