An American History

THE POLITICS OF PROGRESSIVISM ★^721

wretched sweatshops. “Emancipation on the one side,” she pointedly observed,
“has meant no corresponding emancipation for the other.” A generation later,
under Kelley’s leadership, the National Consumers’ League became the nation’s
leading advocate of laws governing the working conditions of women and chil-
dren. Freedom of choice in the marketplace, Kelley insisted, enabled socially
conscious consumers to “unite with wage earners” by refusing to purchase
goods produced under exploitative conditions.

The Campaign for Woman Suffrage

After 1900, the campaign for woman suffrage moved beyond the mostly elite
membership of the 1890s to engage a broad coalition ranging from middle-
class members of women’s clubs to unionists, socialists, and settlement- house
workers. For the first time, it became a mass movement. Membership in the
National American Woman Suffrage Association grew from 13,000 in 1893 to
more than 2 million by 1917. The group campaigned throughout the country
for the right to vote and began to enjoy some success. By 1900, more than half
the states allowed women to vote in local elections dealing with school issues,
and Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah had adopted full woman suffrage.
The West also led the way in women holding public office. The first women
to become mayors of major cities, governors, and members of Congress hailed

In what ways did Progressivism include both democratic and anti- democratic impulses?

Mayor Mary W. Howard (center) and the town council of Kanab, Utah. They served from 1912
to 1914, the first all- female municipal government in American history.