Abolition To get rid of slavery.
Abolitionist A person who believes that there should be no slavery.
Anti-suffrage A movement to prohibit women from gaining the right to vote.
Bloomers Designed by Elizabeth Smith Miller and named after Amelia Bloomer. In the 1800s, women wore long dresses and hoopskirts. Women began to protest that type of dress by wearing bloomers, which were like pants. Elizabeth Miller described them as “Turkish trousers to the ankle with a skirt reaching some four inches below the knee.” She began wearing Bloomers in 1851.
Coverture Legal concept dating back to Feudal Norman customs in England. When a woman married, she became one with her husband and ceased to exist in the eyes of the law. She could not contract for wages, could not own property in her own name, could not sign contracts, did not have the rights to decisions about her own children, etc. In Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s words “with marriage a women is civilly dead.” This concept was the driving force in the subordination of women. To understand it is to understand the roots of the women’s rights revolution.
Enfranchisement To endow with the rights of citizenship, especially the right to vote.
Minor vs. Happersett A legal case between Virginia Minor and Reese Happersett. Minor, president of the Woman Suffrage Association of Missouri, attempted to register to vote in 1872 as implied by the 14th Amendment. Happersett would not allow her to register and the result was a lawsuit. Minor lost her case in 1873. In 1875 the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court as a test of women’s 14th Amendment rights. The court rejected the argument that voting was a right of citizenship. And the court upheld the right of individual states to give women the right to vote within their own borders.
Municipal Suffrage The right to vote in city or town elections.
Panic of 1837 The financial panic was caused by changes in the U.S. banking system and the economy. As a result, 618 banks failed in 1837 and over 39,000 Americans went bankrupt. The economic depression than began in the United States spread to England and Europe. The depression became known as the “Hard Times of 1837-1843.”
School Suffrage The right to vote in school board elections.
Suffrage The right to vote.
Suffragette The term originated in Britain and was first used to insult members of the suffrage movement. It then became the term to describe the more radical branch of the British suffrage movement.
Suffragist A woman or man who is an advocate for a woman’s right to vote.
Temperance Restraint in the use of or abstinence from alcoholic liquors.
Woman’s Rights The drive to give women the same rights as men began in the mid-1800s and continues today. The Woman’s Rights Movement (also known as the Women’s Rights Movement) promotes that women have the same rights and the same opportunities as men.
Women’s Suffrage A movement that sought a woman’s right to vote. Also called “Woman’s Suffrage”, “Women Suffrage” and “Woman Suffrage”. The early suffragists used the term “Woman Suffrage” because they were seeking the right to vote for each individual woman.