Benjamin L. Young, speaker of the Massachusetts House, sent this leaflet to Congress with a petition opposing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The leaflet contrasts Alice Paul’s arguments for the ERA with Young’s arguments against it. Young objected to any changes in laws affecting women, and he feared federal encroachment on states’ rights.
Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, National Archives and Records Administration
Leaflet issued by the Legislative Council, Boston, with arguments for and against ERA, February 1924
Equal Rights for Women
After the Nineteenth Amendment secured women’s voting rights in 1920, suffragist Alice Paul drafted the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to guarantee women’s full legal equality. Introduced in every Congress from 1923 to 1972, the ERA was repeatedly stymied in committee. Its opponents feared loss of special protections for women and resisted increasing federal authority. In 1970 Representative Martha Griffiths of Michigan got the ERA discharged from committee. Slightly revised, the amendment passed both houses in 1972 but failed ratification by the required number of states and was never adopted.
Benjamin L. Young, speaker of the Massachusetts House, sent this leaflet to Congress with a petition opposing the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The leaflet contrasts Alice Paul’s arguments for the ERA with Young’s arguments against it. Young objected to any changes in laws affecting women, and he feared federal encroachment on states’ rights.
Records of the U.S. House of Representatives, National Archives and Records Administration
