finally, i'd like to turn your attention to another even more obscure woman, a woman named elizabeth alexander stevens. and elizabeth alexander stevens is noteworthy mostly because of where she lived. she lived in essex county, new jersey. she was married to a wealthy man who died. and after he died, she moved into essex county where she owned a substantial amount of property on which she paid taxes. why is this significant? well, in new jersey, alone among all the 13 states, women were allowed to vote, to cast ballots for candidates to local, state and federal office from the period 1776 to 1807. this is over 100 years before the passage of the 19th amendment. so how was this possible? it was possible because in the 18th century, both in britain and in america, suffrage was not considered a natural right. it was considered a privilege of property, a property right. only those earning -- owning a certain amount of property were allowed to vote or hold public office. by custom, only men voted. by custom, this meant men, although theoretically, it could have included women, but it didn't. by custom, onl

and so that's how it became possible for a woman like elizabeth alexander stevens to vote in new jersey. both political parties began to court the women's votes. at the same time, as you might imagine, this experiment in female suffrage was very controversial. many men as well as many women found the idea of women voting strange, foreign and unacceptable. it violated their notion of what men's and women's proper roles were. while men were certainly perfectly prepared to involve women in informal political activities such as boycotts, they did not anticipate enlisting them in direct political actions such as voting. so throughout the 1790s and into the early 19th century, there were frequent diatribes against female suffrage in pamphlets, newspapers and in the new jersey legislature itself. many of the attacks were outrageous, hysterical and self-contradictory. some said women lacked the knowledge and judgment to participate in politics. but others feared that women were getting too knowledgeable about politics. some men feared that women were acting too much like men by participating. t