19th Amendment - The Fight in Tennessee

While a six-week battle raged in Tennessee - over whether the state should ratify the 19th Amendment, granting American women the right to vote - all eyes were on Tennessee. Newspapers around the country published articles and political cartoons for, and against, the proposed law.

This political cartoon, published in an Alabama newspaper, illustrates the nature of the fight. During the ratification process, suffragists and their supporters endured filibusters, injunctions, technicalities and intensive lobbying by anti-suffragists. Such opposition produced many "Anxious Moments."

The Tennessee State Library and Archives describes this image (from the "Carrie Chapman Catt Papers") as follows:

Casting a line that gets snared in a tree, the women’s suffrage cause tries to reel in the right to vote. This cartoon appeared in an Alabama newspaper during the Tennessee fight for votes.

Click on the image for a better view.