This split within the leadership of the woman’s suffrage movement illustrates a crucial division between those suffragists who wanted victory quickly and those who still believed in the idealized equality outlined in The Declaration of Sentiments. Fundamentally, the woman’s suffrage movement had to choose in the twentieth
century whether they wanted to pursue a vision of the future that was radically different, with equality between the sexes and races, or a future in which things were relatively similar, with women voters. One vision promoted the new
woman as man’s equal, but stood as an affront to prescribed gender roles, while the other celebrated traditional feminine virtues. The leaders of the woman’s suffrage movement made a conscious decision based on the context of the Progressive Era to focus their attention not on equality, but on enfranchisement. They understood that modern media afforded them the opportunity to spread a single message. Both the NWP and NAWSA both opted to present the more moderate option to appeal to the most people possible. 

            The identities of American women transformed drastically from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the next. Changes to standards of education, employment, family, and beauty altered the lives of women. Woman suffragists played on these new ideals and appealed to women’s new interests to gain wider support for the vote. The movement created a campaign suited for an audience whose primary goals were to improve society and stave off revolution. Suffragists succeeded, where many other progressive reform efforts failed because of their ability to promote suffrage as a moderate change that would preserve the standards of society rather than challenge them.