Arts and Humanities Commons^™

From Megaphones To Microphones : Speeches Of American Women, 1920-1960, Sandra Sarkela, Susan Ross, Margaret Lowe

Margaret Lowe

Until recently, scholars assumed that women stopped speaking after they won the vote in 1920 and did not reenter political life until the second wave of feminism began in the 1960s. Nothing could be further from the truth. While national attention did dissipate after 1920, women did not retreat from political and civic life. Rather, after winning the vote, women's public activism shifted from a single-issue agenda to the myriad social problems and public issues that faced the nation. As such, women began to take their place in the public square as political actors in their own rights rather than …