On this day in 1915, according to the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, a referendum to give Massachusetts women the vote failed at the polls. Thus, Massachusetts continued to fall behind the more progressive states West of the Mississippi that granted women the right to vote in the 19th century: first Wyoming in 1890, then Colorado in 1893.
In spite of its leading role in the nineteenth-century woman’s rights movement, Massachusetts was the first state to organize an association of women opposed to suffrage. Known as the “Anti’s,” these women believed that they could be better, more effective citizens without the ballot. Many of the “Anti’s” were active in Progressive era causes; they feared that involvement in electoral politics would erode their influence. For over 30 years, they and their male allies succeeded in keeping Massachusetts women out of the voting booth. But ultimately they lost the fight. On this same day in 1920, Massachusetts women cast their votes in a federal election for the first time.
Indeed, the only way women got the vote in Massachusetts was when the federal government forced it down the Bay State’s throat with the 19th Amendment in 1920. It’s interesting to speculate what caused the enlightenment eventually to come to the Commonwealth, and when that happened.
Uh oh, you’re messing with stereotypes again.
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We’re the liberal paradise from the beginning, or is it that this space was colonized by freedom-only-for-my-religion-and-race sorts? We’re Taxachusetts, or is that the middle to lower third of effective tax rates and just too “frugal” to pay for what the commonwealth needs? We’re full of ultra-left Democrats, or is that there are a lot more DINOs than pinkos?
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It goes on at many levels. You illustrate a great example.