Anti-suffragism

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A political cartoon in Harper's lampoons the anti-suffrage movement (1907).

Anti-suffragism was a political movement composed mainly of women, begun in the late 19th century in order to campaign against women's suffrage in the United States and Great Britain. It was closely associated with "domestic feminism", the belief that women had the right to complete freedom within the home. Anti-suffragism was never a very large movement in either country, but its members were loud and often supported by prominent conservative men. The Catholic Encyclopedia, for example, recommended that Catholics support the anti-suffrage movement.^[1]

In Britain, the anti-suffragists numbered 160 in 1902.^[2] The Women's National Anti-Suffrage League, publisher of the Anti-Suffrage Review, submitted a petition to Parliament in 1907 with 87,500 names, but it was discovered to be fraudulent.^[3]

In New York, the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage was founded in 1897, and by 1908 it had over 90 members.^[4] It was active in producing pamphlets and publications explaining their views of women's suffrage, until the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed in 1920. A Geneva branch was founded in 1909.^[5] The suffragettes in New York often extended invitations to open discussion with the anti-suffragists.^[6]

The New York association had its own magazine, first The Anti-Suffragist published by Mrs. William Winslow Crannell from July 1908 to April 1912, later The Woman's Protest produced by the organization at large.