It took women more than 70 years of organizing, lobbying and fighting to secure the right to vote. We think we know the story of suffrage. Susan B. Anthony. Seneca Falls. But in Georgia, the battle was waged under the guise of polite society. It was a time of great change. Women were getting jobs in offices and factories, and they wanted protection and representation.
But women were also tasked with upholding ideals like modesty, beauty, grace, charm and submission. The afternoon tea party became a political vehicle for debates about gender, race, and class. The nation watched as Georgia's anti-suffragists argued that giving women the vote was \"by far the greatest danger that has threatened the South since the days of scalawag and carpetbag rule in reconstruction times.\" Meanwhile, as the suffragists pushed a feminist agenda they also refused to condemn lynching.
The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote in 1920. But it took two more years for all Georgia women to get that right and many decades for the state to officially recognize it. Why?
Shame is The Woman is a podcast that tells the true story of Georgia suffrage movement, through excerpts from early 20th century newspaper editorials and interviews with historians who explain how that fight more than a century ago still echoes across the country today.
New episodes start December 1, 2022.
Shame is The Woman is a production of Mercer University's Center for Collaborative Journalism and The Macon Newsroom, with Lars Lonnroth as executive producer, Phoebe Monsour, Ashley Pemberton, Cole Brockman, and Ryan Palmer as writers and hosts, Tanya Ott as faculty advisor and Grant Blankenship as industry advisor.