US. woman suffragists routinely utilized two types of arguments in their demands for voting rights: justice and reform. The former argument held that women should vote because they were men's equals and therefore should have political rights equal to those of men. Reform arguments stated that women should have the ballot because women, given their unique womanly experiences and perspectives, would bring a unique contribution to politics, making society a more humane place. Although social movement scholars have increasingly studied the framing work of movement activists, few systematic studies of framing activity exist. In this work we examine the circumstances that led the suffragists to amplify one or the other of these motivational frames. We find that the suffragists were quite strategic in their choice of frames, targeting particular audiences and taking advantage of cultural opportunities for frame resonance. We find only limited evidence that their frames were driven by the collective identity of particular groups in the movement.The individuals who participated in the state woman suffrage movements in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries rarely engaged in disruptive and militant activities. The method of gaining voting rights for women that permeated nearly every tactic employed by the suffragists was argumentation. That is, they regularly worked to persuade listeners with their rhetoric that women indeed should be full participants in the democratic system. The suffragists gave public speeches, carried banners in parades, spoke informally on street corners, wrote newspaper columns, distributed handbills, and

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