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Now you tell me the urban states were pressuring the rurals to give women the vote. I don't think so! NY Is the real outlier; the only state with < 1/3 of its population rural to give women the vote early.
If you're refering to me, I never said anything about urban states pressuring rurals to give women the vote, I was arguing over whether certain states (esp IL) were rural or urban back then. I didn't really think support of women voting was much of an urban vs rural difference; more so a regional difference. The only states that rejected the 19th amendment were southern states (if you count MD and DE as southern states).
NY was historically a region of activism for women's suffrage. Mostly upstate, though in small cities moreso than rural areas.
This information says that a TERRITORY gave women the right to vote, ie. BEFORE it became a state. You are talking about timelines referencing the US in the process of FORMATION. I am talking about timelines with respect to the US being a formed set of states that have a common national direction, thus having the structure to allow or disallow national social trends to be adopted. NOT territories that call their own shots, not being in the United States, or territories just admitted to the United States and therefore still of the mindset to call their own shots rather than listen to the national voice. So thanks for providing anecdotal information from before it made sense for national social trends to permeate throughought the continental US, but it really has nothing to do with the modern timeframe where national social trends reasonably SHOULD permeate throughout the continental US.
I'm sure there were national trends back then. The (male) voters of the territories voted in support of women's suffrage. Some of the states listed, such as Colorado, were states when women's suffrage was established.
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In times that ARE relevant, you know where the United States was actually the UNITED STATES, cities have led the drive for social rights. The civil rights movement- CITIES first, rural dragging up the rear. Now the gay rights movement- CITIES first, rural dragging up the rear. Do you dare try to deny THAT?
You brought the topic up and now you're calling it irrelvant?
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Originally Posted by MantaRay
Then you misinterpreted my posts. I judge people for the fact that they dismiss everybody else's perspective as irrelevant, that they dismiss what is in the best interest for Americans across the board to only focus on what works for themselves. There is a reason that it was the big cities which FIRST pushed forward with the women's sufferage movement. There is a reason that it was the big cities which FIRST pushed forward with desegregation. There is a reason that with every major issue of social equality in American history, it has been urban America which has lead this nation forward into an inclusive, more respectful society, and it has been rural America which has always been found dragging up the rear. I have judged people for the fact that their attitudes have again and again and again been those found to be dragging up the rear and have tried consistently to keep American society from making positive progress.
Maybe it WAS elitist for America at large to tell rural America to get with the program and let women vote. Maybe it WAS elitist for America at large to tell rural America to get with the program and let minorities vote. Maybe it WAS elitist for America at large to tell rural America to get with the program and let blacks into the same public schools as whites and into the same restaurants as whites. Maybe it DID show a disdain for the rural way of doing things, the rural me and my kind mentality. And if it did, so be it- America at large was elitist, and rural America was bass-ackwards. Maybe rural America might start to notice a historical trend?
gay rights, yes more big cities with some exceptions. Civil rights, in some cases big cities were more racist than rural areas. Rural population is rather small today, and for MA has been not much more than 10-15% for over 100 years.
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Originally Posted by nei
Of race, I doubt rural areas in the north are particularly racist. At least in the 60s, parts of cities and suburbs may have been more racist. A check on the George Wallace vote in 1968 gives a hint, though there may have been other reasons to vote for him he did have openly racist platform. For New York State, his vote came from relatively recent suburban counties and Staten Island, which had similar demographics. Rural counties were a bit below urban ones. Women's suffrage started in rural states as mentioned before.
I think the pattern follows through much of the north.
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Originally Posted by MantaRay
If that's the tendency of the region, then Missouri seems to buck that trend. To me Missouri and Iowa seem like trend-breakers. Iowa is rural but progressive-minded, Missouri has two very large cities- St. Louis and Kansas City, but it going Republican in elections seems to be almost a foregone conclusion.
Not really. Missouri is more lower Midwest, Iowa is further north. There's a general north vs south difference in the midwest (and a bit in the northeast) where non-urban areas are more likely to vote democrat. As I said before the most heavily republican parts of Wisconsin are Milwaukee suburb.
I'm sure there were national trends back then. The (male) voters of the territories voted in support of women's suffrage. Some of the states listed, such as Colorado, were states when women's suffrage was established.
You brought the topic up and now you're calling it irrelvant?
gay rights, yes more big cities with some exceptions. Civil rights, in some cases big cities were more racist than rural areas. Rural population is rather small today, and for MA has been not much more than 10-15% for over 100 years.
I think the pattern follows through much of the north.
Not really. Missouri is more lower Midwest, Iowa is further north. There's a general north vs south difference in the midwest (and a bit in the northeast) where non-urban areas are more likely to vote democrat. As I said before the most heavily republican parts of Wisconsin are Milwaukee suburb.
In point of fact, ALL the rest were states when women got the vote.
If you're refering to me, I never said anything about urban states pressuring rurals to give women the vote, I was arguing over whether certain states (esp IL) were rural or urban back then. I didn't really think support of women voting was much of an urban vs rural difference; more so a regional difference. The only states that rejected the 19th amendment were southern states (if you count MD and DE as southern states).
NY was historically a region of activism for women's suffrage. Mostly upstate, though in small cities moreso than rural areas.
No, I was not referring to you; I am sorry if I made it sound that way. The big regional difference in women's suffrage was west vs east. The east, the "old country" with their "this is the way we've always done it" mentality, was behind the west.
You brought the topic up and now you're calling it irrelvant?
I brought up the topic that US cities tend to be more liberal and that has even been the case with the push for civil rights. But that was in the context of cities in the US, ie. a United States of America with a shared national interest and direction. During the time of the civil war, there was not a shared national interest, there was a distinct national DIVISION. So when there is inherent division to the point of a nation almost splitting in half, and that thrown in with territories sort of marching to the beat of their own drummer, it kinda becomes less of a relevant period to focus on for the conversation about "these US places were doing this socially, but these others were lagging far behind." With the nation being so split and so state/territory-centric back then, there was no single social direction to JUDGE who was stepping up and who was not. Only after the states were solidly in the union and a shared national direction was a foregone conclusion did it become more relevant to say "THIS place is a leader in the national social direction moving forward and THAT place is a laggard."
Back then the north was more in favor of advancing rights, and the south was more against advancing rights. The dividing lines were more territory/region basedwith their different philosophies than city vs rural based throughout the unified nation. Even die hard conservatives today lament the move from more state-focused governance early in our history to more central governance today. That shift in America is HUGE in setting the context for this discussion. Pre-shift the trends break down, post shift the trends reinforce and even allows the question the OP asks to be a legitimate question in the first place.
Comparisons in a vacuum are all well and good, but foundations for comparison are critical to comparison. In the old days before the states were established and fully united, different territories would naturally have their own way of doing things, their own philosophy. The advent of American population centers trending one political way and rural America trending a different political way is necessarily more dependent on the various states being fully integrated into the American fabric. Before the civil war and for some time afterward, states were not fully integrated into the American fabric. So it's the time period that's irrelevant to the topic OF American city national politics vs American rural national politics in the context of liberal vs. conservative direction forward as one nation, not that topic itself that's irrelevant.
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Originally Posted by nei
gay rights, yes more big cities with some exceptions.
Exactly. There are always exceptions to trends and tendencies. But my response to that is that the exceptions don't negate the existence of the trends and tendencies. And my thesis is that the trend/tendency is for urban US cities to be more liberal/Democratic leaning and rural areas to be more conservative/Republican leaning in the context of national political direction, and that social rights is one category which serves as evidence of that divide in trends and tendencies.
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Originally Posted by nei
Civil rights, in some cases big cities were more racist than rural areas.
Some big cities in for example the south were more racist than some rural areas in for example Pennsylvania. And again exceptions to tendencies do exist. However, the tendency was still there then and still is today. That's why I'm focusing on the tendencies and not trying to speak in absolutes. That's why I brought up my interest in Iowa as somewhere that seems to be an exception to the general tendency. The exceptions are interesting to discuss to find out why they ARE exceptions, if it turns out they really are exceptions in the first place, but that realization and inquiry doesn't negate the existence of the larger trend and inquiry into it.
But yes, I agree that some rural areas were more open to civil rights than some big cities.
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Originally Posted by nei
Missouri is more lower Midwest, Iowa is further north. There's a general north vs south difference in the midwest (and a bit in the northeast) where non-urban areas are more likely to vote democrat. As I said before the most heavily republican parts of Wisconsin are Milwaukee suburb.
Actually speaking of exceptions, from the electoral maps it looks like Wisconsin is an exception among states but even for states in that area in having suburbs of its population center being more conservative/Republican leaning than the rural areas. Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan are not like that, and most states not in that region are not like that either- THAT being the suburban more conservative vs rural aspect, not the more democratic rural northern vs less democratic rural southern aspect. In most states around Wisconsin and in the rest of the US, urban is more democratic, suburban is more of a close mix, and rural is more republican.
If you're refering to me, I never said anything about urban states pressuring rurals to give women the vote, I was arguing over whether certain states (esp IL) were rural or urban back then. I didn't really think support of women voting was much of an urban vs rural difference; more so a regional difference.
Actually it has been both. The south has had more of a traditional view of family with "a woman's place" whereas the North and West have been quicker to expand and accommodate the newer definition of women as society has progressed. That is true in the greater political framework as well- California and Oregon and Colorado and New York and Pennsylvania are clearly more democratic than Mississippi and Alabama and Louisiana.
However, looking within the south in particular, that mentality OF "a woman's place" or OF "minorities' place" was more quickly shed in southern cities than in the rural south. Progressiveness on those and other social issues has been seen more quickly in southern cities than in the rural south. So in the MOST backwards, most resistent to change region of this nation on social issues, the city vs. rural trend still proves intact, even to the specific categories of women's rights and minorities' rights.
So even my comments weren't about urban states pressuring rural states to give women the vote. It was about again how the city trends quicker to push social rights than the rural, that trend holding true even in the most socially laggard region of the United States.
As the OP implied, cities simply make for more liberal/progressive philosophies than the rural.
Actually speaking of exceptions, from the electoral maps it looks like Wisconsin is an exception among states but even for states in that area in having suburbs of its population center being more conservative/Republican leaning than the rural areas. Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan are not like that, and most states not in that region are not like that either- THAT being the suburban more conservative vs rural aspect, not the more democratic rural northern vs less democratic rural southern aspect. In most states around Wisconsin and in the rest of the US, urban is more democratic, suburban is more of a close mix, and rural is more republican.
Wisconsin is the most extreme example, but that whole region has less of a contrast in voting between suburban and rural. If you look at only white voting patterns for reasons I mentioned earlier, the contrast gets even smaller. Upstate NY has a similar pattern, and you're forgetting New England .
However, looking within the south in particular, that mentality OF "a woman's place" or OF "minorities' place" was more quickly shed in southern cities than in the rural south. Progressiveness on those and other social issues has been seen more quickly in southern cities than in the rural south. So in the MOST backwards, most resistent to change region of this nation on social issues, the city vs. rural trend still proves intact, even to the specific categories of women's rights and minorities' rights.
I very unfamiliar with the south, but more so than anywhere culturally and politically it has its on regional peculiarities, so I wouldn't use its patterns to describe anywhere not in the south.
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