OSU Press Release
(STILLWATER, Oklahoma, Aug. 14, 2020) — Aug. 18 marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote in the United States.
OSU political science professor Rebekah Herrick and Jeanette Mendez, vice provost of academic affairs and political science professor, are available to serve as experts for media interviews.
Herrick offers some perspectives on the significance of the anniversary:
“I think anniversaries are significant just because they offer people the chance to reflect on the significance of something. This being the 100th anniversary, it kind of forces us to think back on both the struggle for women to get the right to vote and the importance of elections today. Particularly today, with the Black Lives Matter movement, it’s important to understand that the struggle to get women the right to vote was intertwined with race. Part of the reason Southern states tended to not ratify it or ratify it really late is because there was a fear that African American women would vote in large numbers. So, race was really intertwined with the opposition to the women’s suffrage movement.”
She said some suffragettes were willing to sell out some African American women to try to get suffrage for white women. She said other elements of political calculus were taking place at the time as well. Liquor purveyors feared women would be more likely to support Prohibition, so they lobbied against women’s suffrage. She said some politicians feared giving women the right to vote and others raised religious objections as well.
Meanwhile, Western states wanted to increase their voting populations and were generally more supportive. There was also a spirit of independence in Western states and more gender equality on farms in the West where “everyone had to do everything,” Herrick said.
Still, she said the reality is that women faced a long climb to earn the right to vote.
“Normally people will point to 1848 and the Seneca Falls Convention, which was led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as the first time women’s suffrage got momentum. Even at the convention, it was seen as a radical idea.”
In a historical context, Herrick said this didn’t happen that long ago.
“My grandmother was socialized in an era where women didn’t have the right to vote. Most women [today] don’t sit around and ponder whether women should vote, but it’s something my grandmother did sit around and ponder.
“Even after women got the right to vote, there were still challenges,” she added. “It’s not like women rushed to the polls to vote immediately. Women tended to vote at regularly low levels. It wasn’t until the Reagan era that women started to vote at the same or higher levels than men.”
Now, she said the impact of the 19th Amendment is playing out in a different way at the ballot box.
“If you look at the 2018 midterm election, there seemed to be a groundswell of women running for office, which is kind of the next step. I think when gender has made its way to the forefront of our discourse, it incentivizes women to be more politically active. At the grassroots level, you have events like the annual women’s march and an energy that is bringing women into politics.”
Oklahoma State University is a modern land-grant university that prepares students for success. OSU has more than 34,000 students across its five-campus system and more than 24,000 on its combined Stillwater and Tulsa campuses, with students from all 50 states and around 100 nations. Established in 1890, OSU has graduated more than 275,000 students to serve the state of Oklahoma, the nation and the world.
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