Many historians have explained actresses’ prominence among supporters of woman suffrage in the United States by suggesting that the self-reliance and ambition required for a successful theatrical career made actresses insistence on equality outside the theater inevitable. Yet Goddard notes that few actresses participated in the movement until the decade preceding the legal victory for woman suffrage in 1920. For most of the movement’s history from its beginning in 1848, actresses generally avoided association with the suffrage cause. Goddard attributes this to actresses’ unwillingness to jeopardize their careers by associating themselves with a movement publicly perceived as radically challenging traditional gender roles. Goddard notes that after 1900, suffragists shifted their tactics, presenting themselves as moderates seeking a single-issue reform rather than as radicals challenging social norms.