Suffragist Migration West after Seneca Falls, 1848
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1871: Catharine Paine Blaine
by Stephanie Stidham Rogers explores the surprising link between Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Conference of 1848, and the Women’s Suffrage Bill presented at the 1854 Washington State Territorial Legislature. It shows how Seattle’s first Suffragist, educator, clothing protestor, and activist Catharine Paine Blaine planted the seeds of the Western feminist movement, and this book redresses her prior omission as the founder of the University of Washington. Catharine drew upon the political tools and discursive skills she acquired during her abolitionist upbringing in the nascent days of Washington State. However, like many suffragists of her time, she rejected Native culture and regarded Native men as competitors for the vote. Rogers examines Seattle within the broader context of the Western “suffrage column” that would only gain similar widespread acceptance in the East in 1885, when Catharine Paine Blaine became the first signer of the Seneca Falls Declaration to legally cast her vote in the City of Seattle. Stidham Rogers unveils the unique contributions of Western suffragists in the comparatively liberating frontier context, leading to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.