The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

I am in possession of a book written by Carol Felsenthal. A liberal Jew, writing for Chicago Magazine, it is entitled The Sweetheart of the Silent Majority, a biography of Phyllis Schlafly, published around the start of the eighties. It covers a number of aspects of her life, but honing in on her success in defeating the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), the crusade she has most been identified with, Felsenthal (a supporter of ERA) expounds on what she believes were a number of mistakes by feminists in trying to ratify the amendment, and how in the end, they actually succeeded in alienating a large number of women. From a look at a current available preview of the series before its release in April, it seems the it may touch on those aspects of the story. By the middle of 1982, when the deadline passed to ratify ERA, 35 of the necessary 38 states had ratified the amendment to be part of the US Constitution. Coming out of the Senate in 1972, by the end of 1973 however, 30 states had ratified the amendment. Between 1974 and 1977, only five more states ratified the ERA, causing Congress to extend the deadline for this, by another three years. But in addition to this, five states had also rescinded their ratification, by the final deadline. What explains this massive change of momentum, in the other direction? Clearly this was the result of a highly effective grass roots campaign, started by Phyllis Schlafly in 1972 known as STOP ERA, which Felsenthal in the book, tries also to uncover the secrets of its surprising success. ERA had a considerable number of influential financial backers, which in the end, seemed to be to its disadvantage. It will be interesting to see if the series gets into these issues.