It continued: “Philosophers have observed that the female desire is invariably kindled by that which is, or seems to be, unattainable.”

The article — which examined a debate between Anthony and Edward Rosewater, a Republican politician and newspaper editor from Omaha — shot down Anthony’s assertion that disenfranchisement was akin to degradation. To be “disfranchised,” it stated, one would have to be robbed of a right “he (or she) already holds.”

It then reinforced a central argument made by those who opposed women’s suffrage: that it would lead to the destruction of the traditional home. “To give woman the ballot, provided woman wanted it, would be to bring desolation and distraction into multitudes of happy homes.”

Ms. Bernikow, whose current work focuses on the effort to achieve women’s suffrage in New York City, said The Times and its editors were “speaking to the status quo.”

“They’re entrenched white men,” she said. “The main boogeyman that they’ve come up with is home life.”

It took another generation for the movement to gain a wider audience, Ms. Bernikow said. Harriot Stanton Blatch, a daughter of the women’s rights pioneer Elizabeth Cady Stanton, broadened the movement from its initial focus on morality — that it was immoral to believe that women were not citizens.