As Nashville buzzed with energy on Sunday afternoon, Sue White took a quiet moment in her hotel room. She needed to focus. Carefully, she unfolded a large map of Tennessee. The state’s rugged beauty—its soaring mountains, its plunging valleys, its flowing rivers and creeks—was going to make things very difficult for the Woman’s Party.
That’s because Sue and her women were going to have to travel up and down the whole length of Tennessee. Ninety-seven different counties—and some of them couldn’t even be reached by train. There were 132 legislators, and the Woman’s Party had to reach every single one of them.
Sue bit her lip. She knew it wouldn’t be easy. But ever since she was a little girl, she’d been used to hardscrabble. After all, she was orphaned at a young age and had to learn early on what it meant to work for her own food and shelter. She never let herself get stuck in the past or daydream about what she was missing. She only knew how to move forward. Being independent and working hard was in her bones. No matter how challenging it would be to find these legislators, Sue and her colleagues would do it.
Sue’s suffrage journey had started with Carrie Catt’s group, NAWSA. Back when America entered the First World War in April 1917, she’d believed that helping with the war effort would show men—once and for all—that women were valuable citizens. That they deserved the vote. But still male politicians would hardly budge on the issue of suffrage. And Sue grew impatient with NAWSA’s cooperation with President Woodrow Wilson and other politicians. As far as Sue could tell, these men were barely lifting a finger to support women’s rights. She and her fellow Suffs were just as smart and informed as the men were. Sue was sick of waiting around.
That was before she’d even really heard of Alice Paul and her radical Woman’s Party. Alice Paul had refused to support America’s involvement in the war in Europe. She and her troops picketed the White House, marching with banners that mocked the president. How could America send its sons to die for democracy in Europe, Alice demanded, while denying women the number one right of democracy—the vote—at home?
Both NAWSA and the Woman’s Party set their sights on the same goal—suffrage—but they pursued it in their own ways. Each group did its own polling, lobbying, and organizing. The more Sue learned about the Woman’s Party, the more she realized it was her style. NAWSA Suffs had manners and grace, sure. But they compromised too much for Sue’s taste. Alice Paul and her radical, protesting ladies may have been loud, combative, and not a bit ladylike. They may have been called uncooperative, unpatriotic, and even traitors. But Sue saw them as freedom fighters. And that’s just what drew her to them.
Lobbying means trying to convince politicians to support certain issues.
Sue knew what needed to be done in order for Tennessee to ratify. After all, she’d lived there her entire life. After years of working in the state’s courthouses as a reporter, she’d met plenty of important political players. She knew their backgrounds, their allies, their soft spots. She could talk to anyone, Democrat or Republican. She wasn’t easily intimidated.
It was time to show these Tennessee men—from senators and congressmen to Governor Albert Roberts himself—that suffrage was long overdue.
In the Governor’s Mansion, Albert Roberts groaned to himself. He was short, with a small paunch, big ears, and bushy brows. He punched his arm into a rumpled jacket sleeve and wrapped a too-short tie around his neck. The day ahead was full of meetings. He had enough on his plate, worrying about his upcoming election. Winning a second term as governor was his greatest concern. The pesky issue of amendment ratification was the very last thing he wanted to think about.
Tennessee had enough problems already. Unions were striking throughout the state, from shoe manufacturers to railway workers, demanding fair pay. Albert had tried to clamp down on them quickly with police force—he couldn’t have anyone thinking the governor was a weakling. Meanwhile, thousands of people had been out of work since the end of the war. And the Ku Klux Klan was appearing more and more throughout the state, assaulting and murdering black people.
Not to mention that Tennessee had some of the lowest literacy rates in the country. Albert wanted to change that. Kids should be going to school past the eighth grade, he believed. Teachers should be getting better training. Not everyone was on board with that, though. Manufacturers thought children should be working in factories, not “wasting time” in school.
Albert wanted Tennessee to thrive. He thought the state should be a leader in the South. It needed better education and better roads, all paid for by fairer taxes. Sure, everyone nodded in agreement, but no one wanted to pay.
On top of all this came the Nineteenth Amendment to give women the right to vote. Albert really wasn’t sure what to do about it. He was being pressured by all sides. On one hand, the Tennessee suffragists demanded he call a special session of the legislature and ratify quickly. Even President Woodrow Wilson, his hero, was urging him to do it.
On the other hand, Albert’s advisers warned him not to support suffrage. The Antis were some of his greatest friends and supporters—and they were rich, too. That meant they could contribute money to his campaign, which could potentially help him win the election.
Albert’s advisers also reminded him that if women got the vote, they might not even vote for him. Those Suffs would no doubt remember he’d started his career as an Anti.
There was another knotty reason to be wary of giving women a political voice: many of the big corporations in the state didn’t like the idea one bit. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad, known as the L&N, was dead set against women voting. The L&N had started bribing the Tennessee legislators long ago, giving them free tickets and high-paying jobs on the side in exchange for looking out for railroad interests and regulations. Unpredictable women voters could easily destroy this secret trade-off between men.
And what about the whiskey industry? If women were allowed to vote, they might want to really enforce Prohibition laws, which could once and for all ban liquor across the country. The state’s cotton cloth mills and clothing makers were also strictly Anti. Women would probably vote for labor reform, or call for equal pay, or, worse yet, demand the end of child labor. The entire cotton-manufacturing economy of the South was run on the cheap labor of women and children. Was Governor Roberts willing to destroy all of that, just for the promise of a few women’s votes?
And don’t forget, Albert’s advisers warned: black women who would also be going to the polls would vote Republican, the party of Lincoln!
Yes, Albert grumbled, straightening his tie as he headed to his first meeting, these suffragists were causing him nothing but headaches.