Legal History From The Lawbook Exchange

Legal History From The Lawbook Exchange


Item 84 is a look at women's suffrage in America prior to the adoption of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the vote. General Constitutional and Statutory Provision Relative to Suffrage was published on behalf of the Rhode Island state legislature in 1912. At the time, there were no federal laws on the subject, so Rhode Island compiled this accounting of suffrage laws in the various states. The state had considered approving the vote for women in 1887, but this was voted down. In 1917, the state finally granted women the right to vote in presidential elections, a law made moot when the 19th Amendment was adopted in 1919, superseding all state laws. $150.

Item 98 is another look at state laws when the nation was on the cusp of change -- States' Laws on Race and Color and Appendices... This is a look at segregation and miscegenation laws as well as various antidiscrimination statutes, anti-lynch laws and the like, compiled by an organization within the Methodist Church. Its purpose was to promote civil rights. The work was published in 1950, four years before the Supreme Court ordered desegregation of schools, and a decade before the civil rights advances of the 1960s. $125.

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