This week, you read articles within your webtext about the women’s suffrage movement and the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), two major efforts to establish equal rights for women in th

The Nineteenth Amendment

Christina Kulich-Vamvakas

The women's suffrage movement is really a hallmark movement in American politics for a number of different reasons.

First, it is the first significant national rights movement and it was unique in that…in its length, actually, and in the size of its organization. By the time that the 19th Amendment passed, women's suffrage organizations were by far better resourced, better organized, than any other national political movement, the national parties included, which were simply skeletons. And we're talking about, essentially, doubling…well, half…increasing significantly the size of the citizen pool, the number of available boats. Right?

So: time, organization, and resources led absolutely to the ultimate success. It was a long haul battle, right, for upwards of 80 years, but the growth of the organization and the capacity of the organization actually, I think, is probably the single most important recipe item in success.

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Journal of Women's History Volume 27, Number 4, Winter 2015 Johns Hopkins University Press

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Following the Money Wealthy Women, Feminism, and the American Su!rage Movement

Joan Marie Johnson

The fortunes donated and estates le" by wealthy women played a significant, yet controversial role in recharging the woman su!rage movement and passing the Nineteenth Amendment, a story historians have just recently begun to explore. “Following the money” traces priorities, tactics, and strategies of the movement through a focus on donors and donations and explores the resentment caused when a small number of wealthy individuals wielded the power to shape strategy and decisions. Their experience with the power of money (and its limitations) helped them understand that economic independence and political equality was crucial for all women, whether working-class wage earners, educated professionals, or inheritors of large fortunes. Their donations funded new tactics and strategies, including headquarters in New York and

Journal of Women's History

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Washington, DC, salaries for traveling organizers, and a publicity blitz, as well as Carrie Chapman Catt’s “winning plan,” ultimately making passage and ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment possible in 1920.

Calling it “the vital power of all movements—the wood and water of the engine,” the “ammunition of war,” and a “war chest,” su!ragists in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century United States captured the importance of money in their battle to win the right to vote for women. They were unable to change public sentiment or to lobby legislatures without funds for travel, sta!, print, or parades. The movement depended not just on grassroots activism, but also on the fortunes donated and estates le" by a handful of very wealthy women. At crucial moments their contributions sustained the western state campaigns, underwrote newspapers, or paid salaries. This article argues that the movement, which by 1900 was stalled and unable to pass su!rage in any new states, emerged from the “doldrums,” due to the infusion of money given by wealthy women. I contend that their donations shaped the trajectory—the priorities, strategies, and ultimately the success—of the movement.

This article also wrestles with the di!iculty of engaging with the essential role of wealthy women who had the ability to dominate a movement that challenged men’s political dominance. When funding came from a small number of a!luent individuals, o!icers and sta! sometimes felt pressured to shape their agendas to please donors. Therefore, resentment influenced the story told in memoirs and the History of Woman Su!rage series written by [End Page 62] o!icers, who foregrounded certain o!icers and organizations while marginalizing rich women despite their powerful impact. Historians followed suit.

Several recent historians have recently begun to write wealthy women back into the history of women’s su!rage and to explore the role funding played. Faye Dudden analyzes Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s desperate need for funding in the 1860s, and Lisa Tetrault examines su!rage speakers’ ability to earn wages in the 1870s and1880s. Ellen DuBois

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demonstrates how Harriot Stanton Blatch initiated a cross-class alliance in 1908–1909 that included wealthy women as well as working-class women. Although she and Sara Hunter Graham both conclude that upper-class women exercised disproportionate influence, these women and their contributions were not the central point of their work. Building on these studies, I focus on the last fourteen years before the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920 and turn the spotlight on a crucial group of donors to both the National American Woman Su!rage Association (NAWSA) and the Congressional Union (CU). By “following the money,” I argue that women’s su!rage passed when it did because of the significant influx of these enormous donations, as well as the leadership and strategies they underwrote.

The power of the purse controlled the contours of the movement in many ways. When su!ragists worked state-by-state, each state competed for financial assistance that the national organization granted, and donors, or the o!icers they funded, could direct money to the states of their choice. Wealthy contributors also prioritized such new tactics as parades and pickets, insisted on headquarters nearer to the powerful New York media or the U.S. Congress in Washington, DC, and championed (or axed) newspapers and other publicity tools. Donors could sway who held o!ice in the national organizations by paying salaries, tying donations to specific o!iceholders, and driving those who resented them or were incapable of the same bounty out of o!ice. Anonymous or bequeathed donations similarly empowered certain o!icers. Carrie Chapman Catt, for example, was only able to finance her “winning plan,” which combined a state and federal e!ort, due to a million dollar bequest from Mrs. Frank Leslie.

New tactics and strategies in the 1910s were all extremely expensive. NAWSA’s annual budget increased from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars. State campaigns grew exponentially as well, with New York raising an incredible $682,500, the equivalent of over twelve million dollars today, for its successful 1917 referendum campaign.

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With so much money needed, su!ragists grew to realize that raising sizeable amounts of money from the small gi"s of large numbers of women simply was not feasible; they instead came to depend on a small number of [End Page 63] women to write large checks. A list of hundreds of CU contributors shows that fewer than sixty gave $1000 or more, approximately $20,000 in 2015, from 1913 through 1920. The vast majority gave between $1 and $50. Yet those approximately five dozen major supporters were disproportionately crucial to the financial vitality of the organization. Two women, Alva Belmont ($76,500) and Mary Burnham ($38,170), together gave 20 percent of the total amount, $561,800. The other large contributors gave approximately $213,000. Thus fewer than sixty people represent nearly 60 percent of the funding.

Moreover, su!ragists depended on other women, not men, to make large contributions. Women dominated the list, with thirty-eight women, ten couples, and only seven single men. Although su!ragist Matilda Gage had said in 1880 that “who would be free must contribute towards that freedom,” it took several decades before women began to use their financial clout to make change for themselves. Women’s giving reflected changes in American philanthropy, which was moving from “charity,” intended to ameliorate conditions for those in need, to “scientific philanthropy,” designed to foster large-scale social change and challenge the causes of su!ering. Similarly, women began to give large amounts to make change for women in society, not simply to assist poor women but rather to broaden women’s educational opportunities, as well as political and reproductive rights. Although few women had the financial wherewithal and independence to give thousands of dollars to the movement, a small but significant group of mostly widows and single women with inherited fortunes did.

Despite their race (all of these women were white) and class privilege, they were not insulated from sexism, and their demands for economic and political independence led them to embrace su!rage. Their ideas highlight a strand of su!ragism that focused on equality, rather than maternalism, or mothers’ need for the vote to protect children and clean up government.

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While the ability of su!ragists to carry out their work depended on generous donations, the largesse of the rich came with a price. Several national o!icers resigned, bitterly complaining about the “money power” in the movement. By insisting on influencing where o!ices were located, who held o!ice, and what o!icers prioritized, wealthy donors drove out long-time loyal su!ragists incapable of the same munificence and resentful of their clout. While some donors gave anonymously or through a bequest at death, leaving power in the hands of o!icers, others engendered hostility when they personally tried to influence su!rage organization leadership and strategy, and even held o!ice themselves.

This tension over the role of rich women came at a time when the country was deep in debate over “money power,” following a government [End Page 64] investigation into J. Pierpont Morgan’s banking practices. At stake was the question of how much power individuals and private enterprises should have in a democracy, and whether the dominance of the wealthy undermined the American ideals of freedom and equality. Woman su!ragists had to consider whether feminism itself, in fighting against hierarchy based on gender, should be inherently democratic or non-hierarchical across class (or race). As one newspaper noted in 1894, attracting society women meant that “parlor meetings” could have “a degree of exclusiveness . . . that seems to be incompatible with the object to be achieved.” Society’s unease associating women with wealth and power exacerbated the resentment many su!ragists directed at their wealthy donors.

Salaries, State Campaigns, and the “Winning Plan”

The need for money drove the women’s su!rage movement from its early days, leading Stanton and Anthony to compromise over whom they associated with during the 1860s. Wendell Phillips controlled two important bequests and allowed only a small amount to go to women’s rights. “Nearly driven to desperation,” Anthony needed money to pay for speakers, travel expenses, and tracts. She and Stanton thus accepted an o!er by George Train, the notoriously racist Democrat, to pay for a speaking tour and newspaper.

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Burned by her experience with Phillips, Anthony wanted wealthy women to prioritize giving to the movement. Su!ragists understood that they could not depend on men; it would take the financial support of women to make change for women. It was only a"er Anthony’s death in 1906, however, that they began to contribute enough money to turn the tide toward victory.

Sta!ing, one of the two major expenses identified by Stanton and Anthony, remained paramount until the vote was won in 1920. Lucy Stone’s observation that “there would be plenty of helpers if there was plenty of money to pay” rang true. The su!rage movement from the 1880s through the early 1910s focused on winning the right to vote state by state, which depended on local and national traveling organizers barnstorming the states, drumming up publicity, and lobbying local politicians. Traveling organizers and national o!icers worked full time, giving public speeches, planning rallies, and helping to organize local su!rage associations. They brought experience and the ability to draw a crowd.

Neither local nor national su!rage organizations had enough funding to pay the significant salaries required. The situation was exacerbated, according to Lisa Tetrault, because women could earn a living through the lyceum lecture circuit in the 1870s–1880s, a popular form of entertainment [End Page 65] and adult education featuring traveling lecturers and performers. They came to expect similar payment, typically between $10 and $100 per lecture, for an appearance at a su!rage meeting. Su!rage organizations thus had to compete with the lecture circuit when they paid speakers appearing at meetings or at their annual conventions at the state or national level.

The lack of money available to pay speakers was complicated by the unrealistic but idealistic idea that su!ragists should volunteer their time for the cause. Quoting Wendell Phillips, Stanton claimed that “a reformer, to be conscientious, must be free from bread-winning.” Su!rage associations were traditionally willing to hire paid organizers but usually did not pay their o!icers, who were expected to cover the costs of their correspondence and travel. Well-o! o!icers could do so. Catt, president of the National American

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Woman Su!rage Association (NAWSA) from 1900 to 1904 and 1915 to 1920, and of the International Woman Su!rage Alliance in between, had money from her second husband, George Catt, a civil engineer. She did not receive a salary from either organization. Alice Paul’s mother sent Paul monthly checks while she ran the CU.

Anna Howard Shaw, however, had been earning her living on the lecture circuit and needed a salary when she became president of NAWSA in 1904. Anthony convinced Mary Garrett and M. Carey Thomas to raise a fund to cover Shaw’s salary and other NAWSA expenses. Garrett’s father, John W. Garrett, president of B&O Railroad, died in 1884 leaving Mary a six-million-dollar inheritance. Garrett supported women’s education by establishing a girls’ preparatory school with friends, donating annually to Bryn Mawr College a"er it made Thomas president, and forcing Johns Hopkins to admit women to its new medical school by tying this requirement to a large donation. An elderly, ill Anthony drew Thomas and Garrett into the movement, appealing to them to help NAWSA achieve financial stability. They committed to raising $60,000: $12,000 annually for five years, including Garrett’s $2,500 contribution. The Thomas-Garrett fund was used in large part to pay salaries: $3,500 to Shaw and $1,000 each to the secretary and treasurer. In comparison, while the national average salary in 1910 was only $750, trade unionists could earn as much as $1,200 and such professionals as doctors, lawyers, and engineers earned an average income between $2,000 and $5,000 annually, with some making far more. Typical women’s salaries were less: female schoolteachers, for example, averaged $55 a month. Such large donations, therefore, were the equivalent of an annual salary and allowed NAWSA to pay o!icers and organizers generously.

Due to the Thomas-Garrett fund and Anthony’s backing, Shaw became the first NAWSA president with a salary, although some other o!icers feared that this made her less independent and potentially beholden to donors. [End Page 66] Regional loyalties complicated the controversy. Shaw claimed that southern and western women objected to the preponderance of eastern

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o!icers who received salaries. “The fact that the money to pay these salaries was subscribed by eastern women,” Shaw sniped, “does not seem to a!ect the objectors.”

With her own salary secure, Shaw relied heavily on another significant donor, Pauline Shaw—who shared her last name but no family connections— to pay for traveling organizers. The daughter of naturalist Louis Agassiz and wife of mine owner Quincy A. Shaw, she began giving through a Boston committee founded to raise funds for western state su!rage campaigns. “One closely associated with her,” a tribute to Shaw asserted, “ventures the guess that Mrs. Shaw’s contributions probably footed up to more than one half of all that was given by the East to the Western states.”

Known as “Miss [Anna] Shaw’s special fund,” because the contributions were anonymous, Pauline Shaw’s bounty came to Anna Shaw unexpectedly to use as she saw fit on the western states. This was key to its importance: whoever controlled the fund also dictated which state campaigns received money or a paid organizer from NAWSA. Pauline Shaw sent two checks reportedly totaling $30,000 or over 75 percent of the entire NAWSA budget in 1913, but le" Anna Shaw free to spend it where she wanted, empowering the o!icer rather than herself. Anna Shaw chose to pay for organizers to travel to Arizona, Kansas, Oregon, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, Montana, Ohio, and Nevada.

The state campaigns were so desperate for funding that even with Pauline Shaw’s generous donation, NAWSA could not keep up with the demands. A"er Oregon lost its first campaign for a referendum in 1906, NAWSA refused to fund their request for an additional $2,000. At the 1907 convention o!icers announced that total association receipts for 1906 were $18,203 and that they had spent $18,075 on the Oregon campaign alone. Even though the organizers had raised $8,000 specifically for Oregon, the expenditure meant that NAWSA had well overspent their revenue and had to take money from their reserve fund. The results of this outlay were mixed: while states like Arizona, Kansas, Oregon, Montana, and Nevada granted full su!rage in 1912 or 1914, women in

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other states like West Virginia and Wisconsin had to wait for the Nineteenth Amendment. Catt blamed the liquor lobby for defeat in many of these states and called for greater spending to compete with it. The 1912 Ohio campaign, for example, failed when su!ragists spent about $40,000 but the liquor lobby reportedly spent $630,000. Decisions over which states merited the financial support of NAWSA were rife with tension. Regional alliances, personalities, and likelihood of success all played a role. Pauline Shaw’s funding was also integral to the early wins in the western states. [End Page 67]

The controversy surrounding funding state campaigns came to a head under Catt, who retook the NAWSA presidency in 1915 with the knowledge that Mrs. Frank Leslie had just le" her entire estate valued at over $1.7 million to Catt for women’s su!rage. The size of the bequest and the fact that it had no restrictions on how it was spent freed Catt to pay for whatever strategy or tactics she wanted and was indispensable to the passage and ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Born in 1836 in New Orleans, Leslie, known for a series of scandalous a!airs, marriages, and divorces, was also an astute businesswoman, writer, and editor who fought to be taken seriously in the publishing world. When Mr. Leslie died, she changed her name to Frank Leslie, inherited his publishing business, and quickly turned its debt into a surplus. A"er fighting o! relatives and others who wanted a share of the fortune and paying the attorney fees and taxes, Catt netted $977,875, or the equivalent of over $22 million in 2015, out of the original bequest. Catt then established the Leslie Su!rage Commission to oversee the fund, wisely retaining control over the money rather than merging it into the NAWSA general budget.

Given the mixed record of state campaigns funded by NAWSA in the past, Catt used the Leslie bequest to abandon the state-by-state strategy and back her “winning plan” instead. The plan essentially directed the national organization to focus on winning the federal amendment through campaigns in selected states as well as through lobbying Congress. These states would give momentum to the passage and ensure ratification of the national amendment. Catt had already successfully orchestrated a constitutional change requiring all local su!rage societies to become a!iliates of NAWSA and

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to pay a percentage of their revenue to the national body. Now, a"er state associations submitted their plans to the national board, the dues they paid supported the federal amendment congressional committee lobbying force in Washington, DC or the states determined to have a good chance at winning su!rage. Catt argued that with the Leslie Commission funds focused on the “winning plan,” NAWSA would no longer be obligated to step in and assist states who pushed too soon or with ill-conceived plans. States that were not included in the “winning plan,” notably southern ones, were, unsurprisingly, not happy.

The states where su!rage was on the ballot or otherwise were prioritized in the “winning plan” did benefit from Leslie’s beneficence. Catt’s home state of New York did particularly well with $25,000, as did Oklahoma, Michigan, and North Dakota, splitting $20,000. With the influx of money, these four states all won su!rage in 1917 and 1918. States holding senatorial races also got funding as they tried to help elect pro-su!rage legislators who would vote to pass the federal amendment. In 1918, as NAWSA president, [End Page 68] Catt authorized $10,000 to several states in this situation, but because NAWSA did not have the money, she asked the commission to make the payment. Within the first two years, the Leslie Commission spent $60,000 on the states. In addition to money, NAWSA sent directives to the states, organizing their e!orts. Money transformed a grassroots movement into a professional, centralized one.

The “winning plan” also required lobbying Congress to pass a federal amendment. With the new influx of money, NAWSA could now rent a house in Washington, called the Su!rage House, for a corps of lobbyists to live and work. The Leslie Commission immediately began paying rent and expenses, and NAWSA and the commission covered around $20,000 a year for congressional committee expenses (previously run on a ten dollar budget).

With the influx of funding, both individual states and the “winning plan” strategy began to realize success. Working in more than one state at a time to win over public opinion was expensive and required strategic decisions about

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how much to spend where. Lobbying for a federal amendment was not cheap either. Catt could do both only because she had the funds available. Leslie’s bequest was essential to NAWSA and the “winning plan.”

Publicity Blitz

In addition to salaries for organizers in the states, by the 1910s the su!rage movement also required more money for publicity. Decades earlier Anthony had been desperate to fund su!rage tracts. Having a mouthpiece “so we can sauce back our opponents,” as Anthony said, was a priority for many su!ragists. They published everything from tracts to weekly newspapers to full-scale books focused on documenting the movement, organizing workers, and converting the public to the cause. Without the vote women depended on men to pass it for them, making education essential to their ability to wield any power over legislators. When Catt received the Leslie bequest, she argued that direct donations to politicians were ine!ectual because they were beholden to special interests. Rather, a campaign for su!rage education would create the kind of national sentiment for women’s su!rage that would force or entice politicians to vote for it. A"er years of struggling to fund publicity, the Leslie bequest finally provided the substantial funding necessary for a massive publicity blitz.

Notably, su!ragists continued to prioritize a newspaper even as they developed other new publicity tactics. Although considered essential, publishing a newspaper was also expensive. In 1910 NAWSA signed a contract with Alice Stone Blackwell, editor of the Woman’s Journal, a decades-old su!rage newspaper, to make it NAWSA’s o!icial organ. The journal, however, [End Page 69] had been running at an annual deficit, which NAWSA exacerbated by increasing spending in order to drive up the paltry circulation, which remained under 20,000 in 1912.

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NAWSA quickly realized that they could not a!ord the money-losing Woman’s Journal. Anna Shaw admitted in despair, “we are confronted with financial disaster unless something is done at once.” Noting that Thomas was unable to raise funds because she was busy caring for an ill Garrett and that donor Alva Vanderbilt Belmont had begun cutting her contributions, Shaw concluded, “all hope of raising money is gone and we can no longer run up bills honestly which we have no prospect of paying.” The board organized an informal drive for donations and asked the new treasurer Katharine McCormick and others to confer regarding borrowing money. Contemplating the $9,000 debt NAWSA had incurred due to Woman’s Journal expenses, McCormick “reported that it seemed to her impossible for the National to carry the responsibility of an organ which it did not own and, therefore, could not control” and recommended dropping the journal. Discussion of the newspaper at the 1912 convention caused a commotion among the delegates, many of whom sympathized with Blackwell. Despite the controversy, NAWSA and Blackwell terminated the contract and established the Literature Company, a separate stock company (with 5,000 shares of stock to be sold at $10 each) to run the newspaper. The Woman’s Journal remained in business, although it was no longer NAWSA’s o!icial organ.

Despite the failed experiment in running the Woman’s Journal, Catt kept her eye on it. Although she knew that it had been losing between $8,000 and $20,000 annually since 1912, she still thought it crucial to have a mouthpiece for women. The Leslie Commission therefore finally bought the Woman’s Journal in 1916 and merged it with the Woman Voter and National Su!rage News into the Woman Citizen. The total cost for the new journal was approximately $75,000 in the first year, including salary, rent, manufacture, printing, and postage. Because advertising and sales only brought in $25,000, the Leslie Commission paid the remaining $50,000 in expenses. Still publishing a"er the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, and a"er spending approximately $400,000 on the Woman Citizen in twelve years, Catt finally recommended ceasing publication in 1929.

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The newspaper was only one part of the overall vision Catt had for publicity. Literature and press were the biggest expenses funded by the Leslie bequest. The commission created a bureau of su!rage education with a sta! of twenty- five trained publicity experts and journalists taking over the fi"eenth floor of the headquarters building, all paid with Leslie money. Catt originally proposed a press bureau to send free stories for reprinting to newspapers around the country, free literature (pamphlets, speech reprints, [End Page 70] and tracts) to “clergy, politicians, club women and other groups,” and a su!rage newspaper. Other departments were to help organize parades and events; produce propaganda films, cartoons, and “intelligence” (statistical information and legislative updates); and work with a network of organizers reaching out to local papers. Although over time the departments were reorganized and consolidated, the essence of the plan remained the same.

The broad approach of the su!rage education bureau reflected an influx of new publicity tactics that began around 1908. A more public strategy that placed su!ragists on street corners, in cars, on trains, and wherever else they could gather a crowd soon eclipsed the private “parlor” meetings, whose respectable nature had drawn only wealthy women. While some e!orts cost little—for example, soapbox speakers who needed little more than a box to stand on—elaborate parades required planning, costumes, and other expenses. Donors provided the funding that NAWSA and the CU needed for these tactics, including the Leslie bequest through its stunts department and motion picture service.

Su!ragists

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