Part one traces the rise of suffrage militancy, a direct-action approach to politics inspired by Britain’s notoriously militant suffragettes. By 1911, “votes for women” was galvanizing to many, but such radical action was also divisive.
Part Two examines the mounting dispute over strategy and tactics. The suffragists, stung by a string of bitter state-level defeats in the fall of 1915, concentrated their energies on the passage of a federal amendment.