Photoessay #2842 - Suffrage vs Citizenship

I n my class today, we covered Jewish women's roles in the Suffrage movement.  Earlier I realized that some of the energy put behind the movement to gain the vote for women was channeled into the League of Women Voters; an organization that I associate with my mother (born in the 1920s) and her generation.

But during class, I realized that I associated voting with citizenship.  If you were a citizen (which you usually don't have to prove), then you can vote.  Did that mean that women before 1920 were not citizens?

What else do I associate (in these post 911 times) with citizenship.  Protection from my government.  A passport, which gives me free passage around the world.  Jury duty.  My right to live in this country.  This may all sound very unsophisticated.

My teacher pointed out that passports were only needed when nation-states developed the idea that people belonged in them.  A quick google search shows that passports, as we know them, really only started in 1941.  Real recent.  Today, your passport is considered very valuable; a precious possession.

I know that it was pretty easy for European male immigrants to obtain citizenship.  I think they had to apply after they had been in the US for five years.

Criminal laws applied to women certainly.  Property ownership for women was problematic; especially married women.  Even the first house we bought in the 1970s; the mortgage had my husband's name and then my name with the appellation "his wife."  I objected; made them change it.

So a lot these citizenship associations are new.  Maybe citizenship was not such a big deal them.  Women were degraded citizens?

Picture from a League of Women Voters archive from Georgia.