From the Archives: You think one vote doesn’t matter? Hah!
I have told this story here on the Margins before. But with the midterm elections only a few days away, I think it’s important to remember right now that in the end the 19th Amendment was ratified thanks to one man’s vote.
In August, 1920, 35 states had ratified the amendment; 36 states were needed for it to pass. Tennessee was the only state still in the game. Proponents and opponents of the amendment gathered in a Nashville hotel to lobby legislators. The press dubbed it the War of the Roses because supporters of the suffrage movement wore yellow roses in their labels while its opponents wore red roses.
On August 19, the vote appeared to be tied, assuming the count of red and yellow roses was correct. When the roll call came, 24-year-old Harry T. Burn stepped into history. Burn came from a very conservative district and wore a red rose in his label, but when asked whether he would vote to ratify the amendment he answered “aye”. What changed his mind? A letter from his mother, Febb Burn, who told him to “be a good boy” and vote in favor of the amendment.
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- Harry T. Burn
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- Febb Burn
Asked later about his change of heart, Burn said “I knew that a mother’s advice is always safest for a boy to follow and my mother wanted me to vote for ratification. I appreciated the fact that an opportunity such as seldom comes to a mortal man to free 17 million women from political slavery was mine.”
If you have the right to vote, use it. Because one vote can in fact change the world.
From the Archives: You Can’t Vote Because….
If you’ve been hanging around the Margins for a while, you’ve read this one before. I think it’s worth repeating.
From sixth century Athens on, who has the vote and why has been a touchy and evolving subject in democracies. People who already have the vote have hesitated to extend it to others for two basic reasons. Those with the vote don’t think those without the vote have the capacity to make good choices. Those with the vote fear they will lose power.
Over the centuries, people in power have come up with plenty of reasons not to extend the franchise to those who don’t yet have it. Here are a few of the classics:
You can’t vote because
- You’re a slave
- You’re a woman
- You don’t own property
- You don’t own enough property
- You don’t practice the right religion
- You are the wrong race or ethnicity
- Your father or grandfather couldn’t vote
If you’re lucky enough to have the vote, use it.
Sister Novelists
Recently I was talking with a group of writer friends about the question of accuracy in historical novels and movies. It was an intense discussion that began with The Woman King* and ultimately found its way to the film adaptations of Jane Austen’s movies. In the course of that discussion, I heard myself saying “That’s something Jane understood in her bones.” Then I stopped and said “Or perhaps I should say Miss Austen. I don’t think I’m on a first name basis with Jane Austen.”
Except, of course, reading and movie-watching women today can be said to have an intimate relationship of sorts with Miss Austen. We have read her books (sometimes multiple times) and watched the countless film adaptations. We have enjoyed films like Clueless and Bride and Prejudice, which take the plots of Austen novels, and sometimes even their lines, and place them in contemporary settings. And in recent years, a sub-genre of novels that do the same thing has gained popularity. I am not a hard-core Austenite, but she is part of my cultural DNA.
Jane Austen is often treated as a stand alone literary figure, followed a generation later by the Brontë sisters. (We should know better by now. The field of women doing anything at any point in time is always deeper than the story we’ve been told.) In Sister Novelists:The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontës, literary historian Devoney Looser introduces us to Jane and Anna Marie Porter, contemporaries of Austen’s who were best-selling novelists and literary lions. (Napoleon banned Jane Porter’s books.) They also created a new literary genre: the historical novel.**
Using the thousands of letters the sisters left behind, Looser tells the story of their rise to fame, their financial struggles, their social successes, their romantic failures, and the eternal Catch-22 of being successful single women in a society that had no clearly defined space for such women. The result is a gripping work of impeccable scholarship.
If you’re an Austen fan, or interested in trailblazing women in earlier times, this one’s for you.
* And speaking of The Woman King, if you are interested in learning more about the history surrounding the movie, I strongly recommend this self-study syllabus put together by a trio of historians with deep credentials on the subjects of the slave trade and African history: https://womankingsyllabus.github.io/
**Their childhood friend, Sir Walter Scott, was inspired by their work and history has subsequently given him the credit. This should surprise no one who has spent anytime looking at forgotten women in history, but I must admit it broke my heart—just a little. I developed a bit of a fan-girl crush on Sir Walter while writing my dissertation. I’m disappointed in him.