Women's Suffrage in the Americas

Stephanie Mitchell

• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9780826366146
• eBook ISBN: 9780826366436
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: History

The first hemispheric study to trace how women in the Americas obtained the right to vote, Women's Suffrage in the Americas pushes back against the misconception that women's movements originated in the United States. The volume brings Latin American voices to the forefront of English-language scholarship. Suffragists across the hemisphere worked together, formed collegial networks to support each other's work, and fostered advances toward women gaining the vote over time and space from one country to the next. The collection as a whole suggests several models by which women in the Americas gained the right to vote: through party politics; through decree, despite delays justified by women's supposed conservative politics; through conservative defense of traditional roles for women; and within the context of imperialism. However, until now historians have traditionally failed to view this common history through a hemispheric lens.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue
• Introduction by Stephanie Mitchell
• Scenario 1. (Il?) Liberal Democratic Scenario (Examples: Costa Rica, Canada, United States)
• Chapter 1. “Affronting Electoral Law”: Struggle, Conquest, and Approval of Women’s Suffrage in Costa Rica (1890-1949) by Eugenia Rodríguez Sáenz
• Chapter 2. Fractured Landscapes: Women and the Long Struggle for Suffrage and Political Equality in Canada by Veronica Strong-Boag
• Chapter 3. The Suffrage Movement in the United States: Demanding the Right to Vote across Gender and Racial Lines in an (Il?) Liberal Democracy by Susan Goodier
• Scenario II. Crisis of Representation (Examples: Brazil, Argentina, Colombia)
• Chapter 4. Ideological and Political Obstacles to Enfranchising Women in Brazil by Teresa Cristina de Novaes Marques
• Chapter 5. History and Interpretations of Women’s Suffrage in Argentina by Adriana María Valobra
• Chapter 6. Women’s Suffrage in Columbia by Guiomar Dueñas Vargas
• Scenario III. Liberal Delay (Examples: Mexico, Chile, Nicaragua)
• Chapter 7. “Laughter in the Chamber”: Mexico’s Long Road to Women’s Suffrage by Stephanie Mitchell
• Chapter 8. Women’s History: Historiographical Proposals on How Women Obtained the Suffrage in Chile by Claudia Montero and María Paz Vera
• Chapter 9. The History of Women’s Suffrage in Nicaragua: An Incomplete Story by Victoria González-Rivera
• Scenario IV. Perceived Conservative Strategic Advantage (Examples: Ecuador, Peru)
• Chapter 10. Without Consideration of Their Sex?: The Uneven Path to Female Suffrage in Ecuador, ca. 1883-1940 by Erin E. O’Connor
• Chapter 11. Collective Action for Women’s Suffrage in Peru: Political Contexts, Women’s Organizations, and Public Actors by Roisida Aguilar
• Scenario V. Imperial Scenario (Examples: Puerto Rico, Philippines)
• Chapter 12. Filipina Women’s Political Alterity Under U.S. Empire, 1912-1937 by Christine Peralta
• Chapter 13. A Look at the Struggle for Universal Suffrage in Puerto Rico through the Endeavors of Two Unusual Women, Genara Pagán and Ricarda López de Ramos Casellas by Roxanna Domenech Cruz
• Conclusion by Stephanie Mitchell
• Bibliography
• List of Contributors
• Index