The Woman’s Bible — Let Reflecting Women Think

By: James Calloway

Collection ID

PPR.010239

Type

Papers

Date

ca. 1920

Geography

United States

Language

English

Medium

Printed on Paper

Dimensions

17.1 × 11 × 0.04 in. (43.4 × 28 × 0.1 cm)

Exhibit Location

Not on View

This broadside was created by antisuffrage activists in an effort to halt the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. The campaign for the women’s vote reached a watershed moment in June 1919, when the Senate passed the suffrage amendment. By the following summer, 35 states had ratified the amendment, one short of what was needed for it to become law. Supporters and critics campaigned fiercely to sway public opinion, sometimes appealing to the Bible to support their position. This broadside reprints an article by James Calloway, a writer for the Macon (GA) Telegraph and staunch antisuffragist. He takes aim at Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s The Woman’s Bible, seeking to paint suffrage leaders as anti-Christian. It was likely distributed in Southern states such as Tennessee, which became the 36th state to approve the amendment in August 1920.

Printed around 1920 by an unknown printer.[1] Acquired by the 2000s by New England Book Auctions, Sunderland, Massachusetts;[2] Purchased in 2017 by Rebecca Dodson, private collector, Tennessee;[3] Purchased in 2019 by Green Collection, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, under the curatorial care of Museum of the Bible, Washington, DC.

Notes: [1] While the creator of this broadside is unknown, it was likely a southern branch of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. Similar broadsides include a printer’s mark for Edwards & Broughton Printing Co., Raleigh, North Carolina. Likewise, there are accounts of similar broadsides being distributed in Nashville in the days leading up to Tennessee’s vote. See Kathi Kern, Mrs. Stanton's Bible (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002), 4–5. [2] An unidentified owner has written at the top of the broadside, “Yet these are the chosen leaders of our women! Is it not time for southern men to wake up?” [3] This broadside and three others made up Catalogue 459, Lot 23, of New England Book Auction’s February 28, 2017, sale.

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