Women’s Legal History and Mabel Raef Putnam’s Account of Wisconsin Equal Rights Reform, 1923

Mabel Rael Putnam Women’s Rights

First Edition

Putnam, Mabel Raef. The Winning of the First Bill of Rights for American Women, 1923, gives a participant’s account of the legal campaign behind Wisconsin’s equal-rights law for women after ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Putnam records the process by which women’s formal voting rights were followed by efforts to secure broader civil equality in statute and court practice, revealing how post-suffrage reform moved from ballot access to legal status. The book provides primary-source evidence for the study of women’s legal history, equal-rights legislation, courtroom advocacy, and the early 1920s struggle to define citizenship after suffrage.

Putnam, Mabel Raef. The Winning of the First Bill of Rights for American Women. Milwaukee: Frank Putnam, 1923. First edition. 92 pages. Five black-and-white photographs of the author and other figures connected to the proceedings. Original gold boards. 5.5 x 7.5 inches. Putnam writes from direct courtroom presence, giving close attention to the legal arguments, personalities, and procedural steps involved in securing what she called the first bill of rights for American women. Contemporary listings note the title as scarce, with NUC locating six copies, though institutional counts can vary over time.

Published in the same decade that the National Woman’s Party pressed equal-rights principles beyond the vote, Putnam’s account preserves a state-level legal victory within the broader post-suffrage rights movement. Water stain to front and rear pastedowns and free endpapers, single light pink stain along margin and foreedge not affecting text, pages toned, spine titles faded, textblock and binding tight; very good. A focused women’s legal history volume documenting how suffrage-era activism translated into statutory equality claims.

Item #17824

Price: $450.00