The Suffrage Seekers

I’m not going to write much on this #SalemSuffrageSaturday: I prefer to let one document speak for itself—or its signatories. Election Day is three days away, and if it is a struggle to get all the votes counted we can and should be reminded of the long struggle for universal suffrage. We can certainly wait a week, or a month, as these women (and men) waited for seventy years! The first Salem suffrage petition was in 1850; this one is dated 1880—there were more, representing more marching, writing, meeting, speaking, striving in so many ways….all the way up to 1920.

The citizens of Salem, Massachusetts petition the US Senate, May, 1880: Petition from the Citizens of Massachusetts in Support of Woman’s Suffrage; 5/26/1880; Petitions and Memorials, Resolutions of State Legislatures, and Related Documents which were Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary during the 46th Congress; (SEN46A-H11.2); Committee Papers, 1816 – 2011; Records of the U.S. Senate, Record Group 46; National Archives Building, Washington, DC. [Online Version, https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/petition-massachusetts-suffrage, October 31, 2020].

We should not segregate the long struggle for the passage of the 19th Amendment: it represent the single largest expansion of voting rights in American history. But we should also note that many women were excluded from its provisions by the barriers of poll taxes, literacy tests, exclusionary acts, and other forms of voter suppression. The struggle continued after 1920, as it does today.

Officials in Rochester, New York have had to encase Susan B. Anthony’s grave in a protective barrier due to the evolving public ritual of placing voting stickers on her grave on Election Day. This year, of course, they’ve also had to come up with a Covid plan! For my part, I’ll be trekking up to Dr. Sarah E. Sherman’s grave in the Harmony Grove Cemetery on November 3 here in Salem.