The ongoing necessity of suffrage Jessica Enoch rhetorics (or ‘suffragism’): On the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution

• Author: Glenn, C.
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a8
• Published date: 05 September 2022
• Date: 05 September 2022
• Pages: 168-197

168

https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a8

The ongoing necessity of surage

rhetorics (or ‘suragism’): On the

centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment

to the US Constitution

CHERYL GLEN N* & JESSICA ENOCH†

This contr ibution ana lyses femi nist scholarship on women’s suf-

frage – women’s ght for the r ight to vote in the Un ited States.

The 100-year anniversary of the passing of the 19th Amend ment –

the sura ge amendment – serves as exigence for considering how

femini st scholarship ded icated to sura ge addresses our c ontemporary

contexts and concerns. To that end, we bring together schola rship

that troubles dominant wh ite sura ge narratives in order to a mplify

the rhetorics of su ragists of colour, that engages the racism that

inected t he surage movement, that explore s possibilities for

coalitions and all iances, and t hat continues to consider how surage

rhetorics, at the turn of the t wentieth century, might con nect to

and inform restrictions on voting r ights for people l iving various

intersect ional realities in the twenty-r st centur y.

I IN TRODUC TIO N

Surage activism has been both an originating touchpoint for

feminist rhetoricians as well as a well- spring for feminist rhetor ical

criticism since the burgeoning of this eld in the United States

over 40 years ago. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell’s 1989 two-volume

Man Cannot Speak for Her (MCSFH)1 bolstered this focal point

* C heryl Glenn is Universit y Distin guished P rofessor of En glish at Pen n

State Univer sity. Her publicat ions include R hetorical F eminism and Th is Thing

Called Hope (2018); Unspoken: A Rhetoric of Silenc e (2004); and Rhetoric Retold:

Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity through the Renaissance (1997).

† Je ssica Enoch is P rofessor of English at t he Universit y of Maryl and. Her

recent publica tions include Dome stic Occupations: Spatial Rhe torics and Women’s

Work (2019);Me stiza Rhetori cs: An Anthology of Mex icana Activism in the Spanish-

Langua ge Press, 1887–1922(2019), co-edit ed with CRa mírez; Wo men at Wo rk:

Rhetoric s of Gender an d Labor (2019), co-ed ited with D G old; and Retellings:

Opportun ities for Feminist R esearch in Rhet oric and Compos ition Studies (2019 ), co -

edited wit h J Jack.

1 K C ampbell Man Cannot Spea k for Her vols I and II (1989).

2022 Acta Juridica 168

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THE NIN ETEENTH AM ENDMENT TO TH E US CONSTITUTION 169

https://doi.org/10.47348/ACTA/2022/a8

by positioning surage as the telos of the early women’s rights

movement, by directing feminist rhetoricians to ‘account for the

development of rhetorical str ategies that contributed to t he passage

of the 19th Amendment in 1920’.2 Since Campbell’s ground-

breaking work, many femin ist rhetoricians have continued to

identify su rage rhetor ic as a site rich for research, examining

surag ists from Susan B Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt to

Alice Paul and Leonora O’Reilly, and exploring topics related to

performativity, debate, extemporaneous speaking, collaboration,

visual, sonic and material rhetorics, as well as specic forms of

argument ation, ranging from surag ists’ use of metaphor and

euphemism to their invocation of scientic, religious, spatia l and

militant rhetor ical tactics.3

2 BJ D ow ‘Historic al narratives, rhet orical narrati ves, and woman s urage

scholarsh ip’ (1999) 2 Rhetoric & P ublic Aairs 321 at 322.

3 S ee, for example, K H Adam s & ML Keene Alice Paul and the Americ an

Surage Cam paign (2010); JL Borda ‘The woman sur age para des of

1910–1913: Possibilities a nd limit ations of an ea rly femin ist rhetor ical stra tegy’

(2002) 66 Western Journal of Communication 25; L Buchan an ‘Forgi ng and ri ng

thunderbol ts: Collab oration and women’s rhetor ic’ (2003) 33 Rhetori c Society

Quarter ly 43; BJ Dow ‘The “Woman hood” rat ionale in the wom an sur age

rhetoric of Fr ances E. Wi llard ’ (1991) 56 Southern Journal of Communication 298;

S Hayden ‘Negoti ating fem inin ity and power i n the early t wentieth cent ury West:

Domestic ideo logy and fem inine st yle in Jean nette Ran kin’s sura ge rhetoric’

(1999) 50 Communication Studies 83; C Heider ‘Sur age, self-deter mination, and

the Women’s Christia n Temperance Union in Ne braska, 1879 –1882’ (2005) 8

Rhetoric & P ublic Aairs 85; DM Kowa l ‘One cause, two paths: Mi litant vs.

adjustive st rategie s in the Brit ish and Amer ican women’s sur age movements’

(2000) 48 Communication Quarterly 240; T Lewi s ‘Mapping social movements

and leverag ing the US West: The rhetor ic of the woman sura ge map’ (2019) 42

Women’s Studies in Communication 490; L Osterga ard ‘“Silent work for sur age”:

The discr eet rhetoric of Professor Ju ne Rose Colby and the Sapphoni an Society

1892–1908’ (2013) 32 Rhetor ic Review 137; CH Palcze wski ‘The m ale Madonn a

and the femi nine Uncle Sa m: Visual a rgument , icons, and ideog raphs in 1909

anti-woma n surag e postcard s’ (2005) 91 Quar terly Journa l of Speech 365;

AG Ray & CK Richards ‘Inventing citizen s, imag ining g ender justice:

The sur age rhetoric of Virg inia and Franci s Minor’ (2007) 93 Quar terly Journal

of Speech 375; EM Ra msey ‘Invent ing citiz ens duri ng World War I: Surag e

cartoon s in The Woman Citize n’ (2000) 64 Western Journal of Communication

113; BA Stillion Sou thard ‘Mi litanc y, power, and identity: The silent sent inels

as women ght ing for polit ical voice’ (2007) 10 Rhetoric & P ublic Aairs 99 ;

M Styer ‘Sus an B. Anthony’s ex temporaneou s speaki ng for woman su rage’

(2017) 40 Women’s Studies in Communication 401.

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