Poll Position: June PR History
Written by: Jeff Rodriguez, Historian
This month’s column is dedicated to our Founding Fathers, who, from our earliest days of nationhood, had both the vision and the courage to grant women the right to vote.
Oh wait: This is supposed to be historical.
In that case, we should take a moment to remember June 4, 1919. On that day, the Senate narrowly approved the 19thAmendment, granting women suffrage. (The House had approved it earlier.) Women had taken a huge step toward equality — just 143 years after the Declaration of Independence.
Opposition to the amendment had been intense and could serve as a master class in persuasive – albeit misguided — PR tactics. Some people argued that giving women the right to vote would lead to the end of chivalry, while others maintained it would cause women to stop marrying and having children.
Then, too, women were considered too busy caring for their children and households to deal with such weighty issues. And they certainly lacked the sound reasoning skills of the great male leaders, wise men like Genghis Khan, Stalin and the U.S. Congress.
Indeed, when the Senate had taken up the bill, one member asserted that letting women vote would “place the Government under petticoat rule.” Another legislator stated that women’s suffrage would result in “disaster and ruin” for the country; this, he man-splained, was because men “could never resist the blandishments of women.”1
Often overlooked is how effective the suffragettes’ own PR efforts were — and how much endured to achieve their goal. They previously had organized a march down Pennsylvania Avenue and protested outside the White House, both times being met with violence. As early as 1916, they had set up a publicity bureau in D.C. so they could lobby Congressmen in person. And hide their remote controls.
Notably, at least some of the media coverage was balanced. The day after the vote, the New York Times announced that, “Suffrage Wins In Senate, Now Goes To States,” with the article stating that women had prevailed “After a long and persistent fight.” There was no other media coverage that day, but only because the night before, all of the nations’ women had refused to do laundry, pack lunches and get the kids off to school, leaving their helpless husbands stuck at home.
The journey to ratification would be perilous and drag out over 14 months. But if that seems a little slow, it’s worth remembering how long women had waited just to get this far. After all, Wyoming had granted women the right to vote back in 1869. And they’re not even in the Big XII.
Today, the arguments against women’s suffrage seem both quaint and offensive. But it’s worth remembering how widespread those ideas once were, and how hard it was to overcome them. It’s also worth remembering that sometimes, a campaign to win over public sentiment is less about the facts and more about, well, the sentiment.
1 Blandishment (n.): A flattering or pleasing statement or action used to gently persuade someone to do something. Like put the toilet seat down.
