March is women’s history month—and in commemoration of the celebration, this week we hosted a conversation exploring the story of the pursuit of women’s rights in early America. Sara Chatfield, assistant professor of political science at the University of Denver and author of Her Own Name: The Politics of Women’s Rights Before Suffrage, and Nicole Evelina, bestselling novelist, biographer, and poet, and author of America’s Forgotten Suffragists: Virginia and Francis Minor, join to explore the different aspects and dimensions of the fight for women’s rights in the 19th and 20th centuries—from economic and property rights, to women’s suffrage and the right to vote. They dig into the origins and consequences of laws guaranteeing married women’s property rights and how and why these laws changed over time, as well as the story of married couple Virginia and Francis Minor, which exemplified a partnership devoted to securing broader rights for women—from property rights to suffrage, through a case brought by the Minors that took the issue of voting rights for women to the Supreme Court for the first and only time in 1875. Host Jeffrey Rosen moderates.
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Today’s episode was produced by Lana Ulrich, Bill Pollock, and Sam Desai. It was engineered by David Stotz. Research was provided by Sophia Gardell, Emily Campbell, and Lana Ulrich.
Participants
Sara Chatfield is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Denver. She specializes in American politics, American political development, gender and politics, public law, political behavior.Her new book is In Her Own Name: The Politics of Women’s Rights Before Suffrage.
Nicole Evelina is a USA Today bestselling novelist, biographer, and poet. She writes historical fiction, nonfiction, and women’s fiction and her books have won more than 40 awards, including four Book of the Year designations. Nicole’s writing has appeared in The Huffington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Independent Journal, Curve Magazine, and numerous historical publications. Her new book is America’s Forgotten Suffragists: Virginia and Francis Minor.
Jeffrey Rosen is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization devoted to educating the public about the U.S. Constitution. Rosen is also professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor of The Atlantic.
Additional Resources
• Sara Chatfield, In Her Own Name: The Politics of Women’s Rights Before Suffrage (2023)
• Nicole Evelina, America’s Forgotten Suffragists: Virginia and Francis Minor (2023)
• Minor v. Happersett (1875)
• Emily Zackin, Looking for Rights in All the Wrong Places: Why State Constitutions Contain America's Positive Rights (2013)
• Chloe Thurston, At the Boundaries of Homeownership: Credit, Discrimination, and the American State (2018)
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript may not be in its final form, accuracy may vary, and it may be updated or revised in the future.
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