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THE PETTICOAT REBELLION OF 1916
WOMEN GAIN RIGHT TO VOTE, SUCCEED IN OVERTHROWING GOVERNMENT
Or something like that, might have been Newspaper Headlines of the day.
The real story is that on December 5th, 1916, the polls opened at 8:00am in the small town of Umatilla, Oregon, for a municipal election. And there was not a woman in sight.
Until.
At 2pm, the women showed up in droves and with write-in ballots, they proceeded to elect an all-woman council: a coup d'etat, of sorts.
The story is at:
https://www.damninteresting.com/the-petticoat-rebellion-of-1916/
http://mentalfloss.com/article/63262/laura-starcher-and-petticoat-revolution-1916
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The Petticoat Rebellion: Women 'Hack' an Election
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Can anyone remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 05 2016, @10:12PM
Actually, as the standard was only landowners could vote; there were women landowners. And that was as far back as 1776.
What people are really referring to is universal women's suffrage, which happened in 1919. Universal male suffrage (not tied to conscription) hasn't really happened yet.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday December 05 2016, @10:25PM
Don't forget that felons are third-rate citizens for life (because we don't believe in rehabilitation), so there is no hope for "universal" any time soon.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 05 2016, @10:28PM
Which is why I stated mostly.
Failing to register with Selective Service is a felony, which in most states disqualifies you from voting.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday December 05 2016, @11:25PM
This is true in only 9 states. In most states a felon may vote after serving their sentence. In Maine and Vermont even incarcerated felons may vote.
http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-voting-rights.aspx [ncsl.org]
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 4, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday December 05 2016, @11:17PM
Actually, as the standard was only landowners could vote; there were women landowners. And that was as far back as 1776.
Yes, but in most states laws still specified white male landowners.
The only exception appears to be New Jersey, which had a VERY BRIEF experiment with female voting.
New Jersey had a vague clause in its Constitution in 1776 [jstor.org] that allowed suffrage to all landowners (using only a generic term "inhabitant") but still using "he" in voting laws, and this was further clarified in another statute in 1797 that explicitly used the language for voting as "he or she." It's unclear [rutgerslawreview.com] whether any women actually voted before 1797, but they clearly voted after 1797. That last link contains a passage from a report on voting in 1797 when the Federalists were apparently concerned about winning their votes, so they sent around carriages in the country to bring in farmers, and when they were still worried, "In this extremity they had recourse to the last expedient: it was to have women vote... They scurried around collecting them. I need not say that the number was very small." Republican toasts were apparently later raised to "the fair daughters of Columbia, those who voted in behalf of Jefferson and Burr."
And the news spread far and wide. Abigail Adams wrote to her sister lamenting that the Massachusetts Constitution was not as "liberal" as New Jersey's in "admitting females to a vote."
It should be noted that this law would only apply to propertied single women, since married women in most places couldn't own property (according to "coverture" laws that ceded any woman's property to her husband legally). The fact that apparently married women were daring to show up to the polls (along with men disguised as women, to vote multiple times) -- and reports that female votes actually may have provided the small margins to win some elections -- ultimately led to New Jersey's repeal of women's suffrage. That 1797 law was relatively quickly overturned in 1807, when New Jersey changed the standard to "free white males." In fact, the new 1807 statute was written in such a way as to imply it was only a clarification of previous law, which apparently -- according to the new law -- had NEVER intended to enfranchise women. As the link above puts it:
In ten short years it had become unimaginable to New Jersey's legislators that their predecessors had ever intended to enfranchise any women, or any blacks or aliens, either. And so the perimeters of the republic were pulled in, and New Jersey's brief experiment in an inclusive franchise was redefined as bad interpretation, and a piece of its history reimagined as nothing more than a bad dream."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:46AM
Yes, but in most states laws still specified white male landowners.
Ignoring the religious tests, people under 21, quantity of land requirement, poll taxes, etc. approximately 10% to 20% of the population could vote. There were numerous restrictions to voting
"The 1797 law shows that women could, and did vote during the Founding period. In fact, it is likely that women voted in New Jersey even before 1797. The state Constitution’s vague guarantee to “all inhabitants” probably allowed women to vote in the 1780s. Certainly, women’s suffrage was not a controversial issue in the state: the 1790 voting law was approved with only three dissenting votes in the Assembly. Despite this, women apparently did not vote in large numbers until after the passage of the 1797 law. There is no record of any public discourse on women voting until a 1797 legislative race in Elizabethtown, when the local women turned out en masse to decide a close election.
Women voted in large numbers until 1807, when the Assembly passed a law limiting suffrage to free white males. The 1807 law was not seen as specifically hostile to women; instead, it was intended to clarify the Constitution’s guarantee of the franchise to “all inhabitants.” Because some objected that “all inhabitants” could allow slaves and aliens to vote, the Assembly acted to clarify the state’s voting requirements. Interestingly, the women of New Jersey did not object to their exclusion with any rigor; they did not lobby or protest against the law."
http://www.heritage.org/initiatives/first-principles/primary-sources/new-jersey-recognizes-the-right-of-women-to-vote [heritage.org]