Who Won the Debate over the Equal Rights
Amendment in the 1920s?

Document List

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Abstract

Introduction

          

Part One: Arguments by Supporters of the ERA

Document 1: Texts of the Equal Rights Amendment, 1923 and 1972.

Document 2: Crystal Eastman, "What Next?" November 1920

Document 3: Carol Rehfisch, "Historical Background of the Equal Rights Campaign," 15 September 1923

Document 4: "Industrial Equality," 1923

Document 5: Gail Laughlin, "Why an Equal Rights Amendment?" 5 April 1924

Document 6: Reynold Spaeth, "Differences Between Men and Women," 19 April 1924

Document 7: "Invalids?" 7 June 1924

Document 8: Ruby A. Black, "The Congressional Hearings," 14 February 1925

Document 9: "Women Gather in Washington to Demand Industrial Equality," 23 January 1926

Document 10: Ruby A. Black, "Equal Rights at the Industrial Conference," 30 January 1926

Document 11: "Equal Rights Plea Heard by the President," 30 January 1926

Document 12: "The Parting of the Ways," 8 March 1926

Document 13: Alva Belmont, "Work of the Woman's Party for the First Five Years," 15 May 1926

Document 14: Vera Brittain, "Feminism Divided -- The American Example," 23 October 1926

Document 15: "Feminism and Birth Control," 20 August 1927

          

Part Two: Published Debates between the Two Sides

Document 16: Alice Paul and Mary Van Kleeck, "Is Blanket Amendment Best Method in Equal Rights Campaign?" March 1924

Document 17: Sophonisba Breckinridge and Mrs Harvey W. Wiley, "Could Mothers' Pensions' Operate Under Equal Rights Amendment?" March 1924

Document 18: Doris Stevens and Alice Hamilton, "The 'Blanket' Amendment -- A Debate," August 1924

Document 19: "Should There Be Labor Laws for Women? No, Says Rheta Childe Dorr; Yes, Says Mary Anderson," September 1925

          

Part Three: Anti-ERA Arguments

Document 20: Freda Kirchwey, "Alice Paul Pulls the Strings," 2 March 1921

Document 21: Why It Should Not Pass: The Blanket Equality Bill proposed by the National Woman's Party for State Legislatures, May 1922

Document 22: "No Sex Line-Up," 3 June 3 1922

Document 23: Letter from Anne Shepherd to Florence Kelley, 20 October 1922

Document 24: Clara Mortenson Beyer, "What Is Equality?" 1923

Document 25A: [Freda Kirchwey], "A Woman's Bloc," 3 September 1924

Document 25B: Crystal Eastman, "Feminists Must Fight," 12 November 1924

Document 26: Ethel M. Smith, "Labor's Position Against the Woman's Party Amendment," February 1924

Document 27: "Senate Judiciary Committee Hears Arguments Against the National Women's Party Amendment," March 1924

Document 28: "The Second Women's Industrial Conference and the Assaults Upon It," February 1926

Document 29: "Trade Union Women Challenge Woman's Party to Debate," February 1926

Document 30: Ethel M. Smith, "Equal Rights -- Internationally!" March 1926

Document 31: "The Real Issue: A Fact-Finding Investigation, or Woman's Party Propaganda?" June 1926

Document 32: Ethel M Smith, "Professional Women, Business Women, Industrial Women Their Common Cause -- But Different Needs," November 1928

Document 33: "Senate Committee Hears Arguments on 'Equal Rights' and Labor Laws," March 1929

Document 34: John Ryan, "The Equal Rights Amendment in Relation to Protective Legislation for Women," 1929

 

          

Part Four: The Debate Continued in the 1990s

Document 35: Katha Pollitt, "Marooned on Gilligan's Island: Are Women Morally Superior to Men?" 28 December 1992

Document 36: "Exchange: Sisters Under the Skin," 8 March 1993

Epilogue: Kathryn Kish Sklar, "Equal Rights Amendment," 1998.

Endnotes

Biographical Sketches

Bibliography

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