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Felony Disenfranchisement And The Nineteenth Amendment, Michael Gentithes

Akron Law Review

The Nineteenth Amendment and the history of the women’s suffrage movement can offer a compelling argument against felony disenfranchisement laws. These laws leave approximately six million citizens unable to vote, often for crimes wholly unrelated to the political process. They also increasingly threaten gains in female enfranchisement.

Today’s arguments in support of felony disenfranchisement laws bear striking similarities to the arguments of anti-suffragists more than a century earlier. Both suggest that a traditionally subordinated class of citizens is inherently incapable of bearing the responsibility that the right to vote entails, and that their votes are somehow less worthy than others. …

The Temperance Movement's Impact On Adoption Of Women's Suffrage, Richard H. Chused

Akron Law Review

This paper examines the nature of the Progressive Era and the Prohibition Movement and the important links between the sentiments giving rise to prohibition and those stimulating adoption of suffrage. Though each arose from a somewhat distinct array of reform impulses and overcame varying opposition groups, they were closely related in some ways, supported by overlapping groups of people, advanced by large numbers of women, and, in part, lifted to enactment by similar motivations. Indeed, without the support of many conservative citizens approving both Amendments, it is not clear what the fate of suffrage would have been after World War …

"A Woman Stumps Her State": Nellie G. Robinson And Women's Right To Hold Public Office In Ohio, Elizabeth D. Katz

Akron Law Review

In recognition of the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, this essay provides an introduction to a largely overlooked yet essential component of the women’s movement: the pursuit of women’s legal right to hold public office. From the mid-nineteenth century through ratification of the federal suffrage amendment in 1920, women demanded access to appointed and elected positions, ranging from notary public to mayor. Because the legal right to hold office had literal and symbolic connections to the right to vote, suffragists and antisuffragists were deeply invested in the outcome. Courts and legislatures varied in their responses, with those in the Midwest …

Suffragist Prisoners And The Importance Of Protecting Prisoner Protests, Nicole B. Godfrey

Akron Law Review

This paper examines the role that public exposure to the conditions experienced by suffragist prisoners played in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Using the experience of the suffragists as an example of how prisoner protest impacted democratic debate, the paper argues that robust protection of prisoners’ First Amendment rights is fundamental to the nation’s democratic values and political discourse and debate.

The paper begins with an historical overview of the arrests, convictions, and incarceration of the Silent Sentinels, women who began picketing outside the White House in 1917. Over the course of several months, local officials in the District …

Symposium: 19th Amendment At 100: Many Pathways To Suffrage, Other Than The 19th Amendment, Ann D. Gordon

ConLawNOW

When the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution appears in historical memory as the intended objective in the long march of woman suffragists, the complexity of changing voting rights is obscured. This essay looks at a variety of ways that women tried to break through the male monopoly of political power in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the earliest days of agitation, women took for granted that qualifications for voting were set solely by the states. Their earliest political pleas were made to state constitutional conventions. The last state victories were won in 1918. After the Civil War, …

Symposium: The 19th Amendment At 100: Citizen Soldiers And The Foundational Fusion Of Masculinity, Citizenship, And Military Service, Jamie R. Abrams, Nickole Durbin

ConLawNOW

The Akron Law School’s conference on the 100th anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment offered the chance to fight the eulogization of the Nineteenth Amendment and explore its modern relevance. This paper concludes that the Nineteenth Amendment cannot be understood without connecting it to broader conceptions of citizenship, masculinities, and military service, thus revealing its ongoing relevance to military inclusion and integration.

Symposium: The 19th Amendment At 100: From The Vote To Gender Equality: Woman Suffrage: The Afterstory, Ellen Carol Dubois

ConLawNOW

The history of the US woman suffrage movement did not end with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. While numbers slowly grew of eligible women voting, veterans of the suffrage movement organized to win elective office and use the power of women's votes to gain important legislative gains. This article follows both voting rates and women winning public office up to the revival of feminism in the 1960s.