When Canvassers Became Activists: How The Antislavery Petition Mobilized Women

November 1, 2:30pm - 4:00pm
Mānoa Campus, Saunders 624

Professor Colin Moore, UHM Political Science, uses an original dataset of over 8,500 anti-slavery petitions sent to Congress (1833-1845) to argue that women’s petition canvassing entailed skill-building that prepared them for later activism. Petitioning marked American women’s early mass participation, but the implications of women as canvassers have been little explored.

Moore finds that women canvassers gathered fifty percent or more signatures (absolute and per capita) than men circulating the same petition requests in the same locales. He then presents evidence that leaders in the women’s rights and reform campaigns of the 19th century were previously active in anti-slavery canvassing.

Pivotal signers of the Seneca Falls Declaration were anti-slavery petition canvassers, and in an independent sample of post-Civil-War activists, women were four times more likely than men to have served as identifiable canvassers in the 1830s. This study suggests that specific features of political movements – especially canvassing and petitioning – create political education and organizing legacies.


Event Sponsor
Political Science, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Kathy Ferguson, 956-6933, kferguso@hawaii.edu, http://www.politicalscience.hawaii.edu/

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