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We the People

Women’s Rights in Early America

We the People

National Constitution Center

News, News Commentary, History

4.61.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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.  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) Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcast@constitutioncenter.org.    Continue today’s conversation on Facebook and Twitter using @ConstitutionCtr.    Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate, at bit.ly/constitutionweekly.    You can find transcripts for each episode on the podcast pages in our Media Library.

Transcript

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0:00.0

March is Women's History Month, and to celebrate we're hosting a conversation exploring the story of women's rights in the 19th and 20th century.

0:09.0

Hello friends, I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution

0:16.6

Center and welcome to We The People, a weekly show of constitutional debate.

0:21.2

The National Constitution Center is a nonpartisan nonprofit chartered by Congress to increase

0:26.4

awareness and understanding of the Constitution among the American people.

0:31.0

In this episode, we're joined by two authors who have enlightening new books

0:34.4

exploring different aspects of the fight for women's rights in the 19th and 20th century.

0:39.3

Sarah Chatfield is assistant professor of political science at the University of Denver.

0:44.0

She's here to discuss her new book, In Her Own Name, The Politics of Women's Rights

0:49.3

Before Suffrage.

0:50.6

Welcome, Sarah, to We The People.

0:52.4

Thank you so much, Jeff. I'm so happy to be here.

0:55.0

And Nicole Evelina is here to discuss her new book,

0:58.0

America's Forgotten Suffragists,

1:00.0

Virginia and Francis Minor.

1:02.0

Nicole, it's wonderful to welcome you to the show.

1:05.0

Hi, thank you for having me.

1:07.0

Nicole, in your wonderful new book,

1:10.0

you tell the story of the Miners who brought a case to the Supreme Court where the

1:15.2

court rejected the idea that the right to vote was one of the privileges or

1:18.6

immunities of citizenship in 1875 and they also fought to reform economic rights for women.

1:25.4

Tell us who Virginia and Francis Minor were and why we the people listeners

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