Wednesday, March 16, 2011

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle (and writes the letter)

Feeche was researching the Jazz era for his report on the Great Gatsby and came across the following article.  My son, dear boy, said, "I'll bet Rep Burns was homeschooled."

In May, 1919, the necessary two-thirds vote in favor of the women suffrage amendment was finally mustered in Congress, and the proposed amendment was sent to the states for ratification.  By July 1920, with a number of primarily southern states adamantly opposed to the amendment, it all came down to Tennessee.  It appeared that the amendment might fail by one vote in the Tennessee house, but twenty-four-year-old Harry Burns surprised observers by casting the deciding vote for ratification At the time of his vote, Burns had in his pocket a letter he had received from his mother urging him, "Don't forget to be a good boy" and "vote for suffrage."  Women had finally won the vote.

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