Philadelphia’s Jewish
Women Fought Hard for
the Right to Vote
C Sophie Panzer | JE Staff
aroline Katzenstein knew something had to change.

In 1915, the Philadelphia-based insurance agent and suffragist (American
women did not use the term “suffragette”) witnessed women’s enfranchise-
ment fail to pass statewide referenda in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and
Massachusetts. The campaign for a federal amendment seemed to be going nowhere.

“That’s when she decided, ‘OK, we have to do more. What we’ve been doing is not
working. We need to be more militant,’” said Melissa Klapper, professor of history
and director of gender studies at Rowan University and author of “Ballots, Babies, and
Banners of Peace: American Jewish Women’s Activism, 1890-1940.”
Katzenstein went to work for the National Woman’s Party, a militant suffrage party
founded by Alice Paul, and helped organize protests inspired by the political radicalism
of British suffragists.

She was one of many Jewish women who participated in the decades-long fight for
women’s suffrage in the United States. Aug. 18 marked the 100th anniversary of their
ultimate victory: the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which extended voting rights
to women.

Klapper said the American Jewish community was generally supportive of women’s
Suffragists protest outside the White House in 1917.
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