America When Feminized (1920), a Montgomery broadside against the Nineteenth Amendment

America When Feminized is a 1920 broadside from the Southern Woman's League for Rejection of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment in Montgomery, Alabama. It opens on a quotation credited to "Dr. William J. Hichson, Chicago University" and asks readers to reject the federal woman suffrage amendment.

The full text

The broadside is all type: a headline, a long quotation, a paragraph of argument, a demand, and the league's name and Montgomery address. It is short enough to give whole.

AMERICA WHEN FEMINIZED

"American pep which was the result of a masculine dominated country will soon be a thing of the past. With the collapse of the male ascendancy in this country we can look forward to a nation of degeneration. The suppression of sex will ultimately have its harvest in decadence, a phenomenon already beginning. The effect of the social revolution on American character will be to make "sissies" of American men—a process already well under way."—Dr. William J. Hichson, Chicago University.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE denatures both men and women; it masculinizes women and feminizes men. The history of ancient civilizations has proven that a weakening of the man power of nations has been but a pre-runner of decadence in civilization.

Will you stand for this? Prove that you will not by voting to Reject the Federal Woman Suffrage Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

SOUTHERN WOMAN'S LEAGUE FOR REJECTION OF THE SUSAN B. ANTHONY AMENDMENT

1517 Madison Avenue, Montgomery, Ala.

Brown Printing Co., Montgomery, Ala. 5832

How it argues

The archive tags testimonial and fear appeal. The authority is "Dr. William J. Hichson, Chicago University," and the broadside gives no title, journal, or date for his words. The second paragraph cites "The history of ancient civilizations" and names none. The ending turns a prediction into a dare: "Will you stand for this?" The archive's description sums it up: a named academic vouches for the forecast, no evidence is given, and a single remedy follows.

The record lists the issuer as a movement, the audience as the domestic public, and the event as the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. The copy is held by the Alabama Department of Archives and History and reached the archive through Wikimedia Commons.

What it got wrong

The league had every right to print this, and it signed it with a street address. The argument was still wrong. It asked Americans to keep women from the ballot on the strength of an unsourced prophecy about "sissies" and decadence. Equal voting rights did not need to pass a test of national manliness.

The suffrage case study quotes this sheet next to a Virginia anti-suffrage broadside headed "DANGER!" A card of about 1915 from the Georgia Association Opposed to Woman's Suffrage made its own racial motive explicit. On the other side, the New Jersey Next poster stamp asked for a yes vote with a horn-blowing rider and the referendum dates.