Symposium: 19th Amendment at 100: "We Must Forget Every Difference and Unite in a Common Cause - Votes For Women": Lessons From the Woman Suffrage Movement (Or, Before the Notorius RBG, There Were the Notorious RBGs)

Authors

Gwen Jordan

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment induces a renewed assessment of the history of the woman’s suffrage movement and its legacy. This article focuses on the transnational activism of women professionals to secure, for all women, full social, civil, political, and legal rights. It examines the work of Rosa Goodrich Boido, a late nineteenth century doctor, and her daughter, Rosalind Goodrich Bates, an early twentieth century lawyer, as they generationally crossed national borders and fought for women’s rights and dignity in the US and around the world. Their stories document their understanding of suffrage as an incremental step toward women’s equality. Their stories also reveal the understudied incidents of women uniting in common cause across differences to enhance their power. The article especially highlights the work of activist women lawyers and documents the establishment of the Federacion Internacional de Abogadas, an international association of women lawyers that continues to operate in the twenty-first century. It argues that this strategy of unification over racial, class, national, and political differences remains relevant in the continued fight for recognition of women’s equal worth and full enfranchisement.

Recommended Citation

Gwen Jordan, "We Must Forget Every Difference and Unite in a Common Cause - Votes For Woman": Lessons From the Woman Suffrage Movement (Or, Before the Notorious RBG, There Were the Notorious RGBs), 11 ConLawNOW 91 (2020).