Issues and Constituencies in the Progressive Era: House Roll Call Voting on the Nineteenth Amendment, 1913-1919

Abstract

This paper examines House roll call voting patterns on the Nineteenth Amendment in the context of Progressive Era legislation, particularly Prohibition, immigration, black civil rights, labor, and military preparedness. Though historical accounts often have linked woman suffrage with arguments of "expediency" rather than "rights," this analysis finds roll call voting patterns on suffrage associated with social justice and civil rights rather than with status consistency issues, such as Prohibition and immigration. In addition, it is established that partisan and regional voting patterns on woman suffrage are not as explanatory as are state-level constituency influences: the dramatic increase in House support for the Nineteenth Amendment from 1915 to 1919 is best understood as a result of the corresponding increase in the number of members representing states with state-level woman suffrage. This finding points to the importance of linkages between state and national legislatures in the Progressive Era as an explanation of how responsibility for social policy was transferred from state to federal levels of government.