March is Women’s History Month in the United States, and this year it honors the suffragists, whose valiant efforts gained women the right to vote. Over a span of eighty years these women tirelessly wrote, gave speeches, marched, and even went to prison in support of their cause, which culminated in the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution granting all citizens the same voting rights regardless of gender. This year marks the centennial of the amendment, ratified in 1920.
Anthony expressed an interest in Christian Science and wrote to Mary Baker Eddy in January 1887 about the first three volumes of History of Woman Suffrage.
Anticipating this progressive step, Mary Baker Eddy wrote: “Our laws are not impartial, to say the least, in their discrimination as to the person, property, and parental claims of the two sexes. If the elective franchise for women will remedy the evil without encouraging difficulties of greater magnitude, let us hope it will be granted” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 63).
