Helen Laura Sumner and the Woman Suffrage Movement

Abstract

Prior to the passage of the 20th amendment to the US Constitution in 1920, several states had extended the suffrage to women. Helen Laura Sumner (later Woodbury), a student of John R. Commons at Wisconsin, undertook a statistical study of the political, economic, and social impacts of the granting of voting rights to women in the state of Colorado, and subsequently defended the results against numerous attacks. In this paper, we present a brief account of the struggle for women’s equality in the extension of the suffrage and examine Sumner’s critical analysis of the evidence as to its effects, as well as the counterarguments to which she responded.

Citation

Kapuria-Foreman, V. and McCann, C.R. (2023), "Helen Laura Sumner and the Woman Suffrage Movement", Fiorito, L., Scheall, S. and Suprinyak, C.E. (Ed.) Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Selection of Papers Presented at the First History of Economics Diversity Caucus Conference (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 41B), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 97-117. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-41542023000041B006