The 1915 Cable Act and Women's Colonial Citizenship

In 1915, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a case that would shape the lives of women in America's new overseas colonies for decades: the Cable Act, part of a broader push to define who could be a U.S. citizen—and who couldn't. This episode explores the little-known story of how women's citizenship became entangled with empire, focusing on the case of a woman named Ethel Mackenzie, who sued for the right to vote after marrying a foreign national. Lucas and Luna examine the racial and gendered logic behind the 1907 Expatriation Act, the Insular Cases, and the struggle for suffrage in Puerto Rico and the Philippines. They discuss key figures like Luisa Capetillo, who challenged both colonial rule and patriarchal norms, and the role of the Women's Suffrage Party in pressing for a unified standard. The episode reveals how the fight for the 19th Amendment was also a fight about who belonged to the nation—and how the cable around women's citizenship was only slowly unwound. #CableAct #EthelMackenzie #ExpatriationAct #WomenSuffrage #PuertoRico #Philippines #LuisaCapetillo #InsularCases #19thAmendment #ColonialCitizenship #USEmpire #1915 #SupremeCourt #Gender #Race #Citizenship #FexingoHistory #History Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo