Early anti-suffrage activism: 1913-1920 In 1913, Kilbreth joined the anti-suffrage movement, a group campaigning against
women's right to vote. She was involved in the New York State Association of the anti-suffrage movement. In 1916, she served as their congressional committee chairwoman. With women's suffrage becoming increasingly possible in the United States from 1917-1919, many anti-suffragists left the movement. However, Kilbreth stayed and gained new leadership roles with the mass departure of many of the women. Next, she was president of the Women's Voter's Party, a reformed version of the New York State Association after women's suffrage passed in New York in 1918. NAOWS gained new influence as they moved their New York headquarters to Washington, D.C. The
19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920. Kilbreth and the NAOWS shifted their energy to running the Woman Patriot Publishing Company (WPPC). The newspaper changed its focus from anti-suffrage to
antifeminism and anti-radicalism. The WPPC received much of its funding from the same people and organizations who used to financially support NAOWS. However, the newspaper still struggled financially during its run. A few years after starting the newspaper,
The Woman Patriot started printing once a month instead of every week to save money. In an edition of
The Women Patriot from July 24, 1920, Killbreth expressed hope about using women's new voting power to oppose leaders in the suffrage movement. However, she also explains why she is opposed to suffrage. She believed it will "either require the great majority of women to enter politics against their will, or to be misrepresented at the polls by the radical and underworld women who always vote". Her other reason for being against women voting is that "woman suffrage means the gradual advent of feminism, destruction of family unity, duplication of effort and combining of sex natures toward a weak medium, and will have an adverse effect upon civilization and posterity". She wrote that the
feminist movement was a "sex revolution". Moreover, Kilbreth was very politically active. She often wrote directly to politicians. On October 9, 1919, she wrote to
Thomas Walter Bickett, the
governor of North Carolina, asking him to oppose the ratification of the 19th amendment to legalize women's suffrage. In her view, the amendment violated
states' rights. She wrote that the 17 states that had ratified the amendment "interfered unwarrantable in the local self-government of other states". Kilbreth made her opinion known, writing to President
Warren G. Harding that his signature on the bill was "inspired by foreign experiments in
Communism, and backing by radical forces in this country". The bill was repealed on June 30, 1929. She claimed that communists and
socialists were pushing women to support
welfare initiatives that would harm the parent-child relationship. She also utilized the argument that the act was beyond federal power. Kilbreth also had direct contact with influential activists, including those with whom she disagreed. At some point, it seems that Kilbreth sent a letter to the Women's International
League of Peace and Freedom about a member's oath.
Jane Addams wrote a draft of a letter addressed to Kilbreth dated May 72, 1924. Addams replied to Kilbreth that "in spite of [meeting reports] and the fact that you have quoted from literature in no wide official, I am sure you must admit that we have never officially taken an oath of any kind". Kilbreth had a tense relationship with suffragist
Carrie Chapman Catt. In Kilbreth's article "The New Anti-Feminist Campaign" in a July 1921 of
The Woman Patriot, she directly states she is answering "Mrs Catt's" question "What is Feminism?". She describes it as "a world-wide revolt against all artificial barriers which laws and customs interpose between women and human freedom". Chapman wrote a letter to
Harriet Taylor Upton on May 17, 1927. She reported that she "learned that Miss Kilbreth of the Patriot was stuffing the Attorney General's office with all of the lies possible". Kilbreth helped
Harry Daughertry create a list of disloyal people. Chapman wrote that she had "forgotten now just who was on the list, but it was our own folks and they were just about as much traitors to the government as we are now." Nevertheless, the ideas from this company influenced generations of
conservative women. The great impact of Kilbreth's newspaper stemmed from the way it promoted its own ideas to organizations with a larger audience such as
Daughters of the American Revolution, which became more conservative after the
red scare, or bigger newspapers including
The New York Times. ==Death ==