The U.s. Women's Jury Movements And Strategic Adaptation

This book discusses the efforts of women in the United States to gain the right to serve on juries after winning the right to vote in 1920. It examines how strategic adaptation and coalition building helped some movements succeed more quickly than others. The author draws on archival sources to provide a detailed account of this aspect of women's citizenship.

When women won the vote in the United States in 1920 they were still routinely barred from serving as jurors, but some began vigorous campaigns for a place in the jury box. This book tells the story of how women mobilized in fifteen states to change jury laws so that women could gain this additional right of citizenship. Some campaigns quickly succeeded; others took substantially longer. The book reveals that when women strategically adapted their tactics to the broader political environment, they were able to speed up the pace of jury reform, while less strategic movements took longer. A comparison of the more strategic women's jury movements with those that were less strategic shows that the former built coalitions with other women's groups, took advantage of political opportunities, had past experience in seeking legal reforms and confronted tensions and even conflict within their ranks in ways that bolstered their action. Review: 'McCammon offers the reader a wealth of insights and information drawn from an impressive array of archival sources that, together, improve our understanding of how social movements produce social change ... The book is concise and well written and makes an engaging and important contribution to political sociology, social movements' scholarship, and the women's rights movement literature.' Jason T. Carmichael, American Journal of Sociology 'In this comprehensive and engaging book, Holly McCammon explores the activism behind the laws that eventually, although sometimes begrudgingly, granted women in the United States the right to serve on juries ... McCammon provides an impressive level of detail, from archival sources that have been largely untapped by other researchers, about this highly important facet of women's citizenship. With compelling prose and ample support, she answers a previously unasked, but important, question: how did women gain the right to serve on juries in the United States?' Law and History Review