And Yet They Persisted How American Women Won the Right to Vote

A comprehensive history of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States, from 1776 to 1965

Most suffrage histories begin in 1848, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton first publicly demanded the right to vote at the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. And they end in 1920, when Tennessee became the 36^th state to ratify the 19^th Amendment, removing sexual barriers to the vote. And Yet They Persisted traces agitation for the vote over two centuries, from the revolutionary era to the civil rights era, excavating one of the greatest struggles for social change in this country and restoring African American women and other women of color to its telling. 

In this sweeping history, author Johanna Neuman demonstrates that American women defeated the male patriarchy only after they convinced men that it was in their interests to share political power. Reintegrating the long struggle for the women’s suffrage into the metanarrative of U.S. history, Dr. Neuman sheds new light on such questions as:

• Why it took so long to achieve equal voting rights for women
• How victories in state suffrage campaigns pressured Congress to act
• Why African American women had to fight again for their rights in 1965
• How the struggle by eight generations of female activists finally succeeded

And Yet They Persisted: How American Women Won the Right to Vote his is the ideal text for college courses in women’s studies and history covering the women’s suffrage movement, as well as courses on American History, Political History, Progressive Era reforms, or reform movements in general.

Click here to read Johanna Neuman's two-part blog post about the hidden history of Women's Suffrage as we celebrate the centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment.

Johanna Neuman is an author, award-winning journalist, and one of the nation's preeminent historians of women's suffrage in the United States. Johanna received a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, served as president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, and currently holds the title of Scholar in Residence, History Department, American University. She is author of the acclaimed book Gilded Suffragists: The New York Socialites Who Fought for Women’s Right to Vote.

Preface ix

About the Companion Website xv

1 The Dawn of Republican Motherhood 1

2 Female Activism in Antebellum America 23

3 From Female Influence to Women’s Rights 45

4 The Fifteenth Amendment 65

5 The States as Incubators for Social Change 87

6 The Coloring of the Electorate 109

7 The Tactical Turn in Women’s Suffrage 131

8 Male Suffragists and the Limits of Self‐Interest 153

9 Campaigning in Wartime 173

10 The Long Road to Ratification 195

11 The Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Beyond 217

Bibliography 239

Index 247

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