American Academic Male Economists and Women’s Suffrage: Another Look at Progressive-Era (Il)Liberalism

ABSTRACT

During the Progressive Era (1890–1920) in the U.S., the debate on women’s enfranchisement involved two opposite sides: detractors (Antis) and supporters. Detractors converged on the idea that women’s enfranchisement might have harmed the natural harmony of society, based on a strict division of roles between sexes. Supporters developed three different arguments: women’s suffrage would have reinforced the democratic system; it would have strengthened social cohesion; it would have led to several economic advantages of the society as a whole. Major American economists of the time joined the debate. The aim of this paper is to describe the position of the foremost male academic economists of the time by digging the lesser-known propaganda literature of the period. By showing the position of those who were against women’s suffrage, we point out their illiberalism which, in some cases, was actual chauvinism. By showing the arguments of those who supported women’s suffrage, we point out different nuances of endorsement: while some were in favor in the name of gender equality, others did not give up forms of biologically determinism and gender-biased stereotypes.

KEYWORDS:

• Women’s suffrage
• progressive era
• gender equality
• social harmony
• illiberalism

JEL:

• CODES: B1
• B25

Acknowledgements

We would like to use this opportunity to acknowledge and thank the reviewers who reviewed this article and aided in its publication.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Unfortunately, Ely did not specify to what specific legislation and to which country he was referring to.

2 In 1911, the Wisconsin legislature passed a suffrage bill that would have allowed women in the state to vote in all elections, but to become a law it had to be voted on in a referendum that was set for 5 November 1912. The referendum was defeated due to multiple causal factors including ethnic and religious divisions, urban versus rural populations, brewing and agricultural industries, United States and Wisconsin politics, and voting patterns in Wisconsin prior to and during 1912 (McBride 1994).

3 Richard Theodore Ely to Jane Addams, 2 May 1912. Jane Addams Papers, Swarthmore College Peace Collection.

4 Interestingly, this address is not included in the extensive bibliography contained in Carver (1949).

5 In 1918, President Wilson gave an address in which he supported suffrage ‘as a war measure,’ noting that the war could not be fought effectively without women’s participation (Lunardini and Knock 1980[1981]).

6 Note here the similitude with Carver: ‘This would place the ballot where it belongs, as a tool to be used and not as a toy to be played with, as a sword and not as a plume, as a burden and not as a privilege, as an obligation and not as a right. It should go to those who can use it effectively for the good of the nation’ (No Suffrage for Women, 1907).

7 ‘Public feelings,’ vaguely defined, are also important. ‘In the case of woman suffrage,’ Jenks explained, ‘in the states where public sentiment is strongly in favor of it, and the women active it might be desirable for them to have this right,’ whereas in those states, with women equally ‘active and intelligent,’ but where public sentiment is mostly opposed to the suffrage, ‘the granting of the right might be decidedly undesirable.’ (No Suffrage for Women, 1907).

8 Furthermore, Farnam’s family wealth gave him influence at Yale as well as within the economics profession: he funded both the American Economic Review and the American Labor Legislation Review.

9 For several years, The Woman Voter was edited by Mary R. Beard, Charles Beard’s wife (Rosenberg 2004, p. 117). ‘The Antis Answered’ was a column hosted in the The Woman Voter which reproduced statements by leading reformers of the time in response to the antisuffragists’ main contentions.

10 As Reported by Seager, according to Mary K. Simkhovitch (‘The Antis Answered’ 1914, p. 10), Vladimir Simkhovitch’s wife, ‘Woman suffrage will further the movement to restrict child labor and to humanize the conditions under which women work.’ Mary Simkhovitch had studied economics at Columbia under Edwin R. A. Seligman in 1894–95.

11 Chaddock served as President of the American Statistical Association in 1925.

12 Beard (‘The Antis Answered’ 1914, p. 10) also rejected the idea, which we have found Carver, that law enforcement requires physical strength. As he put it: ‘the law actually enforced by physical violence is a relatively small part of the law enforced and the fact that physical force is occasionally necessary is not sufficient warrant for depriving women of the vote. Public order is as well maintained in the woman suffrage States as in the manhood suffrage States — and one ounce of experience is worth a pound of academic theory.’

13 Why the Country Needs Women Voters. Talk for the Woman Political Union, 663 Fifth Avenue. 11 February 1915. Wesley Clair Mitchell Papers. Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.

14 While it is certainly true that Mitchell was a friend of John Dewey, it is notable to mention John’s brother Davis Rich, economist of MIT, AEA president (and, for its first thirty years, editor of the AER) whose wife, Mary Hopkins Dewey was a proponent of women's suffrage and child labor laws as reported in the MIT archive space available here: https://archivesspace.mit.edu/agents/people/461.

15 Mitchell’s reference to wife is not only related with the general argument of the time but might have an autobiographical nuance. His wife, Lucy Sprague (1878–1967) who, differently from many female activists during the Progressive Era who chose not to get married in order to pursue their public careers, attempted to combine marriage and motherhood with full-time professional responsibilities (Antler 1987).

16 During that year Columbia University gave him an honorary doctor’s degree at the age of 31 (Giersch 1984).

17 A preliminary and very abridged version of this address was published, under the title ‘The New Domestic System,’ as a chapter of Walton H. Hamilton’s Current Economic Problems (1915, pp. 62–66). We will refer to the more complete unpublished version which was found at the Herbert J. Davenport Papers, State Historical Society of Missouri.

18 Davenport (1916).

19 As Patten (1904, p. 1248) explained, ‘The city home of the immediate future will be unique in that it will be built by two who are educated, side by side, in the public school, whose industrial careers are side by side in the factory, whose plans of life, formed by the same city outlook, have resulted in like powers and parallel interests. For such a pair the logical home will be an equalized expression of their interrelated pasts and their approximating futures.’

20 The volume also included a paper on ‘The Economic Basis of Feminism’ (1914) by the sociologist Maurice Parmelee, a colleague of Davenport at Missouri and like him a figure influenced by Veblen. A Columbia graduate, Parmelee was affiliated with the New York Men’s League for Woman Suffrage.

21 In this connection, Ross’ biographer Sean McMahon (1999, p. 135) notes that ‘his views on women, and Ross’ involvement with Margaret Sanger, has never been full explored.’

22 To our knowledge, Commons, the other foremost pupil of Ely, did not take a position on women’s suffrage. Apparently, his wife Ella Downey was an active suffragist. An article on the recent rejection of the women's suffrage amendment by Wisconsin voters from the November 6, 1912, edition of the Wisconsin State Journal includes the following: ‘Madison women are disappointed but not discouraged over the failure of the equal suffrage amendment to carry in Wisconsin. Here is what some of the leaders say … Mrs. John R. Commons: “The outcome of this election is just what I expected but I think that in a few years it will be very different. Our progressive legislation has perhaps made the men of Wisconsin feel that the women were not in need of the ballot to protect themselves.”’

23 The Woman Citizen's Library was a series of publications whose purpose was, as stated in its subtitle, to provide women with ‘a systematic course of reading in preparation for the larger citizenship.’ The series was edited by Shailer Mathews, dean of the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, and it included among its contributors early feminist leaders such as Carrie Chapman Catt, Jane Addams, and Florence Kelley.

24 We acknowledge Yale University Manuscripts and Archives for the access to Fisher (1913, 1914, 1918), held in Irving Fisher’s Papers.