The “Three Immediate Women Friends” of the Anthony Family

Collection ID

PPR.010245

Type

Papers

Date

ca. 1920

Geography

United States

Language

English

Medium

Printed on Paper

Dimensions

12 × 9.1 × 0.04 in. (30.6 × 23 × 0.1 cm)

Exhibit Location

Not on View

This leaflet 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 leaflet plays upon the fears of some white Americans, particularly in the South, that the suffrage movement could empower African Americans and disrupt the racial hierarchy. 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 Brown Printing Co, Montgomery, Alabama.[1] Acquired by the 2000s by Virginia Grace, private collector, North Carolina; Purchased in 2017 by Rebecca Dodson, private collector, Tennessee; 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.

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