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Petition from the Citizens of Massachusetts in Support of Women’s Suffrage (with text supports)

During the 1870s and 1880s, hundreds of petitions bearing the signatures of thousands of people flooded Congress, asking for a suffrage amendment. Local activists went door-to-door in their communities, gathering the signatures of sympathetic women and men. These Massachusetts activists followed a template circulated by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; the template provided the proper wording for a petition and suggested that there be separate places for the signatures of men (who could vote) and women (who could not). Suffrage leaders compared their methods to similar anti-slavery petition drives, also led by women, in the antebellum period.


Source | Petition from the Citizens of Massachusetts in Support of Women’s Suffrage, circa 1879 (Washington D.C.: National Archives).
Creator | Various
Item Type | Pamphlet/Petition
Cite This document | Various, “Petition from the Citizens of Massachusetts in Support of Women’s Suffrage (with text supports),” SHEC: Resources for Teachers, accessed March 19, 2024, https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1684.

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