Browse Items (402 total)

Suffrage colors, a recap! Wasn’t planning to, but I’ve seen some silly myths floating around. So here goes… YELLOW originated w. 1867 suffrage referendum in Kansas. Local suffragists made cloth ribbons in the color of the state…

Charles Lenox Remond was the most prominent Black abolitionist in the US until he was overshadowed by Frederick Douglass. Remond’s commitment to women’s rights was as deep as FD’s, maybe deeper. He should be remembered for his feminism. Long…

"Elect the President direct by the people, and for a single term, if you will; take from him his immense official patronage; base senator-ship upon population, not upon State sovereignty through legislative gift; limit the power of the judiciary..."…

#MenOfSuffrage Not a pin-up calendar--though maybe it should be. It's a guest post! Stay tuned for a terrific thread by Hélène Quanquin @HQuanquin about her new book on men in the American women's rights movement, 1830-1890. Her subtitle, Cumbersome…

If you know how your members of Congress voted on any given issue, you can vote to retain or replace them. Assuming, of course, that you are allowed to vote. What if you aren’t and you want to speak to Congress? You can ask. Thread. On January 10,…

Twice the New Jersey Supreme Court mocked Mary Philbrook for insisting she was a full citizen. First in 1894 when she sued for the right to practice law. Then in 1911, when she represented a would-be voter. In between, Philbrook wrote a report that…

Suffragists didn’t sue very often. After the Supreme Court scoffed at suffrage in 1874, court challenges to women’s disenfranchisement were few. But in 1911, New Jersey suffragists sued--based on the fact of their right to vote at the state’s…

The town of Orange, New Jersey sent Lucy Stone a tax bill in 1857. She returned it with a note that began: "Enclosed I return my tax bill, without paying it. My reason for doing so is that women suffer taxation, and yet have no representation, which…

New Jersey was a slave state. Throughout the 18th century and well into the 19th, people in New Jersey were enslaved and sold. New Jersey had plantations and Black codes--it also has a Confederate cemetery, but that’s another story. In the middle of…

It feels appropriate to end the suffrage centennial year with a week in New Jersey. Yeah, yeah, second prize is two weeks in Jersey… but in all seriousness, respect is due. New Jersey was first.  Image: “Women at the polls in New Jersey in the good…