The 19th Amendment and Women's Issues

Bainbridge Colby, born in St. Louis but a thorough-going New Yorker, was a handsome man.  He was tall, ramrod straight, with an oval face, sandy hair and wide, heavy lidded eyes.  Proving that sin and sensation were not invented in the age of social media, Bainbridge had an interesting personal life.  He married a lady 20 years his junior (Anne Von Ahlstrand Ely) a month after getting a divorce in Reno, Nevada from his wife of 34 years (Nathalie Sedgwick).  The dated wording of a 1929 Time Magazine article states that the divorce included a, “…$1500-per-month agreement to keep her from ridiculing him in her writings.”  There certainly is material for a modern novel here, but it all sounds like business as usual in modern America. 

When not finding happiness with a younger woman (and who is to say that it wasn’t both true and deserved happiness) Mr. Colby was Mark Twain’s attorney and a close and trusted associate of Woodrow Wilson.   Under President Wilson, Colby became our 43^rd Secretary of State.  On Aug. 26, 1920, at 8:00 a.m., Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby, took up a pen and signed the 19^th Constitutional Amendment, thereby giving female citizens the right to vote in all American elections.  He did so eight days after Tennessee had become the 36^th state to ratify the amendment, satisfying the requirement of the Constitution for three-fourths of the states to pass any proposed amendment. 

It had taken over 50 years of struggle to get women the vote.  The Women’s Rights movement unofficially began in 1848 at Seneca Falls, New York.   Women like Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony had fought through prejudice, stereotypes and, frequently, the hostility of their fellow women who, for good or ill, had made a peace and a life in the status quo.  Most of the names associated with the movement would never live to see the moment when Mr. Bainbridge Colby would make their dream a reality.

What is interesting is the conventional wisdom of the time, which was that women would rise as a monolithic voting bloc.  Bloc!  What bloc?  Did we just pass a bloc?  I didn’t see a bloc; did you see a bloc?  Right!  The power brokers of the early 20^th century made the same mistake they do today.  They assume that the group they view through biased eyes is going to behave according to those same biases.  They are fooled by their hubris of complete understanding.  Women, like every other community of voters, have motivations and interests that are as varied as the backgrounds they come from.  While women may be counted on to go to the polls in good numbers, and can even be counted on to have many of the same concerns, they will have as many different attitudes about what constitutes a good and bad solution as the country at large.  All women are interested, first and foremost, in the economy.  We are always going to be concerned about the safety of our children, jobs and homes—probably in that order.  We are disproportionately affected by poverty and medical issues late in life, so Medicare and retirement issues concern us.  But what we see as the best line of defense for each of these issues depends on who we are, not what we are.  The politician who talks for us is the one who sees us as equal partners in the healing, progress and success of this country, not the one who panders to us as someone needing special protection and the omniscient judgment of an Imperial Government. 

Ladies, let’s all plan on voting this year, and keep the faith.