CityState: Reporter l by Ellen Liberman
Rank and File
Can our state archives — the last in the nation without a permanent
home — survive transience, moisture and fiscal apathy?
A letter to the editor of the East Greenwich Pendulum, reprinted
in the Providence Evening Telegram, March 7, 1887. Head: “The
Woman Suffrage Craze.” Sub-Head: “East Greenwich Won’t Have
It — Not Good for Women or Men.” First paragraph:
“A great deal used to be said about ‘woman’s sphere.’ But that is
changed now and neither law nor custom prevents women from
engaging in any occupation that she may select to assure her liveli-
hood. It is very doubtful that the sum of human happiness, and espe-
cially the happiness of woman, would be increased by placing the
ballot in her hand and inviting her to take a place and jostle with men
in the filthy arena of politics. It may be correct in theory, but who
wants his wife, his mother, his sister to be a deputy sheriff, a police
constable or even a Representative in the General Assembly?”
After decades of advocacy, women’s suffrage proponents per-
suaded the Rhode Island General Assembly to put before the voters
a bill that would amend the state Constitution to give women the
right to vote. A torrent of anxiety poured onto newspaper editorial
pages. Allowing female persons access to democracy would upset
ILLUSTRATION BY ILEANA SOON
the natural order, strip men of their refuge from the “dirt and turmoil
and bad blood of public affairs,” strengthen the forces of “sentimen-
talism, ignorance and prejudice.”
And those were some of nicer letters.
March is Women’s History Month, and the Rhode Island State
Archives are commemorating the centennial of the nineteenth
amendment to the U.S. Constitution with the record of Rhode
Island’s contributions to the national conversation. Any citizen who
cares to can go online and peruse the liver-spotted newspaper clip-
pings bound in the Rhode Island Equal Suffrage Association scrap-
book of 1887, or visit one of two public exhibitions at the State House
and at the archives’ current location at 337 Westminster Street to
learn about women’s struggle for political equality.
By May, however, the archives staff will be unpacking its collec-
tion of ten million letters, photographs and state documents dating
back to 1638 at its third location in thirty years. The state possesses
priceless historical gems like one of the original thirteen copies of
the Declaration of Independence, complete with the iconic signature
RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY
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