Even before Arkansas women began formally organizing women’s suffrage campaigns, the February 25, 1869 edition of the Arkansas Gazette ran an editorial lampooning the very notion.
It begins, “And are they serious in this movement in favor of woman’s rights?” and asks “Don’t [women] wield already the most absolute despotism on earth? .... are not all men slaves to their caprices?”
The only right of women the writer is willing to endorse is the “right to dress, to look as pretty as they please.”
While this editorial may have been tongue-in-cheek, it marks the beginning of the newspaper’s ambivalent relationship with Arkansas suffragettes. To learn more, visit ARvotesforwomen.com.