Negotiating Partisanship

Abstract

After New York women won the vote in 1917, many joined political party clubs and some ran for office. In the 1920s, only a few won seats in the state legislature, and only one served more than one term. A few women won other posts—register of New York County and alderwoman—and a few others won appointive government and judicial posts. Local and state political party committees elected women as officers. These small victories encouraged other women to keep trying. The obstacles to women’s political success in the first decade after suffrage remained high, however. Some suffragists were ambivalent toward partisanship and discouraged women from being active party members; party men remained prejudiced against women politicians and government officials. In the 1920s African American women and Socialists had no electoral success at all.