Equal Rights, 23 issues: January 23, 1926-March 3, 1934.

[ERA]. Equal Rights, 23 issues from January 16, 1926 - March 3, 1934, Washington, D.C.: National Woman's Party, January 23, 1926 - March 3, 1934.

Folio: 13-1/2 x 10"; printed off-white stock (stapled, self-wrappers); illustrated with black-and-white photograph at front cover; some issues have minor edge tears; May 20, 1926 issue has 2" tear from fold all the way through (without loss); burn holes around staples; paper slightly brittle; some leaves separating; generally very good.

Twenty-three issues of Equal Rights: Vol. XII, Nos. 49-52 (January 16, 1926 - February 20, 1926); Vol. XIII, Nos. 2, 4, 11 (April 24, 1926); 11 (May 1, 1926) - 19 (June 26, 1926); Vol. XVII, No. 26 (August 1, 1931); Vol. XIX, No. 49 (January 1, 1934); and Vol XX, No. 50 (March 3, 1934).

After passage of the 19th Amendment, Alice Paul and The Woman's Party initiated a drive for an equal rights amendment which they named the "Lucretia Mott Amendment". Each issue of Equal Rights, the official organ of the Woman's Party, prints the text of the proposed amendment: "Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction". The paper records Woman's Party political activities — for an Equal Rights Amendment; striking down so-called "protective legislation"; fighting for equal status for women under state laws regarding jury selection, divorce, etc.; campaigning for greater presence of women in Congress and other political bodies; and, working with international bodies to further women's rights. Often Equal Rights highlights a key figure, such as: Jessie Dell, appointed by President Calvin Coolidge as a United States Civil Service Commissioner; Josephine Casey, trade unionist and AFL organizer; actress Eva La Gallienne (a founding member of the Woman's Party); Doris Stevens; Mrs. Oliver H.P. Belmont; and Rebecca West, the British writer and novelist. Crystal Eastman is a frequent contributor; articles by Alma Lutz and Rheta Childe Dorr are also printed. A standard feature is the column "Feminist Notes" which documents a wide-range of advances (and occasional defeats) affecting women, including the number of patents taken out the preceding year by British women, a report on German women agitating to be ordained as ministers, and the appointment of the first woman arbitrator. The Notes testify to the painstakingly numerous small — and sometimes large — gains women made during the '20s. Another standard feature is "Press Comment" which records editorials and comments from newspapers in the United States and Great Britain.

Equal Rights reports on — decades before Emily's List — the Woman's Party Coast-to-Coast Campaign for Women in Congress (1926) culminating in a conference in Baltimore. Perhaps even of greater significance are its articles on the international conferences which began to have a greater impact on women's rights issues: the 1926 Paris Conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance; the work of Alice Paul and Doris Stevens vis à vis The League of Nations in 1931; and, passage of the first international agreement on women's rights at the Seventh Pan America Conference at Montevideo in December, 1933. Much of the work of the Woman's Party and other women's rights activist groups from 1920 to the 1970s has sunk out from view. These issues of Equal Rights provide vivid testimony to their achievements.

(#7856)

Item ID#: 7856

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