Controlled By Prejudice And Precedent: Myra Bradwell’s Fight For Citizenship In The Early Women’s Rights Movement

Suffrage has largely defined the early women’s rights movement (1848-1920) with figures like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton representing those within the movement. Anthony and Stanton proclaimed suffrage as the ultimate political goal and believed it would grant women the full citizenship rights the movement sought. But other activists of the time, such as Myra Bradwell, lobbied for other legal and political rights in order to secure women’s full citizenship. Though historical scholarship most often recognizes Myra Bradwell for the United States Supreme Court case Bradwell v. Illinois (1873), in which she sued the Illinois State Supreme Court for abridging her privileges and immunities of citizenship by denying her a license to practice law, her career included a variety of reforms intended to secure full citizenship for women. This thesis compares Bradwell’s strategies to more famous and divisive icons of the movement, such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. This comparison sheds light on how (and why) the historical memory of the movement has left behind Myra Bradwell while focusing more on Anthony and Stanton.