"One Man, One Vote; One Woman, One Throat" by Jo Freeman

Parkhurst first asked Mayor Schieren, who also opposed woman suffrage, how helpful the women had been, and then published both letters in the New York Times, (Sept. 25, 1894 9:7; Sept. 26, 1894 2:7). Schieren confirmed that the BWHPA took the lead among the several women's organizations that "were very active during the campaign, and enlisted their husbands to active duty and in various ways aided the reform movement by holding public meetings, and asking women of the city to influence their husbands to work for reform." Furthermore, "the women were also very careful not to bring up the suffrage question in the reform movement of last year, which would have met with antagonism and hurt the movement." Indeed, at the BWHPA's first mass meeting, several women speakers had reassured their audience that they were opposed to woman suffrage, but said it was patriotic for women to use their influence to remove from government "people who care more for spoils than for the honor of serving the city." (Brooklyn Eagle, Oct. 20, 1893, 2:1)
In October, Parkhurst made several speeches throughout New York City, on "The Condition of Our City and Woman's Relation to It." He urged women to hold parlor conferences and mass meetings, to talk to women and talk to men. (NY Times, Oct. 5, 1894, 8:1; Oct. 13, 1894, 9:4; Oct. 20, 1894 9:5; Oct. 25, 1894, 9:3). He also looked for a woman to organize and lead women in the aid of his crusade, eventually settling on Josephine Shaw Lowell, a wealthy and respected charity worker (Lowell 1898, 465). Lowell, herself a suffrage supporter, called a meeting of women on October 12 to work for the reform candidate, William L. Strong. Invited were "women interested in philanthropy and reform and society women of different religious sects and various political opinions" including those for and against suffrage. In deference to her sponsor, Lowell represented the Woman's Municipal Purity Auxiliary as non-partisan, non-political, and definitely not interested in suffrage. (NY Times 1894: Oct 7, 4:6; Oct. 11, 9:7; Oct. 13, 9:4)
The new organization soon changed its name to the Woman's Municipal League (WML) and organized 17 public meetings. (NY Times, Nov. 4, 1894, 18:1) At one of these Mrs. Alfred Bishop Mason spoke on "The Woman's Part in American Politics." She said:

Although it was in existence for only a short time before the November election, the WML was much lauded for rousing voters otherwise indifferent to municipal reform. Not only was William Strong elected Mayor in 1894, but the Republican Party captured a majority of the seats on the Board of Aldermen. A few days after the election, Mrs. Charles Parkhurst announced that the WML would continue. "It is to be a thoroughly feminine work," she told the New York Times, "and will not be conducted in any way along the lines of a man's club. The fundamental idea is educational -- to educate women in regard to all lines of municipal affairs. We have found that their knowledge of such things is very limited." (NY Times, Nov. 4, 1894 18:1; Nov. 9, 1894, 9:3,4)

Republican Women

Several of the anti-Tammany meetings were held under the auspices of the Woman's National Republican Association (WNRA) founded by J. Ellen Foster in 1888. (NY Times, Oct. 25, 1894, 9:3; Oct. 27, 1894, 5:3) Foster was an Iowa lawyer who was active both in the Republican Party and the temperance movement. In July of 1888, after the Republican Convention, she met with the Republican National Committee and agreed to organize women for the party. (NY Tribune, July, 12, 1888, 2:6) She and her husband moved to Washington, D.C. where he was given a patronage job by the Benjamin Harrison administration and she embarked on a twenty year career as a traveling organizer, lecturer and campaigner for the Republican party. (NY Times, March 8, 1891, 3:3) Foster remained President of the WNRA until her death in 1910, when it was taken over by her protege, Helen Varick Boswell. The WNRA did not have members. It operated as the women's committee of the RNC during campaigns, and as an advisory body in between.
For the election of 1892, the RNC set aside several rooms for women's work on the top floor of the Hotel Savoy with Foster in charge. (NY Herald, Sept. 4, 1892, 11:2,3) While she gave speeches urging men to vote for Republican candidates and women to get men to vote, Boswell supervised the women workers. (Brooklyn Eagle, Oct. 4, 1892, 8:5) Boswell had been raised in Baltimore in a Democratic household where discussion of "woman's rights" was taboo; her association with Foster made her a true believer in Republicanism. (Boswell, NR, Nov. 23, 1918, 7). By the 1894 Congressional campaigns Boswell had complete charge of women's work. She hired women speakers for "the political mass meetings at which women are becoming so interested", and focused her efforts on "the wage earning women, the girls in the factories, shops and large stores, holding meetings among them during the noon hour, to enlist their interest as rapidly as possible." (NY Herald, Oct. 11, 1894, 12:2).

Boswell attended several of the WML's meetings, and after Strong won the election she asked the Republican Party leader if she could form a club for Republican women. On December 13 the "first auxiliary of the Woman's Republican Association was organized ... in the West Side Republican Club rooms," choosing as its President Mrs. Clarence Burns, a well known charity worker. (NY Tribune, Dec. 14, 1894, 5:5,6; Boswell, NR, Nov. 23, 1918, 8). Soon called the West End Woman's Republican Association (WEA), within six years it would be "the most widely known political club in the State." (NY Tribune, Sept. 8, 1900, 7:1).
Although the best known, the WEA was not the first permanent women's Republican club in New York City. In 1892 Foster had helped Mary Hall and "thirty-one colored women of the Eleventh Assembly District" found a Colored Woman's Republican Association (NY Herald, Sept. 27, 1892, 6:5). Hall had come from Georgia where she had escorted colored men to the polls to vote Republican. In the early 1880s she became the political apprentice to the colored boss of her district until she found he was jealous of her ability to turn out votes. With Boswell's encouragement, she put together her own organization of women, and proceeded to become a "power" in her district. (NY Times, Oct. 18, 1895, 8:1; Boswell, NR, March 8, 1919, 8:6.)
Throughout 1895 Boswell organized clubs in New York City, including a Business Women's Republican Club, one for working women, and a variety of "neighborhood influence clubs" of 12 to 20 women. These were permanent clubs, not just temporary campaign organizations. At regular meetings club members gave papers on current events and discussed such issues as health, schools, and Sunday closing of saloons. Often they were addressed by distinguished guests. Sometimes socials or outings were held. During campaigns, club members provided a core of experienced workers ready to work for Republican candidates and their meetings discussed election mechanics. Club women were instructed how to get men to vote and held classes for men on how to mark a ballot. One meeting discussed whether it was OK for women to give soup and coffee to Democrats as well as to Republicans waiting in the cold to vote. (NY Herald 1895: May 28, 11:1; July 2, 7:2; Nov. 6, 5:6; NY Times 1895: May 23, 8:3; May 28, 9:4; Oct. 5, 2:7; 1896: July 12, 8:1; Aug. 22, 2:3)
In June of 1895 Boswell was selected to be the only woman among 149 New York delegates to go to the national convention of the League of Republican Clubs where she was thrilled to meet party women from western states where women could vote. She also went to the State convention in September, and reported back that the men now wanted to meet with women rather than separately. There were 17 Republican women's clubs in upstate New York. (NY Herald, 1895: May 28, 11:1; June 15, 7:1, Sept. 11, 11:1.) In 1896 she went to the Republican Convention as an observer, where "The women were treated as distinguished guests although they had no part in the proceedings." (NY Herald, June 27, 1896, 10:1) By 1897 she was the "recognized head of the Women's Republican movement in New York" and "the only woman in the direct employ of the Republican County Committee." (NY Herald, Sept. 19, 1897, V:12:1).
Women's eagerness to join Republican women's clubs came from many sources. By the 1890s there were large numbers of middle class women, especially in the cities, with time on their hands. Many were educated, and, if married, were not expected to engage in gainful employment. But neither were they "willing to become simply social butterflies" (Lockwood 1893, 385). Reform was within woman's sphere and forming and joining women's clubs was quite the thing to do. The municipal reform movement invited women in and simultaneously gave them a rationale for political work. Indeed they were told by leading men, many of whom opposed woman suffrage, that working to clean up the city by electing good men was their duty. (NY Times, Oct. 25, 1894, 9:3; NY Tribune, Oct. 31, 1894, 7:1).
Nor was partisanship a problem. Strong party loyalties were the norm in the late Nineteenth Century. Boswell felt that "Women have ever been partisan" because "[a]ll healthy, intelligent persons are partisan by nature." (Boswell, NR, Dec. 7, 1918, 8) Kate Bostwick, who described herself as a "rabid Republican" explained in 1896 that the prospect of taming the Tammany tiger prompted many women to become active Republicans: "The fever of reform was coursing through the veins of these women, and they formed the first regular Republican club ... of college women and others of ability and executive knowledge." (Bostwick 1896) This was echoed by Mrs. Jane Pierce, a school teacher from New England. "I had never taken more than a general interest in politics," she told the New York Herald, "until the pressure came for fighting Tammany." (Oct. 10, 1895, VI:9:1) Four years later Mrs. Clarence Burns, first President of the West End WRA, wrote:

Republican women's loyalties were sorely tested in 1897, when voters would elect the first Mayor of Greater New York City to govern the five boroughs. Consolidation was the pet project of state Republican leader Thomas C. Platt. After the Republican electoral sweep in 1896 gave his party full control of the state government, the legislature mandated it. The new State constitution required that municipal elections be held in odd-numbered years. (McCormick 1981, 90-94, 54-5) Mayor Strong declined to run, and reformers, regular Republicans and dissident Democrats could not agree on a candidate. The reformers organized into the Citizens' Union (CU) and drafted Seth Low, former Mayor of Brooklyn and current President of Columbia University, to be their candidate. Low was a Republican, but independent of Boss Platt's machine. Although Platt had helped reformers to elect Strong, he received few benefits from doing so, and concluded that he could probably get more patronage from Tammany than from Low. The Republican convention nominated his good friend Benjamin F. Tracy, a "stalwart among stalwarts". (McCormick 1981, 123-4: Kurland, 1971, Chapter V).
Republican women were painfully conflicted. An axiom of reform was that municipal politics should be separated from state and national politics. Parties and partisanship were fine in their place, but cities should be run like a large business, guided by the principles of efficiency and competency, not party loyalty. (Kurland 1971, 85) As part of New York City's social and economic elite, Republican women were cut from the same cloth as reformers Reform men, like Low, were much more likely to vote Republican than Democratic. In 1894, it did not matter if one was partisan or non-partisan; there was a common candidate for whom to work. In 1897, the clash between party loyalty and reform sentiments was profoundly disturbing to many. The West End WRA discussed and debated what to do at several meetings.
Boswell exhorted them to party loyalty, bringing in speakers to talk on "The Interdependence of National and Municipal Politics". Some members claimed that Low was not really a Republican, and therefore not deserving of the support of Republican women. They attacked Low for not always voting Republican, for not favoring tariff protection, and even for his disapproval of suffrage and higher education for women. Several prominent women, such as Mrs. James G. Wentz, said they did not see what tariff protection had to do with Greater New York City. Unless everyone united behind Low, she said, Tammany would win and the City would lose. Finally J. Ellen Foster was brought in to convince the women that city, state and national politics "cannot be divorced"; adherence to principle required party loyalty at every level. She urged the WEA to support Tracy because he was the Republican candidate. It did. (NY Tribune: Oct. 2, 1897 5:5; Oct. 16, 1897 9:7; Oct 30, 1897 5:1).
Party loyalty did not triumph everywhere. In Low's home town of Brooklyn the Woman's Republican Union League endorsed Low over the objections of its founder and President, Kate Bostwick, as did some of the Brooklyn men's clubs. (Brooklyn Eagle, Oct. 27, 1897, 7:3; NY Times, June 21, 1899, 3:6) The women split so badly that club officers were in court two years later fighting over the remains. (NY Tribune, Sept. 28, 1898 5:3; June 21, 1899 7:3). But the Low campaign united antagonists as well as dividing allies. At one large Low meeting the presidents of the suffrage association and the anti-suffrage society sat side by side on the stage. When asked what they were doing there, the antis replied "Oh, but this is for Mr. Low." (NY Tribune, Nov. 15, 1897 5:5.)
Political enthusiasm among women was even higher in 1897 than in 1894. Reform women raised money, distributed circulars and held meetings. One piece titled "The Women of Manhattan to the Voters of Manhattan" stated that "the women of every city have a stake as great in its just and enlightened government as the men" followed by five reasons why the women supported Low. (NY Times, Oct. 26, 1897, 2:2) Even in meetings not specifically aimed at women they were 35 percent of those attending. (NY Times, Oct. 27, 1897, 2:3) In Brooklyn, the BWHPA brought 3,000 women to a large hall to hear Low speak. Reported the New York Times:

Republican women were constrained by their priorities. To emphasize that party loyalty eclipsed issues, Article VI of The Constitution and Bylaws of the West End Auxiliary declared: "Let it always be clearly understood that this organization is for the study of simple republicanism, that it is contrary to its design to attempt any diversion of the organization's work or influence to such reform movements as temperance, woman suffrage &c, with which many republican women are individually associated." Even though the Republican Party occasionally let woman suffragists use their meeting hall for suffrage meetings (NY Tribune, April 28, 1894 7:4), Boswell told a meeting of Republican men that "I am not crying out for a vote just now. I can generally influence three or four votes, at least, and I think it is better to have these votes cast as I wish them than to cast a solitary vote myself." (NY Times, Oct. 18, 1895, 6;2) In 1903, newer members of the West End WRA wanted to take a position on suffrage. After a heated debate, a majority voted to bar it. (NY Tribune, Dec. 18, 1903, 7:3.) Mrs. Wentz, who later became active in the Woman Suffrage Party, estimated that five percent of the members of the early Republican women's clubs actively opposed woman suffrage. (NY Mail, June 10, 1918)
Nor were the suffrage women interested in party work. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, both of whom lived in New York, had become increasingly alienated from the major political parties since 1884 when they urged "earnest and conscientious support of the Republican National ticket" (NY Tribune, Aug. 1, 1884, 2). In 1897 Anthony criticized New York women for working in the municipal elections without first getting a party commitment to woman suffrage. By 1900 she was counseling women to stay out of political parties and work only to enfranchise themselves. (Harper 1898, 928; Anthony 1900) In 1894 Stanton wrote approvingly to Lowell of women's work for municipal reform, even though none of the men running for Mayor supported woman suffrage. (NY Times, Oct. 11, 1894, 9:7) In 1900 she wrote that "It is not of the slightest consequence to me whether McKinley or Bryan is elected... [because it] will not make the least difference in the present position of women," (Stanton 1900). This attitude by the leaders was reflected in the resistance of active suffragists to joining in party work. Boswell tried to recruit those from Republican families into her women's Republican Clubs in the 1890s, and was quite surprised when they told her "No, the Republican party has never done anything for us, so we shall not do anything for the Republican party." (Boswell, NR, March 1, 1919, 7)
Undistracted by "other" issues, Republican women perfected their campaign techniques, adding door-to-door canvassing to literature distribution and meetings. In the 1896 Presidential campaign Republican women opened their own headquarters at 1473 Broadway in August. They prepared campaign literature in German, Bohemian and English, and divided up the tenement districts, which were Tammany strongholds. Within a week, 1,500 women had literature and instructions on how to canvass. (NY Tribune, Aug. 22, 1896 2:2; Aug. 29, 1896, 4:5) Mrs. Clarence Burns, director of the canvassing, wrote of their experience: "During the first McKinley and Bryan campaign we distributed two hundred thousand booklets, and interviewed as many women, endeavoring to instruct them in the awful effects of the 16 to 1 policy should Bryan be elected." (NY Herald, Oct. 7, 1900, 7:2) Boswell later recounted their mixed reception: "Our women were often met with derision and with threats of boiling water poured over them, and a few potatoes were thrown by the irate Irish ladies, but no one was ever hurt." (Boswell, NR, Dec. 7, 1918, 8)
In 1898 the WNRA headquarters was in Washington, D.C. New York City Republican women worked to elect Col. Roosevelt as their Governor. (NY Times, Sept. 30, 1898 3:6; NY Tribune, Oct. 5, 1898, 5:1). Roosevelt had been the New York City Police Commissioner under the Strong Administration. His attacks on police graft propelled him into the governorship, while his vigorous enforcement of the Sunday closing law (of saloons) alienated the German vote, contributing to the reform movement's loss of the Mayoralty in 1897. (Kurland 1971, 86, 105, 114)
The election of 1900 was widely called a "petticoat" campaign because unprecedented numbers of women came to meetings, gave speeches and otherwise worked for candidates, even in states where they could not vote. McKinley headquarters was in Chicago, but the "Woman's Republican Headquarters" opened its doors at 139 Fifth Ave. in New York City, even though there was no official women's bureau as there had been in the 1896 campaign. From here women were deployed to intensively canvass the tenement districts of Manhattan, particularly Tammany Hall strongholds where Republican men were not welcome. Boswell explained to one reporter that "This tenement house work necessitates tact and energy on the part of the participants." The men readily conceded that women were better at it. Boswell described their approach:
"No house or room is invaded without the invitation of the inmates, but the universal experience of the visiting women has been that the dwellers in tenements are glad to see them and hear what they have to say in reference to the opportunities which the Republican party affords the laboring man in the way of work, high wages and sound money." (NY Tribune, Oct. 21, 1900, II:6 )
Several newspapers wrote lengthy stories on women in the election of 1900. In its regular column on women's work the Evening Post wrote that:

Despite its lack of purpose or program, the club survived, and stayed loyal to the Democratic Party. It held its collective nose and endorsed Tammany candidates for public office. (NY Tribune, Oct. 7, 1905, 5:4) It ridiculed "reformers and googoos" at its first dinner a few months later (NY Times, April 6, 1906, 6:3). It endorsed William Randolph Hearst in 1906 after he was nominated for Governor by the State Democratic convention, but without enthusiasm. "It doesn't make any difference anyway, said Mrs. Wood. 'The Party does not know that we are in existence, and doesn't care what we think one way or the other.'" (NY Tribune, Sept. 29, 1906, 10:2). In the 1908 Presidential campaign Mrs. Crosby raised several hundred dollars to support her club's work for Bryan, who was a family friend as well as the Democratic Party standard bearer. But still her Democratic women did not canvass, speak, or mail. They gave literature to their friends and prodded their men to vote. (NY Sun, Oct. 25, 1908, 6:2).
Mrs. Crosby was the permanent president of her club for many years but Tammany Hall remained in control of the New York City Democracy, and except for 1913-1917, the New York City government. After women got suffrage in 1917 Tammany women took over her Woman's Democratic Club, electing as its President the sister of Tammany boss John Curry. (NY Times, April 13, 1918, 22:1) In 1920 Mrs. Crosby took the radical step of supporting the Republican ticket and was expelled. (NY Herald, Oct. 22, 1920, Oct. 23, 1920) Nonetheless, when she died in 1924 she was eulogized as the "mother of New York Democrats." (NY Times, Jan. 31, 1924, 15:6) Over twenty years after the Republican Party welcomed women into the ranks of party workers, the New York City Democratic Party began to make a place for party women, at least those who would stay loyal. By the time Tammany brought women into the Democratic tent, it had long forgotten the woman who served as district leader and a member of the General Committee in the 1890s. Until she died in 1901, everyone thought Murray Hall was a man. (NY Times, Jan. 19, 1901, 3:4)

Conclusion

The movement of women into active participation in politics in New York City was largely independent of the movement for woman suffrage. The two movements rose to prominence about the same time, in the early to mid 1890s, but kept their distance until at least the second decade of the Twentieth Century. While there was some overlap in personnel, judging from names in the newspaper reports there was not much. Active suffragists did not campaign for specific candidates for public office, and women's political organizations, whatever the interests of individual members, avoided suffrage. These organizations found a place for both suffragists and anti-suffragists, partisans and nonpartisans, in their campaign for better municipal government.
The women who occupied these places generally came through two routes: Some were invited in and others "glided" in. The New York Times editorialized its pleasure in the "substantial service" rendered by the women in the 1890 election, as "logical, proper, and justified." (Oct. 27, 1890, 4:2) The Rev. Dr. Parkhurst invited women to join in the 1894 campaign to elect a good man as Mayor of New York. As a respected clergyman with conservative views on women, his invitation legitimated political activity by women by labeling it as moral, not political. Other respectable men did the same. In 1901, women of the Civitas Club of Brooklyn heard a lecture on the "Civic Duty of Women" to get their male friends and relatives to vote for "decent, clean men." (Brooklyn Eagle, Nov. 29, 1901, 12:1)
While Republican men did not initiate women's participation in the local party, they did welcome them. In an 1897 article on "Leaders of the Women in Politics", the Herald reported
[Republican County Committee] Chairman Hatch is a thorough believer in the efficiency of women's work in politics, and speaks in flattering terms of the results achieved by them three years ago and also in the last Presidential campaign. [State Party Chairman] Thomas C. Platt coincides with his lieutenant. He cordially approves of the work done by the Women's Republican clubs and favors any plan tending to widen their opportunities and add to their influence. (NY Herald, Sept. 19, 1897, V:12).
In 1900 the Herald published another full page spread on "The Woman in Politics" with comments by two party leaders. Platt affirmed that

"I have always regarded with great favor the activity of the ladies whose names you submit in matters political. I think that their influence has been very wholesome, and it is my conviction that their work in the present campaign will be potential." (NY Herald, Oct. 7, 1900, V:2)

In contrast, Tammany Hall boss Richard Croker's statement equated political activity with suffrage, and expressed his ambivalence:

Not all women waited for an invitation. Boswell said in 1918 that women had "glided" into politics through the study of political issues (NR, Dec. 7, 1918, 8). Others also made this observation. In 1893, attorney Belva Lockwood, who had run for President on the Equal Rights ticket in 1884 and 1888, wrote that "Women have come into politics in recent years, not only because there has been a demand for them there, but because they have been forced by a logic of events beyond their control." She saw education, not suffrage, as "paving the way" for women's movement into politics (Lockwood 1893, 386). Mrs. Joseph Mumford of Philadelphia told the BWHPA that women, much more than men, had the leisure to study municipal problems and propose solutions. "Education and enlightenment" had shown them their responsibility to "come into politics." (Brooklyn Eagle, April 18, 1894, 9:2.) Journalist Ida Husted Harper wrote in 1912 that women had moved from church work to club work to civic improvement and into political work. (L.A. Examiner, Sept. 15, 1912)
Villard, in 1902, also observed the gradual acceptance of women's participation in politics even without the ballot.



	"One Man, One Vote; One Woman, One Throat": Women in New York City Politics, 1890-1910 by Jo Freeman Published in American Nineteenth Century History, Vol. 1, No. 3, Autumn 2001, pp. 101-123. In this article I use the words "Mrs." and "colored" because those were the proper terms for their time. I used a married woman's given name when I could find it, but that was not always possible. "In the approaching municipal campaign in New York", the New York Herald observed in 1897, "women politicians are to play an important part. About 1,000 of them, representing the Women's Republican organizations of New York, are already sharpening their scalping knives and preparing to work havoc in the ranks of the Tammanyites." (Sept. 19, 1897, V:1:1) While it is commonly assumed that women went into politics after getting the right to vote, in New York City at least, it was the other way around. Indeed, one could argue that it was regular experience with political women that eventually convinced men that women were capable of, and indeed entitled to, exercise the franchise, a prerogative of Nineteenth Century men. But this didn't happen quickly; the women who worked in political campaigns did not demand suffrage as their reward. They deliberately avoided the issue of suffrage in order not to antagonize men. Instead the two movements proceeded on parallel tracks until at least 1912, with some organized women demanding the right to vote, and others acting to influence the men who could vote. Among the latter, there were also two tracks. On one were the "good government" reformers who rode the train of nonpartisanship. On the other were party women, who were no less passionate in their partisanship than were party men. By the time New York women won the right to vote in 1917, among them was a large cadre of trained political workers; some with a quarter century of experience. Although New York City was still dominated by the Democratic Party, most of the women active in politics were Republicans, because the Republican Party began organizing women in the 1890s while the Democratic Party dallied. Municipal Reform Nineteenth Century New York City was run by Tammany Hall. Founded in 1789 as a fraternal and social organization, the Hall became synonymous with the Democratic Party Central Committee for New York County (Manhattan) because the leaders of both groups were the same. It maintained its power among voters through the liberal use of patronage and welfare, while taking bribes, providing "protection" and dipping into the public treasury. In the 1880s a growing class of business and professional men challenged Tammany's control. Theodore Roosevelt organized the City Reform Club of New York in 1882, though it barely scratched Tammany's hide for reasons he himself analyzed when he ran for Mayor in 1886 (Roosevelt 1886). In 1890 some of the more prominent citizens of New York City organized a People's Municipal League to challenge Tammany Hall, and convinced some independent men in both parties to run a slate of opposition candidates. They wanted to take politics out of municipal government and run it on a business like basis, without corruption or patronage. They were aided in this by a Ladies Committee, which raised funds and sent out letters soliciting men's votes for the League candidates. (NY Times, 1890: Oct. 22, 5:2, Oct. 27, 4:2, NY Herald, Oct. 27, 3:4) They lost. The Democratic Party celebrated its success in the 1892 elections by shifting control of important jobs and contracts to party bosses throughout the state. This power grab, combined with a major recession in 1893, prompted public outrage at dishonesty and revived the urban reform movement. Reformers demanded once again that municipal government be sundered from partisanship. Nonpartisanship was not only tactical -- Democratic votes were needed to win -- but ideological. Only a nonpartisan municipal administration, reformers argued, would offer "cleanliness, peace, and order rather than special favors and franchises." (McCormick 1981, 49). Tammany Hall was only one of several urban Democratic machines in New York State. Hugh McLaughlin ran Brooklyn, the big city across the East River. In the 1893 Brooklyn election, reformers joined with dissident Democrats and Republicans to elect Charles A. Schieren, the Republican candidate for Mayor (McCormick 1981, 43-44). This effort was aided by the Brooklyn Woman's Health Protective Association (BWHPA). Organized in 1890 to keep the streets clean and the health laws enforced (Brooklyn Eagle Almanac, 1891, 138), the women found the Democratic administration to be more of a hindrance than a help. As the fall campaign took off, the BWHPA "added its voice to the general cry of denunciation against the corrupt municipal administration of the ring." (NY Times, Oct. 7, 1893, 8:3). It called a mass meeting of Brooklyn women for October 19, where the BWHPA's founder and President, Mrs. James Scrimgeour, said that "it was time women's influence was felt in municipal affairs." She went on to note that the Republicans had nominated good men and "it was the duty of the women to urge the Republicans along." (NY Times, Oct. 20. 1893, 9:3) After endorsing Schieren, the BWHPA distributed 8,000 copies of an "Appeal to Voters" and asked women to "arouse indifferent citizens to a sense of their duty as voters." (Brooklyn Eagle, June 8, 1894, 12:5) Schieren's election was the first sign of a major electoral shift favoring the Republican Party, nationally and statewide. It, and other Republican victories in the state split the Democratic Party into quarrelling factions. Across the river, reformers formed a Committee of Seventy, "drawn from the city's commercial, financial, and legal elite" to wrest city government from Tammany Hall (McCormick 1981, 47). One of these was the Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst of the Madison Square Presbyterian Church, who preached regularly against police protection of crime and Tammany protection of police. Impressed with women's work in the Brooklyn election, and the amount of talk generated by the agitation for woman suffrage at the New York State constitutional convention the previous summer, he repeatedly and publicly asked the "wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters of our city ... to take a hand in the regeneration. There is no politics in the matter," he went on to say. "It is a question of right against wrong, of righteousness against trickery, and our women ought to feel proud to be able to help the movement onward." Parkhurst was an outspoken anti-suffragist, but saw no inconsistency between this position and his call to women to help cleanse the city and curb corruption. The role of women, he felt, was to shape public sentiment. (NY Times, Oct. 5, 1894, 8:1; Marshall, 1997, 84; Edwards, 1997, 117)
	Parkhurst first asked Mayor Schieren, who also opposed woman suffrage, how helpful the women had been, and then published both letters in the New York Times, (Sept. 25, 1894 9:7; Sept. 26, 1894 2:7). Schieren confirmed that the BWHPA took the lead among the several women's organizations that "were very active during the campaign, and enlisted their husbands to active duty and in various ways aided the reform movement by holding public meetings, and asking women of the city to influence their husbands to work for reform." Furthermore, "the women were also very careful not to bring up the suffrage question in the reform movement of last year, which would have met with antagonism and hurt the movement." Indeed, at the BWHPA's first mass meeting, several women speakers had reassured their audience that they were opposed to woman suffrage, but said it was patriotic for women to use their influence to remove from government "people who care more for spoils than for the honor of serving the city." (Brooklyn Eagle, Oct. 20, 1893, 2:1) In October, Parkhurst made several speeches throughout New York City, on "The Condition of Our City and Woman's Relation to It." He urged women to hold parlor conferences and mass meetings, to talk to women and talk to men. (NY Times, Oct. 5, 1894, 8:1; Oct. 13, 1894, 9:4; Oct. 20, 1894 9:5; Oct. 25, 1894, 9:3). He also looked for a woman to organize and lead women in the aid of his crusade, eventually settling on Josephine Shaw Lowell, a wealthy and respected charity worker (Lowell 1898, 465). Lowell, herself a suffrage supporter, called a meeting of women on October 12 to work for the reform candidate, William L. Strong. Invited were "women interested in philanthropy and reform and society women of different religious sects and various political opinions" including those for and against suffrage. In deference to her sponsor, Lowell represented the Woman's Municipal Purity Auxiliary as non-partisan, non-political, and definitely not interested in suffrage. (NY Times 1894: Oct 7, 4:6; Oct. 11, 9:7; Oct. 13, 9:4) The new organization soon changed its name to the Woman's Municipal League (WML) and organized 17 public meetings. (NY Times, Nov. 4, 1894, 18:1) At one of these Mrs. Alfred Bishop Mason spoke on "The Woman's Part in American Politics." She said: An old English saying is: "One man, one vote; one woman, one throat." That means that one man can cast only one vote, while one woman can make many right votes by talking when it will do the most good. What we must do is to inaugurate a system of meetings which will not be all talk, but which will instruct the ignorant people of the slums what right and purity of politics are. (NY Times, Oct. 31, 1894, 5:1) Although it was in existence for only a short time before the November election, the WML was much lauded for rousing voters otherwise indifferent to municipal reform. Not only was William Strong elected Mayor in 1894, but the Republican Party captured a majority of the seats on the Board of Aldermen. A few days after the election, Mrs. Charles Parkhurst announced that the WML would continue. "It is to be a thoroughly feminine work," she told the New York Times, "and will not be conducted in any way along the lines of a man's club. The fundamental idea is educational -- to educate women in regard to all lines of municipal affairs. We have found that their knowledge of such things is very limited." (NY Times, Nov. 4, 1894 18:1; Nov. 9, 1894, 9:3,4) Republican Women Several of the anti-Tammany meetings were held under the auspices of the Woman's National Republican Association (WNRA) founded by J. Ellen Foster in 1888. (NY Times, Oct. 25, 1894, 9:3; Oct. 27, 1894, 5:3) Foster was an Iowa lawyer who was active both in the Republican Party and the temperance movement. In July of 1888, after the Republican Convention, she met with the Republican National Committee and agreed to organize women for the party. (NY Tribune, July, 12, 1888, 2:6) She and her husband moved to Washington, D.C. where he was given a patronage job by the Benjamin Harrison administration and she embarked on a twenty year career as a traveling organizer, lecturer and campaigner for the Republican party. (NY Times, March 8, 1891, 3:3) Foster remained President of the WNRA until her death in 1910, when it was taken over by her protege, Helen Varick Boswell. The WNRA did not have members. It operated as the women's committee of the RNC during campaigns, and as an advisory body in between. For the election of 1892, the RNC set aside several rooms for women's work on the top floor of the Hotel Savoy with Foster in charge. (NY Herald, Sept. 4, 1892, 11:2,3) While she gave speeches urging men to vote for Republican candidates and women to get men to vote, Boswell supervised the women workers. (Brooklyn Eagle, Oct. 4, 1892, 8:5) Boswell had been raised in Baltimore in a Democratic household where discussion of "woman's rights" was taboo; her association with Foster made her a true believer in Republicanism. (Boswell, NR, Nov. 23, 1918, 7). By the 1894 Congressional campaigns Boswell had complete charge of women's work. She hired women speakers for "the political mass meetings at which women are becoming so interested", and focused her efforts on "the wage earning women, the girls in the factories, shops and large stores, holding meetings among them during the noon hour, to enlist their interest as rapidly as possible." (NY Herald, Oct. 11, 1894, 12:2).
	Boswell attended several of the WML's meetings, and after Strong won the election she asked the Republican Party leader if she could form a club for Republican women. On December 13 the "first auxiliary of the Woman's Republican Association was organized ... in the West Side Republican Club rooms," choosing as its President Mrs. Clarence Burns, a well known charity worker. (NY Tribune, Dec. 14, 1894, 5:5,6; Boswell, NR, Nov. 23, 1918, 8). Soon called the West End Woman's Republican Association (WEA), within six years it would be "the most widely known political club in the State." (NY Tribune, Sept. 8, 1900, 7:1). Although the best known, the WEA was not the first permanent women's Republican club in New York City. In 1892 Foster had helped Mary Hall and "thirty-one colored women of the Eleventh Assembly District" found a Colored Woman's Republican Association (NY Herald, Sept. 27, 1892, 6:5). Hall had come from Georgia where she had escorted colored men to the polls to vote Republican. In the early 1880s she became the political apprentice to the colored boss of her district until she found he was jealous of her ability to turn out votes. With Boswell's encouragement, she put together her own organization of women, and proceeded to become a "power" in her district. (NY Times, Oct. 18, 1895, 8:1; Boswell, NR, March 8, 1919, 8:6.) Throughout 1895 Boswell organized clubs in New York City, including a Business Women's Republican Club, one for working women, and a variety of "neighborhood influence clubs" of 12 to 20 women. These were permanent clubs, not just temporary campaign organizations. At regular meetings club members gave papers on current events and discussed such issues as health, schools, and Sunday closing of saloons. Often they were addressed by distinguished guests. Sometimes socials or outings were held. During campaigns, club members provided a core of experienced workers ready to work for Republican candidates and their meetings discussed election mechanics. Club women were instructed how to get men to vote and held classes for men on how to mark a ballot. One meeting discussed whether it was OK for women to give soup and coffee to Democrats as well as to Republicans waiting in the cold to vote. (NY Herald 1895: May 28, 11:1; July 2, 7:2; Nov. 6, 5:6; NY Times 1895: May 23, 8:3; May 28, 9:4; Oct. 5, 2:7; 1896: July 12, 8:1; Aug. 22, 2:3) In June of 1895 Boswell was selected to be the only woman among 149 New York delegates to go to the national convention of the League of Republican Clubs where she was thrilled to meet party women from western states where women could vote. She also went to the State convention in September, and reported back that the men now wanted to meet with women rather than separately. There were 17 Republican women's clubs in upstate New York. (NY Herald, 1895: May 28, 11:1; June 15, 7:1, Sept. 11, 11:1.) In 1896 she went to the Republican Convention as an observer, where "The women were treated as distinguished guests although they had no part in the proceedings." (NY Herald, June 27, 1896, 10:1) By 1897 she was the "recognized head of the Women's Republican movement in New York" and "the only woman in the direct employ of the Republican County Committee." (NY Herald, Sept. 19, 1897, V:12:1). Women's eagerness to join Republican women's clubs came from many sources. By the 1890s there were large numbers of middle class women, especially in the cities, with time on their hands. Many were educated, and, if married, were not expected to engage in gainful employment. But neither were they "willing to become simply social butterflies" (Lockwood 1893, 385). Reform was within woman's sphere and forming and joining women's clubs was quite the thing to do. The municipal reform movement invited women in and simultaneously gave them a rationale for political work. Indeed they were told by leading men, many of whom opposed woman suffrage, that working to clean up the city by electing good men was their duty. (NY Times, Oct. 25, 1894, 9:3; NY Tribune, Oct. 31, 1894, 7:1). Nor was partisanship a problem. Strong party loyalties were the norm in the late Nineteenth Century. Boswell felt that "Women have ever been partisan" because "[a]ll healthy, intelligent persons are partisan by nature." (Boswell, NR, Dec. 7, 1918, 8) Kate Bostwick, who described herself as a "rabid Republican" explained in 1896 that the prospect of taming the Tammany tiger prompted many women to become active Republicans: "The fever of reform was coursing through the veins of these women, and they formed the first regular Republican club ... of college women and others of ability and executive knowledge." (Bostwick 1896) This was echoed by Mrs. Jane Pierce, a school teacher from New England. "I had never taken more than a general interest in politics," she told the New York Herald, "until the pressure came for fighting Tammany." (Oct. 10, 1895, VI:9:1) Four years later Mrs. Clarence Burns, first President of the West End WRA, wrote: The best thing Tammany ever did was to drive women into politics. I was born a republican, but if it had not been for Tammany I probably never would have taken a prominent part in politics, nor would any other of the conservative women of this city. (NY Herald, Oct. 7, 1900, 7:2) Once involved in political work women stayed because they found it to be pleasing, demanding both social and organizational skills. In 1896 Bostwick started her own club in Brooklyn, the Woman's Republican Union League. Among its founders were Mrs. James Scrimgeour, who was still the President of the BWHPA. (Brooklyn Eagle, Sept. 17, 1896, 7:6) Quite a few were the wives of Republican politicians. (Brooklyn Eagle, Sept. 23, 1896, 7:7; NY Herald, Sept. 19, 1897, V:12; NY Tribune, June 21, 1899, 7:3.) It is not surprising that political wives and daughters would want to campaign in organizations analogous to those of their husbands and fathers, even when the latter were not public or party officials. These women in turn would bring in their friends. Indeed the party clubs had more staying power than women's nonpartisan organizations because recurring campaigns created a permanent need for women political workers. After winning in 1894, the reform committees and the WML lapsed, while women's Republican clubs expanded for the 1896 Presidential campaign. (Lowell 1898; Monoson 1990, 106) The Election of 1897
	Republican women's loyalties were sorely tested in 1897, when voters would elect the first Mayor of Greater New York City to govern the five boroughs. Consolidation was the pet project of state Republican leader Thomas C. Platt. After the Republican electoral sweep in 1896 gave his party full control of the state government, the legislature mandated it. The new State constitution required that municipal elections be held in odd-numbered years. (McCormick 1981, 90-94, 54-5) Mayor Strong declined to run, and reformers, regular Republicans and dissident Democrats could not agree on a candidate. The reformers organized into the Citizens' Union (CU) and drafted Seth Low, former Mayor of Brooklyn and current President of Columbia University, to be their candidate. Low was a Republican, but independent of Boss Platt's machine. Although Platt had helped reformers to elect Strong, he received few benefits from doing so, and concluded that he could probably get more patronage from Tammany than from Low. The Republican convention nominated his good friend Benjamin F. Tracy, a "stalwart among stalwarts". (McCormick 1981, 123-4: Kurland, 1971, Chapter V). Republican women were painfully conflicted. An axiom of reform was that municipal politics should be separated from state and national politics. Parties and partisanship were fine in their place, but cities should be run like a large business, guided by the principles of efficiency and competency, not party loyalty. (Kurland 1971, 85) As part of New York City's social and economic elite, Republican women were cut from the same cloth as reformers Reform men, like Low, were much more likely to vote Republican than Democratic. In 1894, it did not matter if one was partisan or non-partisan; there was a common candidate for whom to work. In 1897, the clash between party loyalty and reform sentiments was profoundly disturbing to many. The West End WRA discussed and debated what to do at several meetings. Boswell exhorted them to party loyalty, bringing in speakers to talk on "The Interdependence of National and Municipal Politics". Some members claimed that Low was not really a Republican, and therefore not deserving of the support of Republican women. They attacked Low for not always voting Republican, for not favoring tariff protection, and even for his disapproval of suffrage and higher education for women. Several prominent women, such as Mrs. James G. Wentz, said they did not see what tariff protection had to do with Greater New York City. Unless everyone united behind Low, she said, Tammany would win and the City would lose. Finally J. Ellen Foster was brought in to convince the women that city, state and national politics "cannot be divorced"; adherence to principle required party loyalty at every level. She urged the WEA to support Tracy because he was the Republican candidate. It did. (NY Tribune: Oct. 2, 1897 5:5; Oct. 16, 1897 9:7; Oct 30, 1897 5:1). Party loyalty did not triumph everywhere. In Low's home town of Brooklyn the Woman's Republican Union League endorsed Low over the objections of its founder and President, Kate Bostwick, as did some of the Brooklyn men's clubs. (Brooklyn Eagle, Oct. 27, 1897, 7:3; NY Times, June 21, 1899, 3:6) The women split so badly that club officers were in court two years later fighting over the remains. (NY Tribune, Sept. 28, 1898 5:3; June 21, 1899 7:3). But the Low campaign united antagonists as well as dividing allies. At one large Low meeting the presidents of the suffrage association and the anti-suffrage society sat side by side on the stage. When asked what they were doing there, the antis replied "Oh, but this is for Mr. Low." (NY Tribune, Nov. 15, 1897 5:5.) Political enthusiasm among women was even higher in 1897 than in 1894. Reform women raised money, distributed circulars and held meetings. One piece titled "The Women of Manhattan to the Voters of Manhattan" stated that "the women of every city have a stake as great in its just and enlightened government as the men" followed by five reasons why the women supported Low. (NY Times, Oct. 26, 1897, 2:2) Even in meetings not specifically aimed at women they were 35 percent of those attending. (NY Times, Oct. 27, 1897, 2:3) In Brooklyn, the BWHPA brought 3,000 women to a large hall to hear Low speak. Reported the New York Times: The scene that was presented in the hall where they met was unique -- and yet it was very like the politics of men, with the shouts and the applause, and all the other things that carry the latter from their equilibrium in time of political excitement, for these members of the feebler sex, young and old, cheered at the mention of Low's name, stamped their feet, waved their handkerchiefs in the air,... (NY Times, Oct. 23, 1897, 2:5) Seth Low told the Brooklyn women, to great applause: In my last campaign (in 1883) one woman said that she had gained twenty-two votes for me, and I told her that was twenty-one more than she would have gotten if she had been a man. Mrs. Scrimgeour (BWHPA President) has said that each woman represents twenty votes, but I think, from looking at this audience, that each of you represents forty votes, at least. (NY Times, Oct. 23, 1897, 2:5) Women's "forty votes" weren't sufficient to overcome the crowded field of candidates. Lack of unity was fatal to Low's campaign. He came in second and Tracy ran third. Tammany Hall retook City Hall. Activity in the Interim The CU attributed their loss to their lack of continuity. After considerable debate over whether to disband or remain as a non-partisan political party, it chose the latter, though not without much dismay and dissention. Some reformers felt that a permanent political organization would inevitably become more concerned with its own welfare than that of the city and slowly become corrupt. They argued that the principle of nonpartisanship would be pre-empted with permanent organization. This position lost to those who felt that until reformers "met the social needs of the masses" the masses would not support reform. (Kurland 1971, 108-111) The WML had reconstituted itself for the 1897 campaign. In March of 1898 it adopted a formal constitution which declared its objective to be: "To secure active support for such movements and candidates as may give promise of the best government for the city without regard to party lines" (Lowell 1898). For the next four years it worked to expand its membership among younger women, though its meetings were rarely reported in the press. (Monoson 1990, 109) It organized independently of the CU but never strayed far from its parent, publicly affirming its support for whomever the CU endorsed. Both the Woman's Municipal League and the women's Republican clubs avoided the issue of suffrage, which was widely debated in the 1890s. The WML was constrained by its close association with suffrage opponents, who were prominent among the male leaders in the anti-Tammany movement (e.g. Parkhurst, Elihu Root, Everett P. Wheeler, see Marshall 1997, 66, 76), and served on the WML Board (e.g. Mrs. Parkhurst). Even when suffrage agitation lapsed, the WML carefully kept its distance. In 1904 its Bulletin said that "Most of us are content to work, nay, prefer to work, without the suffrage." (WLMB, July 1904, 2). In 1911, as public discussion of suffrage was reviving, its Yearbook reassured its 1,800 members that "It has no part whatever, either for or against, in the suffrage movement." (WML Yearbook, Nov. 1911, 3).
	Republican women were constrained by their priorities. To emphasize that party loyalty eclipsed issues, Article VI of The Constitution and Bylaws of the West End Auxiliary declared: "Let it always be clearly understood that this organization is for the study of simple republicanism, that it is contrary to its design to attempt any diversion of the organization's work or influence to such reform movements as temperance, woman suffrage &c, with which many republican women are individually associated." Even though the Republican Party occasionally let woman suffragists use their meeting hall for suffrage meetings (NY Tribune, April 28, 1894 7:4), Boswell told a meeting of Republican men that "I am not crying out for a vote just now. I can generally influence three or four votes, at least, and I think it is better to have these votes cast as I wish them than to cast a solitary vote myself." (NY Times, Oct. 18, 1895, 6;2) In 1903, newer members of the West End WRA wanted to take a position on suffrage. After a heated debate, a majority voted to bar it. (NY Tribune, Dec. 18, 1903, 7:3.) Mrs. Wentz, who later became active in the Woman Suffrage Party, estimated that five percent of the members of the early Republican women's clubs actively opposed woman suffrage. (NY Mail, June 10, 1918) Nor were the suffrage women interested in party work. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, both of whom lived in New York, had become increasingly alienated from the major political parties since 1884 when they urged "earnest and conscientious support of the Republican National ticket" (NY Tribune, Aug. 1, 1884, 2). In 1897 Anthony criticized New York women for working in the municipal elections without first getting a party commitment to woman suffrage. By 1900 she was counseling women to stay out of political parties and work only to enfranchise themselves. (Harper 1898, 928; Anthony 1900) In 1894 Stanton wrote approvingly to Lowell of women's work for municipal reform, even though none of the men running for Mayor supported woman suffrage. (NY Times, Oct. 11, 1894, 9:7) In 1900 she wrote that "It is not of the slightest consequence to me whether McKinley or Bryan is elected... [because it] will not make the least difference in the present position of women," (Stanton 1900). This attitude by the leaders was reflected in the resistance of active suffragists to joining in party work. Boswell tried to recruit those from Republican families into her women's Republican Clubs in the 1890s, and was quite surprised when they told her "No, the Republican party has never done anything for us, so we shall not do anything for the Republican party." (Boswell, NR, March 1, 1919, 7) Undistracted by "other" issues, Republican women perfected their campaign techniques, adding door-to-door canvassing to literature distribution and meetings. In the 1896 Presidential campaign Republican women opened their own headquarters at 1473 Broadway in August. They prepared campaign literature in German, Bohemian and English, and divided up the tenement districts, which were Tammany strongholds. Within a week, 1,500 women had literature and instructions on how to canvass. (NY Tribune, Aug. 22, 1896 2:2; Aug. 29, 1896, 4:5) Mrs. Clarence Burns, director of the canvassing, wrote of their experience: "During the first McKinley and Bryan campaign we distributed two hundred thousand booklets, and interviewed as many women, endeavoring to instruct them in the awful effects of the 16 to 1 policy should Bryan be elected." (NY Herald, Oct. 7, 1900, 7:2) Boswell later recounted their mixed reception: "Our women were often met with derision and with threats of boiling water poured over them, and a few potatoes were thrown by the irate Irish ladies, but no one was ever hurt." (Boswell, NR, Dec. 7, 1918, 8) In 1898 the WNRA headquarters was in Washington, D.C. New York City Republican women worked to elect Col. Roosevelt as their Governor. (NY Times, Sept. 30, 1898 3:6; NY Tribune, Oct. 5, 1898, 5:1). Roosevelt had been the New York City Police Commissioner under the Strong Administration. His attacks on police graft propelled him into the governorship, while his vigorous enforcement of the Sunday closing law (of saloons) alienated the German vote, contributing to the reform movement's loss of the Mayoralty in 1897. (Kurland 1971, 86, 105, 114) The election of 1900 was widely called a "petticoat" campaign because unprecedented numbers of women came to meetings, gave speeches and otherwise worked for candidates, even in states where they could not vote. McKinley headquarters was in Chicago, but the "Woman's Republican Headquarters" opened its doors at 139 Fifth Ave. in New York City, even though there was no official women's bureau as there had been in the 1896 campaign. From here women were deployed to intensively canvass the tenement districts of Manhattan, particularly Tammany Hall strongholds where Republican men were not welcome. Boswell explained to one reporter that "This tenement house work necessitates tact and energy on the part of the participants." The men readily conceded that women were better at it. Boswell described their approach: "No house or room is invaded without the invitation of the inmates, but the universal experience of the visiting women has been that the dwellers in tenements are glad to see them and hear what they have to say in reference to the opportunities which the Republican party affords the laboring man in the way of work, high wages and sound money." (NY Tribune, Oct. 21, 1900, II:6 ) Several newspapers wrote lengthy stories on women in the election of 1900. In its regular column on women's work the Evening Post wrote that: ... Early in this campaign the State committee apportioned the lower part of the city among the members of the West End Women's Republican Club,... Their districts once assigned, with plenty of "literature" on hand, they pursue their own methods.... Visits are made to the Russian and Polish Jewish quarters, to Little Italy, Little Syria, and other foreign settlements. The number of men old enough to vote and the number of the unnaturalized are learned. The women of the Republican Club get this information from their foreign sisters rather than from the men themselves who are less approachable. But sometimes a wife does not know her husband's politics, and protests that he would beat her should she ask. The visitor inquires whether he would beat herself if she put the question, and usually receiving a negative answer, returns at meal-time. If she can gain his confidence, he will listen to her respectfully, and even seek enlightenment upon questions of the day, which it would lower his dignity in his own eyes to ask from another man. Literature is left, and knotty points explained in subsequent interviews. A daily report is sent to State headquarters, whence agents are dispatched to the addresses of unnaturalized men to urge them to take out their papers, and to facilitate the metamorphosis of the alien into the citizen by explaining the legal formalities that seem too formidable to the ignorant. His naturalization accomplished, it is easy enough to persuade the regenerated foreigner to register and vote -- and "to vote right" from his sponsor's view point. Meanwhile the feminine campaigner is making herself agreeable to the woman of the tenement... [and] explains the doctrines of her party. Mrs. Cornelia S. Robinson, president of the West End Club, says that the women of the poorer classes are much quicker than the men to grasp the importance of the monetary question, accustomed as they are to handling all the money earned by the family. In the case of a sick baby a doctor may be sent, if the mother agrees, or at any rate an ordinary prescription is ordered from some neighboring pharmacy. If want is apparent, it is met with temporary relief, and then called to the attention of the authorities. A women with half-a-dozen small children in need of food or clothing, will use all her influence for the first person who alleviates her sufferings, and can usually be counted upon to control her husband's vote. ... the three hundred members in the Women's Republican Club ... [also] labor among clerks and factory hands of their own sex; handicapped, however by the attitude of employers, who fear that the girls might use their organization, even if ostensibly political, to make a united demand for better pay. ... In general, the women do all the tedious preliminary work in the wide area referred to, and the men follow up their efforts after the way has been opened. (The Evening Post, (New York) Oct. 18, 1900, 8:1) By the 1900 campaign, New York Republican women had become a force to be reckoned with. The Tribune reported that "The Republican women of New York City have been most effective helpers to the Republican party, whose leaders have been glad to utilize the women's services." (NY Tribune, Sept. 8, 1900, 7:1)
	The Campaigns of 1901 and 1903 During the four years that Robert A. Van Wyck was Mayor of Greater New York City, he ran "a brilliantly ineffectual, superbly corrupt, and downright malevolent administration," as the puppet of Tammany boss Richard Croker. (Kurland 1971, 114). Tammany coffers were filled from payoffs to police for protecting brothels and gambling dens, augmented by shakedowns of municipal employees. Judgeships were sold and city franchises auctioned to the highest bidder. Public schools were starved; thousands of students were denied entrance due to lack of seats. By 1901 reformers and Republicans once again saw the virtues of fusion. They jointly agreed to run Seth Low for Mayor, and, in hopes of pulling votes away from Tammany, ran independent Democrats for the other citywide offices. (McCormick 1979, 134; Kurland 1971, 136) The Woman's Municipal League held meetings as it had before, Ten days before the election it released what became the central piece of campaign literature. A sixteen page pamphlet, Facts for Fathers and Mothers, described how the police protected vice, especially the luring of young girls into prostitution. The WML raised $20,000 (including $100 from the anti-suffrage society) to print hundreds of thousands of copies, but relied on many others for distribution. (Villard 1902, 79) The relationship between the WML and the women's Republican clubs was captured by a headline: "Municipal League Working Hard to Secure Campaign Fund -- Two Hundred Thousand Leaflets Distributed by Republican Women." (NY Tribune, Oct. 25, 1901, 7:1) Republican women were much better organized than the WML. In April of 1901, they organized a state association. It took official responsibility for women's work for the party in the municipal campaign, under Boswell's general direction. After conferring with the Republican leader of New York County, the women opened two headquarters "in the heart of the districts that have been considered hopelessly Democratic" and commenced canvassing. Mrs. Burns, "who understands the districts in New York better than any other woman in the organization" laid out the routes. When the Kings Co. Republican leader asked for help, the presidents of the two Brooklyn clubs, Kate Bostwick and Mrs. C.W. (Emma) Fisk, were assigned to take charge of the Brooklyn work; they opened their own headquarters in Brooklyn. (NY Tribune, April 24, 1901, 5:1; Oct. 9, 1901, 7:2; Oct. 17, 1901, 5:3; Brooklyn Eagle, Oct. 18, 1901, 1:4.) Tammany boss Croker craftily tried to beat the reformers at their own game by running Edward M. Shepard, an independent Democrat from Brooklyn, who had denounced Tammany and ardently supported Low in 1897. (Kurland 1971, 137) While Low won, he did so with a bare 52%, running behind the independent Democrats on the ticket. "Low took the mayoralty by over thirty-one thousand votes, and his election was made possible because Democrats by the tens of thousands, especially on the Jewish Lower East Side, abandoned Tammany for fusion." (Kurland 1971, 139) This was precisely the area in which the Woman's Republican Clubs had been canvassing in every election since 1896. Only the year before Boswell had explained that they were canvassing in an "almost solid Tammany district" in hopes that "they will sow a seed which will result in the reduction of the usual Tammany majority." (NY Tribune, Oct. 24, 1900, 3:1) Seth Low was the beneficiary of that work. Seth Low only served for two years because the Republican State legislature had cut the Mayor's term of office in half in 1900 in hopes of limiting Tammany's control. When Low ran for re-election in 1903 the fusion coalition dissolved along party lines. After losing in 1901, Croker retired to his baronial estate in England, leaving Tammany Hall in the hands of a triumvirate. By 1903 Charles Frances Murphy, an owner of several saloons, "was in absolute command" and proceeded to woo the independent Democrats away from the reform coalition by convincing them that the national party needed a Democratic Mayor in New York City. (Kurland 1971, 185). The fusion Democrats elected in 1901 ran for re-election on the same as ticket the Tammany nominee for Mayor, Cong. George B. McClellan Jr., the son of the Civil War general. While the Republicans nominated Low, they were unhappy at his failure to reward their 1901 support with patronage and unenthusiastic in campaigning. (Kurland 1971, 192). Republican women did not sit on their hands. The Herald reported that women were more active than ever, largely through three organizations: the Woman's Municipal League, the Woman's Republican Club and the West End Woman's Republican Club. "They represent 1,500 New York women, many of them women of wealth and social prominence." The WML raised $1,000 a day for Low's campaign, organized several mass meetings with men and women speakers and published "campaign literature in Italian and Hebrew newspapers". Its 800 members spent their time writing letters to friends asking for money and other support, and mailing circulars. The Republican women's clubs also sent "out campaign literature to the wives of men who we know are Tammany men and who live in the tenement districts," and organized their own meetings. (NY Herald, Oct. 25, 1903, II:4:1) However, the work of the women did not make up for the lethargy of the men. The Democrats won with 55 % of the vote. Aftermath After losing the 1903 Mayor's race, the municipal reform movement declined. It would be another ten years before reformers could agree on a candidate for Mayor, let alone elect him. The non-partisan organizations that it spawned continued, but concentrated on nonelectoral solutions of urban problems. After 1893 the BWHPA no longer involved itself directly in a political campaign. Instead it campaigned against spitting on the sidewalks and monitored the enforcement of street sanitation, pure milk and food laws until it dissolved in 1927. However, Mrs. Scrimgeour, its President until she died in 1903, actively worked for several Republican candidates. The CU became a municipal watchdog, exposing the underside of city politics when Tammany became too gross. Josephine Shaw Lowell died in 1905 (NY Tribune, Oct. 14, 1905, 5:1) but the WML continued until it merged with the CU in 1923. Between 1902 and 1911 the WML published a monthly Bulletin on its activities, branches and committees, except during the summer. It concentrated on neighborhood problems, such as better parks and cleaner streets, and promoting protective legislation, such as bills to regulate employment offices. Its only venture back into the world of elections was in 1905, when it backed William Travers Jerome's race for re-election as District Attorney. That year it raised and spent $9,000 on 350,000 copies of "Why New York Women Stand Back of Jerome" which it distributed at meetings and published in German and English newspapers. (NY Tribune, Nov. 7, 1905, 5:1; Arthur, WLMB, Jan. 1906, pp. 6-9) In 1906 it obtained a building at 19 W. 26th St., which it hoped would be come a "real women's building." (NY Tribune, April 13, 1906, 5:1)
	Women's interest in municipal reform revived in 1913, but when the "Women's Fusion League for Good Government" opened its headquarters on Fifth Avenue, it was women in the three political parties (Boswell for the Republicans, Mrs. J. Borden (Daisy) Harriman for non-Tammany Democrats and Ann Rhodes for the Progressives), not the non-partisan WML, that were behind it. (Boswell, NR, April 5, 1919, 8; NY Sun, Aug. 19, 1921) However, women were not consulted on the choice of fusion candidates until 1921, the first mayoralty election in which women could vote. (NY Sun, Aug. 24, 1921) Republican women's clubs continued but their activities were less frequently reported in the press. Mrs. Wentz, who had campaigned for Harrison in 1892 but spoken out for Low in 1897 when the WEA supported Tracy, formed her own Woman's Republican Club in 1900 to appeal specifically to society women (NY Tribune, Nov. 9, 1900, 8:2) and remained its President until 1931. The club dissolved in 1940. Although she actively supported woman suffrage in the New York referenda of 1915 and 1917 her other causes were quite conservative. (NY Times, July 29, 1945, 39:3) Mrs. Burns returned to philanthropic work. (NY Sun, March 2, 1900) Republican women worked for Republican candidates in state and national races, continuing to build their presence in the party. Helen Varick Boswell graduated from Washington (D.C.) College of Law in 1902, but made her permanent home in New York and dedicated her life to working for the Republican Party. In 1908 she and Foster were once again in charge of mobilizing Republican women for the Presidential campaign. They gave speeches, organized meetings, and oversaw the mailing of 1,000 circulars a day. (NY Sun, Oct. 25, 1908, 6:1) When the party split over Theodore Roosevelt's candidacy for President in 1912, she directed women's work for Taft. (NY Times, Sept. 1, 1912, 5:9:1; NR, March 1, 1919, 7) In December of 1917 she was appointed Republican vice chairman of New York Co. with responsibility for organizing women. By March she had appointed women leaders in all Assembly Districts, and by April half the election districts had female captains. (NY Times, March 24, 1918, 24:1; April 18, 1918, 12:8) The fates of other individual Republican women are harder to trace, but some are mentioned in newspaper stories on Republican activities decades later. When New York women gained suffrage in 1917, there was already an organizational framework for women who wanted to work for the Republican Party and quite a few women with years of political experience to induct them into the Party. It took little adjustment to incorporate women into the formal party machinery. The Democrats The New York Democratic Party contributed little to the movement of women into politics, waiting until 1918 before taking women seriously as party workers. In 1897, as Republican and reform women were holding meetings and distributing literature, the New York Journal, a Democratic newspaper owned by William Randolph Hearst, asked editorially "Where are the Democratic Women?" It called for "some Democratic Woman's Clubs" (Sept. 19, 1897, 50:2), and only a week later claimed one had been organized by Mrs. Dorothy Harrington Mason, with headquarters at the Hotel Bartholdt. (Sept. 27, 1897, 4:3). However, when the New York Times reported on a Woman's Tammany Club meeting held the following month it said "[O]f the four hundred persons present, only about fifteen were women." (Oct. 28, 1897, 2:2). While there are dozens of newspaper stories about the work of Republican women between 1892 and 1910, there are few on Tammany women. Most are interviews with Mrs. Julius Harburger, "wife of the Assemblyman and Tammany leader of the Xth District" who said she was President of the Women's Democratic Club of the East Side. In 1901, as women were organizing for Low, Mrs. Harburger only said that "active campaign work" had begun. (NY Tribune, Oct. 9, 1901 7:2). But when journalist Oswald Garrison Villard reported on the 1901 campaign to the 1902 national suffrage convention he observed that "no body of women worthy of notice has yet been got together to campaign for Tammany Hall,..." (Villard 1902, 78) In a 1903 interview Harburger claimed that "we had the largest mass meeting of women exclusively ever held" (NY Herald Magazine, Oct. 25, 1903, 8), but there is no newspaper report of such a meeting of Democratic women. A 1904 story was aptly headlined "Women Helping in the Campaign" as the five Democratic women interviewed were helping their fathers, sons and husbands. (NY World, Aug. 28, 1904, 7:1) One of these was Barbara Porges, who had a reputation as a "boss" on the lower East Side. But while she helped people in her district, all she asked in return was that they support her husband's re-election as Alderman. She did not organize women into a political force, and when suffrage became an issue, urged men to vote against it because the women weren't ready for the vote. (NY Sun, Oct. 21, 1931) There were a few attempts by women to organize Democrats but not by the Party itself. In the 1880s several suffragists who were also Democrats tried to organize New York voters to support the Democratic Presidential ticket (The Daily Picayune of New Orleans, Nov. 2, 1880, 6:1). While local campaign clubs for women appeared during national elections, not until 1912 did the Democratic National Committee authorize an organization of women to support a presidential campaign. In 1892 Mary Frost Ormsby started a Democratic Influence Club for women in New York City which was publicly disapproved of by Presidential candidate Grover Cleveland (NY Tribune, July 10, 1892, 8:2), and disappeared in 1893 (NY Herald, Feb. 15, 1893, 10:6). In 1905 the New York Tribune announced that Mrs. J. S. Crosby would organize a Democratic Club because there were no women working for the Democratic Party. Eventually incorporating as the Woman's Democratic Club of New York, it held its first meeting in September. (NY Tribune, Sept. 15, 1905, 5:1; NY Times, Feb. 9, 1912, 6:4) Mrs. Crosby's political loyalties were independent of the Democratic machine. She and her husband had followed Henry George, a radical but non-Marxist social theorist who twice ran for Mayor of New York City and once for Secretary of New York State. George campaigned for the CU candidate in 1894, but ran himself in 1897. His candidacies attracted labor votes and thus were threats to Tammany hegemony. George died right before the 1897 election but his legacy lived on. In 1901 Mrs. Crosby became President of the Henry George League of Women. (NY Times, Jan. 14, 1901, 7:2) During the 1903 Mayoral campaign the City Federation of Women's Clubs almost endorsed Seth Low, and Mrs. Crosby decided it was time to organize Democratic women. When she finally did so two years later, she acknowledged that she had no plan of action, would not do house to house canvassing, and didn't expect to "purify Tammany Hall." The members of her club were from the same social elites as Republican women. (NY Tribune, August 15, 1905, 5:1).
	Despite its lack of purpose or program, the club survived, and stayed loyal to the Democratic Party. It held its collective nose and endorsed Tammany candidates for public office. (NY Tribune, Oct. 7, 1905, 5:4) It ridiculed "reformers and googoos" at its first dinner a few months later (NY Times, April 6, 1906, 6:3). It endorsed William Randolph Hearst in 1906 after he was nominated for Governor by the State Democratic convention, but without enthusiasm. "It doesn't make any difference anyway, said Mrs. Wood. 'The Party does not know that we are in existence, and doesn't care what we think one way or the other.'" (NY Tribune, Sept. 29, 1906, 10:2). In the 1908 Presidential campaign Mrs. Crosby raised several hundred dollars to support her club's work for Bryan, who was a family friend as well as the Democratic Party standard bearer. But still her Democratic women did not canvass, speak, or mail. They gave literature to their friends and prodded their men to vote. (NY Sun, Oct. 25, 1908, 6:2). Mrs. Crosby was the permanent president of her club for many years but Tammany Hall remained in control of the New York City Democracy, and except for 1913-1917, the New York City government. After women got suffrage in 1917 Tammany women took over her Woman's Democratic Club, electing as its President the sister of Tammany boss John Curry. (NY Times, April 13, 1918, 22:1) In 1920 Mrs. Crosby took the radical step of supporting the Republican ticket and was expelled. (NY Herald, Oct. 22, 1920, Oct. 23, 1920) Nonetheless, when she died in 1924 she was eulogized as the "mother of New York Democrats." (NY Times, Jan. 31, 1924, 15:6) Over twenty years after the Republican Party welcomed women into the ranks of party workers, the New York City Democratic Party began to make a place for party women, at least those who would stay loyal. By the time Tammany brought women into the Democratic tent, it had long forgotten the woman who served as district leader and a member of the General Committee in the 1890s. Until she died in 1901, everyone thought Murray Hall was a man. (NY Times, Jan. 19, 1901, 3:4) Conclusion The movement of women into active participation in politics in New York City was largely independent of the movement for woman suffrage. The two movements rose to prominence about the same time, in the early to mid 1890s, but kept their distance until at least the second decade of the Twentieth Century. While there was some overlap in personnel, judging from names in the newspaper reports there was not much. Active suffragists did not campaign for specific candidates for public office, and women's political organizations, whatever the interests of individual members, avoided suffrage. These organizations found a place for both suffragists and anti-suffragists, partisans and nonpartisans, in their campaign for better municipal government. The women who occupied these places generally came through two routes: Some were invited in and others "glided" in. The New York Times editorialized its pleasure in the "substantial service" rendered by the women in the 1890 election, as "logical, proper, and justified." (Oct. 27, 1890, 4:2) The Rev. Dr. Parkhurst invited women to join in the 1894 campaign to elect a good man as Mayor of New York. As a respected clergyman with conservative views on women, his invitation legitimated political activity by women by labeling it as moral, not political. Other respectable men did the same. In 1901, women of the Civitas Club of Brooklyn heard a lecture on the "Civic Duty of Women" to get their male friends and relatives to vote for "decent, clean men." (Brooklyn Eagle, Nov. 29, 1901, 12:1) While Republican men did not initiate women's participation in the local party, they did welcome them. In an 1897 article on "Leaders of the Women in Politics", the Herald reported [Republican County Committee] Chairman Hatch is a thorough believer in the efficiency of women's work in politics, and speaks in flattering terms of the results achieved by them three years ago and also in the last Presidential campaign. [State Party Chairman] Thomas C. Platt coincides with his lieutenant. He cordially approves of the work done by the Women's Republican clubs and favors any plan tending to widen their opportunities and add to their influence. (NY Herald, Sept. 19, 1897, V:12). In 1900 the Herald published another full page spread on "The Woman in Politics" with comments by two party leaders. Platt affirmed that "I have always regarded with great favor the activity of the ladies whose names you submit in matters political. I think that their influence has been very wholesome, and it is my conviction that their work in the present campaign will be potential." (NY Herald, Oct. 7, 1900, V:2) In contrast, Tammany Hall boss Richard Croker's statement equated political activity with suffrage, and expressed his ambivalence: "Personally I do not approve of women going to the polls, and I think there are very few men who would like to see their wives attending mass meetings and being jostled about by crowds surrounding the booths. In many cases I can see where women might be of valuable assistance in a political campaign. Of course, I believe that a woman should have a voice in the election of our representatives, and I think that the time will come when we may have to confer with them. I respect woman too much to ever wish to see her at the polls." Although Murphy proved to be a more liberal and enlightened boss than Croker, there's no evidence that he was any warmer toward women's political work until women could vote. He made overtures to independent Democratic men, but ignored the one independent Woman's Democratic Club. If Tammany women organized or worked in campaigns, they were largely unnoticed by the press and contemporary observers. It is more likely that Murphy arranged for Mrs. Harburger to lead a "paper" club and give interviews to the press to maintain the image of the Party as open to all, but did little to encourage women's participation.
	Not all women waited for an invitation. Boswell said in 1918 that women had "glided" into politics through the study of political issues (NR, Dec. 7, 1918, 8). Others also made this observation. In 1893, attorney Belva Lockwood, who had run for President on the Equal Rights ticket in 1884 and 1888, wrote that "Women have come into politics in recent years, not only because there has been a demand for them there, but because they have been forced by a logic of events beyond their control." She saw education, not suffrage, as "paving the way" for women's movement into politics (Lockwood 1893, 386). Mrs. Joseph Mumford of Philadelphia told the BWHPA that women, much more than men, had the leisure to study municipal problems and propose solutions. "Education and enlightenment" had shown them their responsibility to "come into politics." (Brooklyn Eagle, April 18, 1894, 9:2.) Journalist Ida Husted Harper wrote in 1912 that women had moved from church work to club work to civic improvement and into political work. (L.A. Examiner, Sept. 15, 1912) Villard, in 1902, also observed the gradual acceptance of women's participation in politics even without the ballot. Twenty-five years ago such a thing as a woman's headquarters, distributing pamphlets, raising money, getting up meetings, supplying speakers, and furnishing one of the most effective arguments of the entire campaign, would have aroused a storm of indignation and scorn...; and indeed in 1894 there were not a few protests.... In 1897 the women workers for the CU were heartily welcomed..., but they were still regarded as curiosities.... In the campaign of 1901 public sentiment had been so far educated that [I] was unable to find a trace of a protest against women's taking part in the battle against Tammany." (Villard 1902, 79) Some have argued that because Nineteenth Century political parties were essentially male social clubs, nonpartisan politics was the only way women could work in campaigns. (Monoson 1990) While 1890s municipal reformers believed nonpartisanship was the best way to select a city government, there is no evidence that they believed that partisanship was acceptable for men and not for women. Nor is there any evidence that party men believed this, at least not Republican party men. While Republican women did emphasize that they were there for service and did not expect pecuniary rewards, there is no evidence that being a party loyalist made them feel unwomanly. In the 1890s party loyalties were intensely felt, often defining people's identities and determining their close associates. Women felt these passions as much as men. The multiple campaigns and numerous political organizations in New York City in the 1890s and 1900s presented them with many choices. Women worked in all of these, partisan and non-partisan. Their organizations were separate from men's, but not their principles. Nor was partisanship viewed as a radical departure from woman's proper role. Some of the women who worked in the Republican Party of the era were progressives; many were conservatives, and became more so over time. None were radicals. To judge by women's party activities and the statements to the press of party men and women, woman suffrage was radical; women in politics, including party politics, was not.
	REFERENCES Anthony, Susan, "Political Women", The Daily Times, September 11, 1900, on Reel #5 of Anthony Collection, and in Harper 1898, III:1214-5. Arthur, Helen, "The Work of the Woman's Municipal League in the Last Campaign" IV:6 Women's Municipal League Bulletin, January 1906, pp. 6-9. Bostwick, Kate M., "Women's Political Clubs," 13 Monthly Illustrator, 1896, pp. 304-8. Boswell, Helen V., "A Republican Woman in Politics", a series of 17 short articles in The National Republican, from November 23, 1918 through April 5, 1919. Constitution and Bylaws of the West End Auxiliary, Woman's Republican Association of the United States, Organized 1894; New York Public Library. Edwards, Rebecca Brooks, Angels in the Machinery: Gender in American Party Politics from the Civil War to the Progressive Era, New York: Oxford, 1997. Harper, Ida Husted, Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony 3 vols. Indianapolis: Hollenbeck Press, 1898. Reprinted by Salem, New Hampshire: Ayer Company, Publishers, 1983. Kurland, Gerald, Seth Low: The Reformer in an Urban and Industrial Age, New York: Twayne, 1971. Lockwood, Belva A. "Women in Politics", 2 American Journal of Politics, April, 1893, pp. 385-7. Lowell, Josephine Shaw, "The Woman's Municipal League of New York City", II:3 Municipal Affairs, Sept. 1898, p. 465-6. Marshall, Susan E., Splintered Sisterhood: Gender and Class in the Campaign Against Woman Suffrage, Madison, Wisc.: Wisconsin, 1997. McCormick, Richard L., From Realignment to Reform: Political Change in New York State, 1893-1910, Ithaca: Cornell U. Press. Monoson, S. Sara, "The Lady and the Tiger: Women's Electoral Activism in New York City Before Suffrage", II:2 Journal of Women's History, Fall 1990, pp. 100-35. Roosevelt, Theodore, "Machine Politics in New York City", 33 The Century Magazine, Nov. 1886, pp. 74-82. Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, "Mrs. Stanton Doesn't Care for Either Party", in "The Woman in Politics", NY Herald, Oct. 7, 1900, V:7:2. Villard, Oswald Garrison, "Women in New York Municipal Campaign", The Woman's Journal, March 8, 1902, pp. 78-9.
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