The emergence of women’s rights in 1920s’ America reminds me of the 1960s’ Virginia Slims cigarette commercial, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” 

And indeed they have.  The 1920s was a bellwether decade for women’s rights.  Although in the late 1800s, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton introduced an amendment prohibiting the right to vote based upon sex, it wasn’t until 1920 that the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified.  This was the beginning of equal rights for women. 

Prior to the 1920s, women were little more than chattel.  They had no rights and were considered man’s property.  They could not own land and had no control over the welfare of their children or the money they earned.  Women’s suffrage began the movement that would forever change the fabric of American society. 

With their newfound freedoms, women began to explore their options societally and economically.  They began to recognize the importance of their jobs.  As Elizabeth Breuer so eloquently states in her April 1925 article in Harper’s Monthly, “In this country feminism, as an organized movement of women in great active groups, is over.  But in its place is rising a feminism which is a point of view.  This point of view expresses itself not so much in sex-consciousness as in the personal self-consciousness of women who are trying to straddle two horses and ride them both to a victorious finish.  One of these is the Job—through which woman can express herself as an individual in a world of masculine standards; the other is her love life, which she cannot leave behind if she is to be happy as a woman.” 

The women’s movement allowed women to seek fulfillment in both home and career.  The emphasis of the role of women became not so much as that of a wife and mother, but as an individual.  Dorothy Dunbar, in her October 1927 article in Harper’s Monthly states, “Men have cried out in alarm, ‘With all this suffrage, with all this entering of professions, with all this throwing wide of the world’s doors, women will rush out of the homes!’” Working in clerical positions, not just domestic ones, became publicly accepted for young unmarried women.  By 1930 one in four women held a paying job.  

The “flapper” became the image of the 1920s woman.  Women began to cut their hair, wear makeup and shorter skirts, and smoke.   This mode of dress and action became not only an outward expression, but was indicative of the internal change that was taking place within the modern woman. 

Women’s roles in politics changed in the 1920s as well.  They were represented on local, state and federal political committees and were influencing the political agenda of the federal government by decade’s end.  In 1922, Rebecca Felton of Georgia became the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.  Alice Robertson of Oklahoma became the first woman to preside over the House of Representatives.  In 1923 Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming became the first woman elected as governor, and in 1932 Hattie Caraway became the first woman elected to the Senate. 

The women’s movement of the 1920s was not embraced by all women, however.  Elizabeth Breuer states in an article in 1923, “The Woman’s Party is regarded by many women’s organizations as their common enemy, being as it is the radical wing of the woman’s movement in the United States.  This attitude proceeds from the intention of the Woman’s Party to remove from the statute books all laws which discriminate for or against women on sex lines, and that destruction accomplished, to create other laws which shall give necessary protection in industry, marriage, and other legal and social relationships, to men and women alike as human beings, regardless of sex, but regardful of the minimum of physical endurance for both.  To accomplish this it seeks to tear down the whole body of protective legislation which has been built up through years of painful struggle by the majority of women’s organizations, and the women’s organizations are therefore fighting its program tooth and nail.” 

No one can deny the tremendous influence of the women’s rights movement in the 1920s, and the influence it has and continues to have on American culture. 

 Sources:          

The Women’s Movement in the 1920s: American Magazines Document the Health and Progress of Feminism, Carolyn Ann Bonard

A New Woman Emerges, Louise Benner

Feminism’s Awkward Age, Elizabeth Breuer

What Four Million Women are Doing, Elizabeth Breuer

Feminist—New Style, Dorothy Dunbar