Recent feminist scholarship concerning the United
States in the 1920s challenges earlier interpretations
that assessed the 1920s in terms of the unkept
“promises” of the women's suffrage movement. This
new scholarship disputes the long-held view that
because a women's voting bloc did not materialize
after women gained the right to vote in 1920,
suffrage failed to produce long-term political gains
for women. These feminist scholars also challenge
the old view that pronounced suffrage a failure for
not delivering on the promise that the women's vote
would bring about moral, corruption-free governance.
Asked whether women's suffrage was a failure, these
scholars cite the words of turn-of-the-century social
reformer Jane Addams, “Why don't you ask if suffrage
in general is failing?”
  In some ways, however, these scholars still present
the 1920s as a period of decline. After suffrage, they
argue, the feminist movement lost its cohesiveness,
and gender consciousness waned. After the mid-
1920s, few successes could be claimed by feminist
reformers: little could be seen in the way of legislative
victories.
  During this decade, however, there was intense
activism aimed at achieving increased autonomy for
women, broadening the spheres within which they
lived their daily lives. Women's organizations worked
to establish opportunities for women: they strove to
secure for women the full entitlements of citizenship,
including the right to hold office and the right to serve
on juries.