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Image credit: New York State Library.
Topeka Feb 11, 1887
To Gov Martin
Dear Sir:
Ten thousand Women who have enough rights without voting and also plenty to do, to attend to their own affairs without meddling with men’s business, ask you to Veto this Suffrage bill. We don’t want to vote, and go to the polls with n****rs — and all kinds of woman.
Mrs G. Monroe
and thousands of others
We’ve all heard of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, but there were millions of women and men who spoke for, and against, women’s suffrage. Today’s mini-episode shares a few of those voices.
Other podcasts about women’s suffrage:
Stuff You Missed in History Class
Credits for Primary Sources:
The letters of Effie B. Frostand Mrs. G. Monroe, as well as the Woman Suffrage Pamphlet by Rev. Stephen Estey, are read with permission from the Kanas State Historical Society.
The petition by Mrs. Kate T. F. Cornell is in the public domain and available at docsteach.org.
Anti-Suffrage Essays by Massachusetts Women is in the public domain and available at gutenberg.org.
Sources:
The Frederick Douglass Encyclopedia, James L. Conyers Jr., Nancy J. Dawson, Lee E. Thompson, Mary Joan Thompson
“The Great Schism,” Ta-nehisi Coates for The Atlantic