Minnie Bronson

Minnie Bronson was an American anti-suffragist activist who was general secretary of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage.[1][2]

Minnie Bronson
Photograph of Minnie Bronson in the catalogue of the Jamestown Exhibition 1907
Born
Fayette, Iowa
NationalityAmerican
OccupationEducator, labor investigator, exposition organizer
Known forAnti-suffrage activism

Biography

Minnie Bronson was from Fayette, Iowa.[3] Her father, Harvey S. Brunson, came from Ohio and worked as a minister, a hotel operator, and a director of Upper Iowa University. Her mother, Jane McCool, was originally from Illinois. Bronson was the youngest of five siblings.[4]

Bronson graduated from Upper Iowa University with an A.B. and M.A.[5] During her time in university she participated in several oratorical contests; one of her competitions was attended by social reformer Jane Addams, who would comment on the performance in her autobiography.[6][7]

Bronson worked as a high school mathematics teacher in St. Paul, Minnesota from 1889 to 1899. Beginning in 1900, she led the design of educational exhibits at world's fair expositions including Paris (1900), the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo (1901), St. Louis (1904), Liège (1905), Jamestown, Virginia (1907), and Seattle (1909).[5] She also held a number of short-term assignments working for the U.S. government, including as a Special Agent for the Bureau of Labor investigating labor conditions for women and children from 1907 to 1909 and Special Agent reporting on the New York shirtwaist strike in 1910.[5]

During World War I, Bronson was a member of the American Committee for Devastated France and traveled throughout France. She presented about the organization's work to the Iowa Bankers Association convention in 1919.[8][9]

Anti-suffragist activity

Bronson served as General Secretary for the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS), the United States' leading anti-suffrage organization based in New York City.[10] She edited their weekly periodical, the Woman Patriot, that distributed anti-suffrage opinion across the country.[11] In December 1913, Bronson addressed the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Woman Suffrage representing the "anti" perspective, alongside speeches given by prominent suffragists Anna Howard Shaw, Helen H. Gardener, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Ida H. Harper.[12]

A skilled orator and organizer, Bronson was active in speaking tours and debates in New York and other states throughout the U.S., together with Josephine Jewell Dodge, the president of NAOWS. Her campaigning took her across the country including California, Nevada, South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Washington D.C., and Virginia.[2][13] She also organized training classes to teach others how to dissect pro-suffrage arguments.[14] With her background as a wage-earning woman - in contrast to many prominent anti-suffragists of the period, who came from wealthy families - Bronson was able to promote her connection with the working class in her public speaking and writing.[15] Her events were often well-attended, though sometimes attracted significant attention and criticism from her pro-suffrage opponents. During a visit to Nevada in 1914, Bronson was escorted from the theatre where she had been speaking and, according to local news reports, "agitators" set the building on fire.[16]

In her speeches and reports, Bronson maintained that granting the vote to women would not have a positive impact on improving women's social and economic circumstances.[17] A frequently-referenced line of argument held that opening up the vote to all women would dilute the influence of educated and reform-minded women who were better positioned to affect the political change she desired. Before an audience of 150 women in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Bronson was reported to have said: "In attaining the ballot, we believe that the best women would throw away the advantage which is now in their hands. In shaping public opinion, the intelligent and good woman now counts immeasurably, while the ignorant and vicious woman counts scarely at nil. But at the ballot box, both would be equal."[18]

Bronson, together with Massachusetts anti-suffragist Alice George, created a recording of the song "The Anti-Suffrage Rose" featured at the New York State Fair.[19]

Publications
  • The Wage-Earning Woman and the State (1912)[5]
  • Woman Suffrage and Child Labor Legislation (1914)[20]
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References
  1. Baker, Jean H. (2002). Votes for Women: The Struggle for Suffrage Revisited. Oxford University Press. p. 121. ISBN 0198029837.
  2. Mead, Rebecca (2006). How the vote was won: woman suffrage in the western United States, 1868-1914. New York University Press. ISBN 0814757227.
  3. "Tail Feathers" (PDF). The Bridge. Upper Iowa University: 35. Summer 2004.
  4. Currey, Josiah Seymour (1912). "Solon C. Bronson". Chicago: Its History and its Builders, Volume 5. pp. 57–58.
  5. Bronson, Minnie (1912). The Wage-earning Woman and the State. Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage to Women. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  6. Brown, Victoria Bissell (2004). The education of Jane Addams. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 67. ISBN 0812237471.
  7. "State Oratorical Contest" (PDF) (April, Vol. XIII, No. 8). State University of Iowa. University Reporter. 1881. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  8. Proceedings of the Thirty Third Annual Convention of the Iowa Bankers Association. Des Moines: Iowa Bankers Association. 1919. hdl:2027/njp.32101066789098.
  9. W. C. Jarnagin (1919). "Iowa Banking News, June 14, 1919". The Chicago Banker: A Weekly Paper Devoted to the Banking and Financial Interests of the Middle West, Volume 47. Chicago Banker Company. pp. 338–339. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  10. The Case Against Woman Suffrage: A Manual for Speakers, Debaters, Lecturers, Writers, and Anyone who Wants the Facts. Man-Suffrage Association. 1915. p. 69. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  11. Endres, Kathleen L. (1996). Women's periodicals in the United States : social and political issues. Greenwood Press. p. 446. ISBN 0313286329. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  12. "Statement of Miss Minnie Bronson, General Secretary of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage". Congressional Serial Set. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1914. pp. 45, 144. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  13. Green, Elna C. (2000). Southern strategies: southern women and the woman suffrage question. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0807861758.
  14. Goodier, Susan (2015). No votes for women: the New York state anti-suffrage movement. University of Illinois Press. pp. 99, 121. ISBN 978-0252094675.
  15. Benjamin, Anne Myra (2014). Women Against Equality: A History of the Anti Suffrage Movement In the United States from 1895 to 1920. Lulu. p. 135. ISBN 978-1483418650.
  16. Bernard, Patti. "EMMA (LEE) ADAMS". Nevada Women's History Project. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  17. Woman's Suffrage: Report by Miss Bronson. Transactions of the Commonwealth Club of California, Volume 6. 1912. pp. 117–130. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  18. "ANTI-SUFFRAGISTS Hold Well Attended Meeting at Home of the Misses Houghton— Miss Minnie Bronson Speaker" (Volume XXXV, Number 12). Cambridge Tribune. May 18, 1912. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  19. "Highlighted Sheet Music Selections - Articles and Essays - Women's Suffrage in Sheet Music - Digital Collections - Library of Congress". Library of Congress. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  20. Bronson, Minnie. (1914). "Woman suffrage and child labor legislation (1914)". Hathi Trust. National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
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