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Click on image to enlarge.
Flyer, "Man's Government
by Man" |
Click on image to enlarge.
Poster, "Why Some of the Women of New Jersey
Oppose Woman Suffrage" |
These materials were used by the NJ Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage during the 1915 campaign for the New Jersey woman suffrage referendum. The NJAOWS was a woman’s organization founded in 1912 by Trenton women who became alarmed by the growing strength of the woman suffrage movement in New Jersey. Many anti-suffrage women believed that women best exerted their political and moral influence indirectly through their male family members.
The flyer proclaims the view that women, by demanding the right to vote, are showing a lack of confidence in their male relatives to protect them and represent their best interests. It also argues that only men have the physical power to enforce the laws they make and thus, only men should have the right to vote.
The poster suggests that some New Jersey women, as well as men, opposed giving women the right to vote. Since women were not able to vote in the 1915 referendum, it is impossible to know
how many of them supported or opposed the measure. By 1920, however, thousands of women in New Jersey had been won over to pro-suffrage organizations.
