WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE — I have been studying social late 19th and early 20th-century progressive movements in some of South Jersey’s rural counties, the fieldwork concentrating on temperance, prohibition, prison reform, crime control, and voting rights.
As it concerns women’s suffrage New Jersey has a complicated history since the State’s 1776 Constitution had enfranchised men and women who were worth at least fifty pounds. But this brief period of inclusivity came to an end in 1807 when the Assembly passed a law limiting suffrage to white male taxpayers. After the Civil War, activistism in the State grew in harmony with the national movement, and lawmakers in Trenton were pressured to restore the franchise for women. Across the nation suffragists in nine states had won battles, converting indecivisive politicians by 1913. In New Jersey, the suffragists managed to get a statewide referendum on the ballot, putting the decision in the hands of men at a special statewide election on Oct. 19, 1915.
New Jersey’s voters decided not to grant women the right to vote by a big majority, so women in the Garden State had to wait for the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
For the Salem County Historical Society’s quarterly newsletter, I wrote an article examining this movement and the campaign in the state’s most rural county. See the Quarterly Newsletter of the Salem County Historical Society, Summer 2018, for the full article.
