The Cable Act of 1922

The Cable Act (also called The Married Women’s Independent Nationality Act) was passed by
Congress in 1922.

Previously, if an American woman married a

foreign-born man, she lost her U.S. citizenship.

(If an American man married a foreign-born woman, his citizenship was not affected.)

The passing of the Cable Act provided that, in part (relevant to my grandma),

US-born women married to foreign men who were eligible for

naturalization could go through the naturalization process

on their own merits; the women’s naturalization would not need

to depend on the respective husband’s naturalization process. 

Polly (my grandmother) married in 1917. She really fell right in
between the Expatriation Act of 1907 and the Cable Act of 1922.
Vincent did not become naturalized until 1928.

I am not sure why my grandmother waited until 1930 to apply for
naturalization. Under the 1922 Cable Act, Pauline could have
applied for naturalization even without her husband doing so.

Maybe she was wholly unaware of the law.
Maybe it was too time consuming to file or maybe
too costly, monetarily. The Nineteenth Amendment, giving
American women the right to vote, was passed in 1920.
Pauline did not become a naturalized citizen until 1933,
essentially missing out on thirteen years of asserting her rights as an
American. 

If my grandmother waited so long to become naturalized--even
after laws were passed to grant that--I cannot help but
wonder how many other women were also not exercising
their rights. I mean, they may have been on to something
by the saying, “use it or lose it.” Even though men were
in power in the 1920s in America, I do wonder if outcomes
would have been different if women who would have been
eligible to take advantage of their voting rights could
have asserted them. 

I digress. Pauline did become naturalized after all in 1933.
She had to pledge to give up allegiance to the Republic of Poland,
a country she had never (and would never) set foot on during
her lifetime.