Woman suffrage in Oklahoma

Abstract

Suffrage has two aspects, the right to vote and the right to run for public office. During the American Revolution all but one state restricted suffrage to males. The exception was New Jersey where women had equal suffrage between 1776 and 1807. 1 The American struggle for woman suffrage, then, began in 1775 with the first state constitutions and ended one hundred sixty-seven years later, in 1942, when Oklahoma allowed women candidates for all state executive offices. Steps to equal suffrage were gradual and uneven. Often, women achieved the right to run for office before they could vote for that office. The pattern had no logic. Higher office was frequently opened to women before lower offices. Oklahoma exhibited this illogical pattern. Oklahoma's struggle over woman suffrage was essentially an interaction between its political culture and its legal and political system. The culture favored women's political rights at an early period but politics frustrated appropriate legislation. The law held women back.