Reconstruction Through Black Suffrage and Women's Rights

For over 40 years the women's rights movement in America was resigned to attempts at "elevating woman's role in the domestic sphere." (5)In the years preceding the civil war and the progressive era of reconstruction that followed it, women's rights became women's suffrage and with the change in name came a reorganization of the suffrage movement. As postwar debates concerning black rights raged in congress, the opportunity to create a human suffrage platform arose. The similarity …

…drove the feminist movement to an alliance with black suffragists, the two did not proliferate as a functioning unit. Though disillusioned with the balking of the abolitionists, Elizabeth Stanton was true to her beliefs and debated her position with a passion. Susan B. Anthony became firm in her belief that feminism should exist as an independent ideology. The AERA misfire affected her profoundly and fueled the fire of a great American for years to come.