Expansion of Voting Rights for Women in the United States: Gender and Social Movement Activism within Institutional Contexts.

The article focuses on a study which explains the variation in women's suffrage adoption across the 48 contiguous U.S. States' between 1848, when formal activism for suffrage began, and 1918, before the ratification of the 19th Amendment. According to the author, during the 19th century and into the 20th century, it was believed that only men should inhabit the public sphere of business and politics, while considering women biologically and socially fit for only the domestic sphere. The study of the historical accounts of women's suffrage movements in the West suggested patterns inconsistent with mobilization theory.