Alice Mary Robertson

DID you know that the second woman elected to the U.S. Congress was actually opposed to the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution — the measure that granted voting rights to women nationally?

Alice Mary Robertson, who represented her district in Oklahoma from 1921-23, was one of tens of thousands of American women who were so opposed to suffrage for themselves that they either spoke out against it or joined organizations fighting it. They were known as the “anti-suffragists” and, up until the day the amendment finally passed in August of 1920 after 70 years of agitation, they were a thorn in the side of the women who fought for the vote. They staunchly believed women had too much to do of pressing importance to get involved in politics in the same way men were and they honored the separate role and authority of men.

Robertson founded a boarding school for Native American girls that eventually became the University of Tulsa. She ended up in national politics because she wanted to make the best of voting privileges for women. She believed feminism was ‘bartering the birthright for a mess of pottage.’ She opposed any women’s organizations that functioned as “a club against men.”

The dowdy Robertson didn’t enjoy any of the celebrity of the Gilded Age suffragettes who hosted recruitment parties at Sherri’s restaurant and the tony Colony Club in New York City and who bankrolled the campaign to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. “I came to Congress to represent my district not women,” Robertson said, and she shunned some of the first feminist-style legislation.

When school children today learn about Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Susan B. Anthony, both icons of modern democracy, they rarely get the other side of the story.

In an interview with Judith Sharpe at In the Spirit of Chartres, I look at some of the myths about the battle for women’s suffrage in the late-19th and early-20th century. (The interview is free for the month of March.) The suffragists — or suffragettes — seem to be more revered with each passing year and especially received a lot of attention with last year’s 100th anniversary of the amendment. Some perspective on this issue is in order.

— Comments —

Dianne writes:

The female vote has played a huge part in the pulling of western nations to the far left.

I believe that at one time not only were only men allowed to vote but they needed to be land owners. Not a bad idea since as land owners they were truly invested in the future of the nation.

With all the problems in our society it astounds me that no public voice calls for the return of mothers to the home.

Laura writes:

Public voices calling for women to return to the home do exist, but we don’t have much power or visibility. : – )

But we have many women of the past like Alice Robertson to inspire us.

Please follow and like us: