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The fight to ratify the 19th amendment crossed the finish line in August of 1920 in Nashville Tennessee and Elaine Weiss has done a beautiful job explaining what was done to complete the task. While I knew that the suffragettes fought long and hard to win the vote for women in the U.S. I had no idea how many factions were against it. Not only were there religious groups who felt the women's place was in the home not the ballot box and cultural beliefs that women were like children and not able to be trusted with the vote, but big business did not want women to vote. They were afraid the women would vote to support things like child labor laws and other workers rights that would cost them money. At that time there were powerful racist groups that did not want black women to vote. There were many state rights advocates who felt it was fine to give women the vote but did not want it to be done at the federal level. Many of these dominate influences were not very scrupulous in the tactics they used to try and defeat the 19th amendment. Elaine Weiss clearly lays out the details of the fight women had to put up in order to have the right to vote. This book is an excellent resource to deepen understanding of what they were up against. Please click on the author's name and the title of the book above to follow the links to more information. And enjoy the two videos that follow. One is about the hotel that the suffragettes and anti's stayed at during that final ratification battle and the other is about the statue Nashville has erected to honor these women. I listened to this book on audio during March because of Women's History Month and highly recommend this book as one that everyone should read.
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