Woman Suffrage Party

The Woman Suffrage Party started with the Convention of Disfranchised Women. The Convention took place in Carnegie Hall on October 29, 1909, and was sponsored by the Interurban Suffrage Council (ISC).{{Sfn|The Public|1909|p=1065}}{{Sfn|Flexner|1971|p=311}} The ISC was a group created by Carrie Chapman Catt and made up of smaller suffrage organizations in New York City.{{Sfn|Flexner|1971|p=311}}

Local women's suffrage groups sent 804 delegates to attend.{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=270}} Mrs. Clarence Mackay presented the conference platform, which was adopted at the convention. Her platform included the assertion that men and women were equal, that it was natural for men and women to cooperate, that laws have tended to restrict women's access to education and full independence, and that it was unlawful to tax women when they had no voice in government.{{Sfn|The Public|1909|p=1065}}

The conference called for Catt to act as the chairperson for a new party, first called the Woman's Party, and later the Woman Suffrage Party.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/10903694/|title=Suffragists Party a Reality|date=30 October 1909|work=The News-Palladium|access-date=10 May 2017|via=Newspapers.com}}{{Sfn|Endres|1996|p=454}} Overall, the conference was "conservative" in tone, rather than "militant," according to the News-Palladium. and The Los Angeles Times.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/10904217/|title=Women Form A Party Of Their Very Own|date=30 October 1909|work=The Los Angeles Times|access-date=10 May 2017|via=Newspapers.com}}

File:Jessie Belle Hardy Stubbs MacKaye, Ida Craft, and Rosalie Jones.jpg, with fellow suffragettes Jessie Stubbs and Ida Craft, handing out WSP meeting fliers, circa 1912-1913|alt= Rosalie Jones, with fellow suffragettes Jessie Stubbs and Ida Craft, handing out WSP meeting fliers, circa 1912-1913]]

Carrie Chapman Catt organized the WSP like a "political machine."{{Sfn|Van Voris|1987|p=79}} The bottom level of the group included individual party members, who then chose district leaders who would represent them at borough and city conventions. The top level of WSP was a board of all of the district chairs.{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=270}} In total, there were 804 delegates and 200 alternates, making the WSP the "largest delegate suffrage body ever assembled in New York State."{{Sfn|Buhle|Buhle|2005|p=401}}

In order to raise money for the group, WSP took in contributions from individuals, sponsored benefits and also created several "fund-raising stunts."{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=271}} These included "self-denial week" where members saved money by eating ten-cent sandwiches, walked instead of hiring cabs, and forwarded the savings to the WSP. "Sacrifice Day" on August 7, 1914, saw women attending a luncheon where they donated jewelry and watches to further the cause.{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=271}} WSP did not use violent tactics to achieve their goals.{{Sfn|Vapnek|2009|p=138}}

Women in the WSP raised awareness by organizing large meetings, passing out suffrage-related literature and marched in parades.{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=271}} Parades included black women as well as white women, though in one parade on May 4, 1912, a black girl was mistreated by a group of men until "the division marshal beat them off with a flagpole."{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=272}} Members also went door to door throughout New York, spreading the word and encouraging men to sign petitions for women's right to vote.{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=271}} WSP also steadily applied pressure to "New York political machines to accept women's demands."{{Sfn|Buhle|Buhle|2005|p=34}}

WSP was inclusive and "actively recruited working-class women."{{Sfn|Vapnek|2009|p=132}} The organization was very interested in ensuring that women were paid fair wages in factories and that women had a say in government regulation of large industries.{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=273}} The WSP also advocated that women be paid the same as men for the same work.{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=273}} WSP also printed much of their literature in other languages, in order to reach minority groups, such as Italian, Jewish and Chinese women in New York.{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=275}} WSP also reached out to Catholic women by printing literature with testimonials from sympathetic Catholic clergy and also by joining with the St. Catherine's Welfare Society, which was pro-suffrage.{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=277}} While WSP did recruit working-class women and minorities, many members of WSP were firmly socially conservative and did not want to mix with the poor or with minorities.{{Cite web|url=https://sangerpapers.wordpress.com/2015/08/19/working-class-dirt-smell-and-sweat-sanger-and-the-womens-suffrage-party/|title=Working Class Dirt, Smell, and Sweat: Sanger and the Women's Suffrage Party|date=19 August 2015|website=Margaret Sanger Papers Project|access-date=12 March 2016}}

File:Woman-suffrage-party-300x192.jpg back to New York, November 1912]]

By 1915, the WSP had a hundred thousand members.{{Sfn|Van Voris|1987|p=118}} During the summer of 1915, the WSP ran a "model woman suffrage campaign," with 5,225 outdoor meetings, 13 concerts and 28 parades and processions.{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=280}} Members continued to reach out door to door and by telephone. WSP sponsored a boat to run between Coney Island and Brighton Beach with a ten-foot sign urging people to support women's suffrage.{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=280}} When the vote for suffrage was not in their favor in November 1915, the WSP continued to lobby for another referendum for women's voting rights.{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=282}} By November 6, 1917, there was a resounding win for women's suffrage in New York. Catt called the New York campaign the "decisive battle of the American woman suffrage movement."{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=283}}

After women earned the right to vote in New York, the WSP helped women prepare to exercise their rights.{{Sfn|Vogue|1917|p=52}} Two committees were formed to help women prepare to vote: The Americanization Committee, under the direction of Mary E. Dreier, and the Women Voters' Council, under the leadership of Hay, which educated American voters.{{Sfn|Vogue|1917|p=52}} The Americanization Committee taught English classes to women who were born outside of the United States.{{Sfn|Vogue|1917|p=52}} They also visited tenements, aided in helping women achieve citizenship, and saw to educating entire families.{{Sfn|Vogue|1917|p=96}} The educational efforts of the WSP were completely non-partisan.{{Sfn|Vogue|1917|p=96}}

The WSP continued to lobby in the federal suffrage campaign until May 1919, when the WSP became the New York chapter of the League of Women Voters.{{Sfn|Schaffer|1962|p=284}}

WSP published The Woman Voter as their official journal{{Sfn|Leonard|1914|p=902}} until 1917 when it merged with other publications to form The Woman Citizen.

File:Woman_suffrage_party_victory_garden_1917.jpg

Many members of WSP were notable women in the fight for women's suffrage. Mary Ritter Beard was the vice-chair of the Manhattan branch of the WSP in 1910.{{Sfn|Lane|Beard|1977|p=75-76}} She left that post at about the same time she quit editing the official journal of WSP, The Woman Voter, in 1912.{{Sfn|Leonard|1914|p=87}} In 1915, Mary Garrett Hay was the president.{{Sfn|Van Voris|1987|p=118}} In 1917, Helen Rogers Reid became the treasurer of the WSP.{{Sfn|Van Voris|1987|p=143}} Vira Boarman Whitehouse was the head of the WSP in 1917 when women were given the right to vote in New York{{Cite news|url=https://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2014/11/07/today-in-herstory-suffrage-leaders-celebrate-victory-in-new-york/|title=Today in Herstory: Suffrage Leaders Celebrate Victory in New York|last=Dismore|first=David|date=7 November 2014|work=Feminist Majority Foundation Blog|access-date=10 March 2016}} and Ida Reid Blair was the chair of the press publicity committee, working with prominent writers and artists to keep the issue in front of the public.{{cite news |author= |date=6 November 1930 |title=Mrs. John Blair Dies of Pneumonia |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1930/11/06/92106544.html?pageNumber=25 |work=The New York Times |location=New York City |publisher=The New York Times |access-date=9 Feb 2025}}{{cite web |last=Benhuri |first=Ariana | editor-first1=Thomas | editor-last1=Dublin | editor-first2=Kathryn |editor-last2=Kish Sklar |date=December 2024 |title=Online Biographical Dictionary of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States |url=https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1009859936 |website=documents.alexanderstreet.com |publisher=Alexander Street |access-date=9 Feb 2025}} The labor journalist Mary Heaton Vorse was a founding member, and in 1913 the party's delegate to the conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in Budapest.{{Cite book |last=Garrison |first=Dee |url=http://archive.org/details/maryheatonvorsel00garr |title=Mary Heaton Vorse : the life of an American insurgent |date=1989 |publisher=Philadelphia : Temple University Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-87722-601-7 |pages=xiv, 75–76}}

• List of New York suffragists

{{Reflist|24em}}

• {{Cite book|title=The Concise History of Woman Suffrage: Selections from History of Woman Suffrage, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and the National American Woman Suffrage Association |publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=2005|isbn=9780252072765|editor-last=Buhle|editor-first=Mari Jo|location=Chicago|editor-last2=Buhle|editor-first2=Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ukXENIk2uSkC&pg=PR3}}
• {{Cite book|title=Women's Periodicals in the United States: Social and Political Issues|last=Endres |first=Kathleen |publisher=Greenwood Press|year=1996|isbn=9780313286322|editor-last=Endres|editor-first=Kathleen L. |location=Westport, Connecticut|chapter=The Woman Voter|editor-last2=Lueck|editor-first2=Therese L. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rHNlZkqY6w4C&q=%22the+woman+voter%22+new+york&pg=PA454}}
• {{Cite book|title=Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary|last=Flexner|first=Eleanor |publisher=The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press|year=1971|isbn=9780674627345|editor-last=James |editor-first=Edward T.|volume=1|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|chapter=Catt, Carrie Clinton Lane Chapman |editor-last2=James|editor-first2=Janet Wilson|editor-last3=Boyer|editor-first3=Paul S. |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rVLOhGt1BX0C&q=%22interurban+suffrage+council%22&pg=PA313}}
• {{Cite book|title=Making Women's History: The Essential Mary Ritter Beard|last1=Lane|first1=Ann J.|last2=Beard|first2=Mary Ritter|publisher=The Feminist Press at the City University of New York|year=1977 |isbn=9781558612198 |location=New York|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/britishguianabou00grea}}
• {{Cite book|title=Woman's Who's Who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada|last=Leonard|first=John William|year=1914|publisher=The American Commonwealth Company |isbn=9780810340183|location=New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PMQ-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA19}}
• {{Cite journal|date=5 November 1909|title=Woman Suffrage|journal=The Public|volume=12|ref={{harvid|The Public|1909}}|last1=Post|first1=Louis Freeland |last2=Post |first2=Alice (Thatcher) |last3=Cooley |first3=Stoughton |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pDzmAAAAMAAJ&q=%22convention+of+disfranchised+women%22&pg=PA1065|access-date=13 March 2016}}
• {{Cite journal|last=Schaffer|first=Ronald|date=July 1962|title=The New York City Woman Suffrage Party, 1909–1919|journal=New York State Historical Association|volume=43|issue=3|pages=269–287|jstor=23153512}}
• {{Cite book|title=Breadwinners: Working Women and Economic Independence, 1865-1920|last=Vapnek|first=Lara |publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=2009|isbn=9780252034718|location=Urbana, Illinois |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RFyjNEaOwN4C&q=%22+Woman+Suffrage+Party%22&pg=PA132}}
• {{Cite book|title=Carrie Chapman Catt: A Public Life|last=Van Voris|first=Jacqueline|publisher=The Feminist Press at The City University of New York|year=1987|isbn=9781558611399|location=New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s2SkL2HNuwEC&q=%22woman+suffrage+party%22&pg=PA118}}
• {{Cite journal|date=15 September 1917|title=The School For Voters|journal=Vogue|pages=52, 96–97 |url=http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/1917_New_York_Suffrage_Amendment_article-pdf |access-date=11 March 2016|ref={{harvid|Vogue|1917}}}}

• [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/rbcmillerbib:@field%28DOCID+@lit%28rbcmiller003851%29%29 Woman Suffrage Party statement]
• [http://findingaids.princeton.edu/MC248/c1558.pdf The German Woman and Modern Problems] (10 February 1915)
• [http://www.westchesterarchives.com/ht/muni/ossTown/suffrageFull.htm New York State Woman Suffrage Party Petitions] (1917)

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Category:1909 establishments in New York City

Category:1919 disestablishments in New York (state)

Category:Women's suffrage in New York (state)

Category:Women's suffrage advocacy groups in the United States

Category:League of Women Voters

Category:Carrie Chapman Catt