The 19th Amendment ratified in 1920 gave women the right to vote. But the story of getting to that historic ratification took decades and Ohio figured prominently in the suffrage movement. The state was the fifth to ratify the amendment.
Women in Ohio formed the nation’s first state-level women’s rights organization and the state hosted the earliest conventions around rights for women. Leaders in the suffrage movement came from Ohio too. They include Frances Barker Gage and Harriet Taylor Upton. Another barrier breaker, Victoria Claflin Woodhull from Licking County was the first woman to run for president.
Dr. Jamie Capuzza details how Ohio’s women were crucial to the women’s suffrage movement in her book, “The Fifth Star.”
Capuzza, a professor of communication at the University of Mount Union, worked on the book for three years. She says she decided to write the book after researching the women’s suffrage movement during a sabbatical. She says while the suffrage movement work of women in other states such as New York had been told, she discovered that no one had chronicled the contributions of Ohio’s women.
“The Fifth Star” draws from numerous sources including convention proceedings, state records and personal diaries and letters.
Capuzza spoke about the book to Ideastream Deputy Editor Stephanie Czekalinksi on the "Sound of Ideas."
Guests:
- Jamie Capuzza, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Literature and Communication Art; Director, The Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, The University of Mount Union
- Stephanie Czekalinski, Deputy Editor of News, Ideastream Public Media