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The Seneca Falls Convention was the event that started the Women's Suffrage Movement. This was the event that later on gave women the right to vote.
Annotated article - Seneca Falls Convention - HISTORY

https://scrible.com/s/sF8A0

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Contents

1. What Was the Seneca Falls Convention?

2. Who Organized the Seneca Falls Convention

3. Declaration of Sentiments

4. The Resolutions

5. Reactions to the Seneca Falls Convention

6. The Fight for Women's Rights

The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention in the United States. Held in July 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, the meeting launched the women's suffrage movement, which more than seven decades later ensured women the right to vote.
WATCH: Women's History Documentaries on HISTORY Vault
What Was the Seneca Falls Convention?

Originally known as the Woman's Rights Convention, the Seneca Falls Convention fought for the social, civil and religious rights of women. The meeting was held from July 19 to 20, 1848 at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York.

Despite scarce publicity, 300 people-mostly area residents-showed up. On the first day, only women were allowed to attend (the second day was open to men).

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, one of the meeting's organizers, began with a speech on the convention's goals and purpose:
"We are assembled to protest against a form of government, existing without the consent of the governed-to declare our right to be free as man is free, to be represented in the government which we are taxed to support, to have such disgraceful laws as give man the power to chastise and imprison his wife, to take the wages which she earns, the property which she inherits, and, in case of separation, the children of her love."
The convention proceeded to discuss the 11 resolutions on women's rights. All passed unanimously except for the ninth resolution, which demanded the right to vote for women. Stanton and African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass gave impassioned speeches in its defense before it eventually (and barely) passed.

Who Organized the Seneca Falls Convention

The five women who organized the Seneca Falls Convention were also active in the abolitionist movement, which called for an end to slavery and racial discrimination. They included:

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a leading women's rights advocate who was a driving organizer of the Seneca Falls Convention. Stanton first became invested in women's rights after talking to her father, a law professor, and his students. She studied at Troy Female Seminary and worked on women's property rights reform in the early 1840s.

Lucretia Mott, a Quaker preacher from Philadelphia, was known for her anti-slavery, women's rights and religious reform activism.

Mary M'Clintock, the daughter of Quaker anti-slavery, temperance and women's rights activists. In 1833, M'Clintock and Mott organized the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. At the Seneca Falls Convention, M'Clintock was appointed secretary.

Martha Coffin Wright, Lucretia Mott's sister. In addition to being a lifelong proponent of women's rights, she was an abolitionist who ran a station on the Underground Railroad from her Auburn, New York, home.

Jane Hunt, another Quaker activist, was a member of M'Clintock's extended family through marriage.

Stanton and Mott first met in London in 1840, where they were attending the World Anti-Slavery Convention with their husbands. When the convention excluded women delegates solely based on their sex, the pair resolved to hold a women's rights convention.

Did you know? Susan B. Anthony did not attend the Seneca Falls Convention. She would meet Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1851 and spend the next fifty years fighting for women's rights alongside her, including co-founding the American Equal Rights Association.

Back in the United States, women's rights reformers had already begun contending for women's rights to speak out on moral and political issues beginning in the 1830s. Around the same time in New York, where Stanton lived, legal reformers had been discussing equality and challenging state laws prohibiting married women from owning property. By 1848, equal rights for women was a divisive issue.

In July of 1848, Stanton, frustrated with her role staying at home raising kids, convinced Mott, Wright and M'Clintock to help organize the Seneca Falls Convention and write its main manifesto, the Declaration of Sentiments.

Together, the five women drafted a notice to announce "a Convention to discuss the social, civic and religious condition and rights of Woman" around Hunt's tea table.
READ MORE: Early Women's Rights Activists Wanted Much More than Suffrage
Declaration of Sentiments

The Declaration of Sentiments was the Seneca Falls Convention's manifesto that described women's grievances and demands. Written primarily by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, it distilled the importance of the Seneca Falls Convention: for women to fight for their Constitutionally guaranteed right to equality as U.S. citizens.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal," the document stated. Inspired by the Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of Sentiments asserted women's equality in politics, family, education, jobs, religion and morals.

The declaration began with 19 "abuses and usurpations" that were destined to destroy a woman's "confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life."

Because women didn't have the right to vote-a right given to "the most ignorant and degraded men"-they were forced to submit to laws to which they did not consent. Women were denied an education and issued an inferior role in the church.

Moreover, women were required to be obedient to their husbands and prevented from owning property, including the wages they earned (which technically belonged to their husbands). And they received unequal rights upon divorce.

In light of these abuses, the declaration called on women to "throw off such government."

The Resolutions

Next came a list of 11 resolutions, which demanded women be regarded as men's equals. The resolutions called on Americans to regard any laws that placed women in an inferior position to men as having "no force or authority." They resolved for women to have equal rights within the church and equal access to jobs.

The ninth resolution was the most controversial, as it called women "to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise," or the right to vote.

Although its passage led many women's rights proponents to withdraw their support, the ninth resolution went on to become the cornerstone of the women's suffrage movement.

Reactions to the Seneca Falls Convention

In New York and across the U.S., newspapers covered the convention, both in support and against its objectives.

Horace Greely, the influential editor of The New York Tribune, echoed the opinion of many people at the time. While skeptical of giving women the right to vote, he argued that if Americans really believed in the Constitution, women must attain equal rights:
"When a sincere republican is asked to say in sober earnest what adequate reason he can give, for refusing the demand of women to equal participation with men in political rights, he must answer, None at all. However unwise and mistaken the demand, it is but the assertion of a natural right, and such must be conceded."
The Fight for Women's Rights

Two weeks later, on August 2, 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention reconvened at the First Unitarian Church of Rochester, New York, to reaffirm the movement's goals with a larger audience.

In the following years, the convention's leaders continued to campaign for women's rights at state and nationwide events. Reformers frequently referred to the Declaration of Sentiments as they campaigned for women's rights.

Between 1848 and 1862, the participants of the Seneca Falls Convention used the Declaration of Sentiments to "employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf."

After 72 years of organized struggle, American women finally achieved the same rights as men at the polling box when, in 1920, women won the right to vote with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

In November 1920, more than 8 million American women cast their vote in the presidential election. These voters included many Black women, though many others were prevented from voting by discriminatory laws, intimidation and other tactics of disenfranchisement. Native American women (and men) did not secure suffrage until four years later, when the Indian Citizen Act made Native Americans U.S. citizens. By 1965, the Voting Rights Act protected the right to vote for all American citizens-men and women.
READ MORE: 7 Things You Might Not Know About the Women's Suffrage Movement
SOURCES

Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. Rutgers University.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton. National Park Service.
Jane Hunt. National Park Service.
Lucretia Mott. National Park Service.
Mary M'Clintock. National Park Service.
Martha C. Wright. National Park Service.
Report of the Women's Rights Convention. National Park Service.
Second Day of Seneca Falls Convention, July 20, 1848. Library of Congress.
Seneca Falls Convention. The Encyclopedia of New York State.
The Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls Conference, 1848. Fordham University.
The Seneca Falls Convention. Library of Congress.
The Seneca Falls Convention: Setting the National Stage for Women's Suffrage. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

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What Was the Seneca Falls Convention? Who Organized the Seneca Falls Convention Declaration of Sentiments The Resolutions Reactions to the Seneca Falls Convention The Fight for Women's Rights The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention in the United States.

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First National Woman's Suffrage Movement

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October, 1850 - First National Woman's Suffrage Movement

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October, 1850 - First National Woman's Suffrage Movement

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In Worcester, Massachusetts, Paulina Wright Davis organized the National Woman's Rights Convention with people like Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth in attendance.
Annotated article - https://scrible.com/s/c9oAg

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Two years after Seneca Falls, the first national woman's rights meeting, organized by abolitionist Paulina Wright Davis (1813-1876), was held in October 1850, in Worcester, Massachusetts. It attracted more than 1,000 suffrage supporters from throughout the Northeast, Midwest, and California. News of the meeting spread, even reaching Britain where Harriet Taylor (1807-1858), future wife of John Stuart Mill, published a widely read favorable analysis of the proceedings with a carefully reasoned constitutional argument later used by American suffragists.

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First National Women's Rights Convention | Seneca Falls and the Start of Annual Conventions | Seneca Falls and Building a Movement, 1776-1890 | Explore | Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote | Exhibitions at the Library of Congress | Library of Congress

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Tells the story of the seventy-two-year campaign for women's suffrage. Considered the largest reform movement in American history, its participants believed that securing the vote was essential to achieving women's economic, social, and political equality. For years, determined women organized, lobbied, paraded, petitioned, lectured, picketed, and faced imprisonment.

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Sojourner Truth delivered a speech at the Woman's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. Her intent was to convince people that woman, despite color, should be treated equal as men.
Annotated article - https://scrible.com/s/sx8w0

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The most widely quoted version of this famous speech appears first and is from The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, written by others and published in 1875. The second version is from the Salem, Ohio, Anti-Slavery Bugle, which published its version on June 21, 1851, one month after Truth's presentation. Many scholars feel the Bugle 's version is a more accurate portrayal of the speech since it was printed within one month of the convention. However, both versions rely upon personal accounts by others and no known transcript of the speech exists.

Narrative of Sojourner Truth version:

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?

Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman?

I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman?

I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? (Member of audience whispers, "intellect.") That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!

And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

Anti-Slavery Bugle version:

One of the most unique and interesting speeches of the convention was made by Sojourner Truth, an emancipated slave. It is impossible to transfer it to paper, or convey any adequate idea of the effect it produced upon the audience. Those only can appreciate it who saw her powerful form, her whole-souled, earnest gesture, and listened to her strong and truthful tones. She came forward to the platform and addressing the President said with great simplicity:

May I say a few words? Receiving an affirmative answer, she proceeded; I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman's rights [ sic]. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am strong as any man that is now.

As for intellect, all I can say is, if woman have a pint and man a quart-why can't she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much-for we won't take more than our pint'll hold.

The poor men seem to be all in confusion and don't know what to do. Why children, if you have woman's rights give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won't be so much trouble.

I can't read, but I can hear. I have heard the Bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again. The lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept-and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and woman who bore him. Man, where is your part?

But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, and he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.

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Sojourner Truth delivered this speech at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. Born into slavery, Truth is widely known for her abolition and women's rights work. Two versions of this speech are included.

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1865 - American Equal Rights Association is Formed

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1865 - American Equal Rights Association is Formed

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Historical figures such as Frederick Douglass, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Stanton formed the American Equal Rights Association to fight for equality for women.
Annotated article- https://scrible.com/s/s9oC0

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American Equal Rights Association Memorial

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The American Equal Rights Association (AERA) was formed after the Civil War to fight for equality for all blacks and women. Its leaders included Lucretia Mott, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They concluded their plea to Congress: "your memorialists most respectfully and earnestly pray that all discriminations on account of sex or race may be removed."

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The 14th amendment not only protected the liberty of men, but "all Americans" including women. It protected rights on a local, state, and federal level.
Annotated article- https://scrible.com/s/s18ig

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The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868. The amendment granted citizenship to those born or naturalized in the United States and guaranteed freedom, due process, and equal protection under the law to all Americans. In doing so, it expanded the scope of the Constitution's protection of individual liberty; now the Constitution protected rights not only from infringement by the federal government, but from infringement by state and local government as well.

The Fourteenth Amendment's ratification generated some controversy for a time, particularly from legal scholars of the South who claimed that the amendment was invalid because of its ratification process. Despite withdrawing their approval of the amendment, two states (Ohio and New Jersey) were counted as ratifiers of the amendment. Aware of this difficulty, Secretary of State Seward waited until Alabama and Georgia had additionally ratified before officially certifying the Fourteenth Amendment on July 28. Southerners still argued that the amendment was invalid, however, because the beaten southern states, then ruled by federal military commissions, were forced to ratify the amendment in order to regain their full legal status.

Since the 1860s, all of the originally dissenting states have approved the Fourteenth Amendment, putting to rest any question of its legal status. A number of landmark Supreme Court cases have relied on Section 1's provisions for due process, equal protection, and privileges and immunities for all U.S. citizens.
Below is a collection of resources recognizing this important piece of American law. Browse these resources or jump from section to section by clicking the links below:

Amendment XIV

Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.
Section 3.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Section 4.
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
Section 5.
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Explore the 14th Amendment at NCC's Interactive Constitution >>

From JMC's First Amendment Library:

Gitlow v. New York (1925)

Prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government, and did not restrict state legislatures. In Gitlow, the Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment extended the freedom of speech and press provisions in the Bill of Rights to apply to the individual states. During the first Red Scare in the wake of World War I, Benjamin Gitlow was charged under New York's "Anarchy Law of 1902" for publishing a "Left Wing Manifesto" in a socialist newspaper. The court upheld Gitlow's conviction, with vigorous dissents from Justice Brandeis and Justice Holmes, but in doing so ruled that the case fell under federal authority.
Read more about Gitlow v. New York >>
Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940)

In Cantwell v. Connecticut, the Court applied the Free Exercise Clause to state and local government for the first time. Prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, constitutional rights, such as those enumerated in the Bill of Rights, applied only to the federal government. In the Cantwell decision, the Free Exercise clause from the First Amendment was "incorporated" into the Court's understanding of the protections guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment against both federal and state authority.

Read more about Cantwell v. Connecticut >>

Everson v. Board of Education (1947)

The Court examined whether a New Jersey law allowing reimbursements to parents who sent their children on buses operated by the public transportation system to public and private schools, including parochial Catholic schools, was indirect aid to religion and thus a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that the law was constitutional, because the transportation reimbursements were provided to all students regardless of religion. Also, the reimbursements were made directly to parents and not to any religious institution. This case also applied the Establishment Clause to the actions of state governments.
Read more about Everson v. Board of Education >>

Selected online resources on the Fourteenth Amendment:

National Constitution Center's Interactive Constitution

The National Constitution Center offers a collection of introductory essays by top liberal and conservative legal scholars that give overviews of each clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as agreed upon by both authors, as well as separate brief statements of these scholars' disagreements about the meaning of each clause.
Visit NCC's Interactive Constitution >>
The Library of Congress Web Guide to the Fourteenth Amendment

The Library of Congress has amassed a variety of resources on the Fourteenth Amendment, including primary documents from the time of ratification and related exhibitions and websites.
Explore the Library of Congress web guide >>
Harper's Weekly Resources on the Fourteenth Amendment

Harper's Weekly was one of the most widely read journals during the Civil War era. HarpWeek, an organization that has indexed all of Harper's Weekly, has a webpage devoted to the journal's coverage of the Fourteenth Amendment. The primary source materials on the site are include editorials, stories, illustrations, cartoons, as well as documents from key political and military figures of the time. Additionally, HarpWeek has added an annotated timeline, biographical sketches, and a glossary of terms.
Visit the HarpWeek Fourteenth Amendment page >>
The Heritage Guide to the Constitution

The Heritage Foundation's Guide to the Constitution includes scholarly essays on each component of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Explore Heritage's essays on the Fourteenth Amendment >> *If you are a JMC fellow who's published on the Fourteenth Amendment or its history and controversies, and would like your work included here, send it to us at academics@gojmc.org.

Justin Dyer, ( 76.1, 2017)

Michael Zuckert, ( 22.2, Spring 1992)

Rogers Smith, ( 108, 1999)

Vincent Phillip Muñoz, ( 8.4, 2006)

Rogers Smith, (2.1, 2003)

Jeffrey Rosen, ( 66, 1998)

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The Fourteenth Amendment: History, Ratification, and Reaction - Jack Miller Center

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American Political Thought: a Journal of Ideas, Institutions, and Culture, published by the University of Chicago Press. Information on journal.

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1890 - Formation of National American Women Suffrage Association

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1890 - Formation of National American Women Suffrage Association

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The National Woman's Suffrage Association and the American Woman's Suffrage Association merge to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association, this was led by Elizabeth Stanton.
Annotated article -

https://scrible.com/s/u1oig

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The two competing national suffrage organizations-the National Woman Suffrage Association and American Woman Suffrage Association-lasted over two decades. Suffragists worked to mend the split from the start, but were unsuccessful. Alice Stone Blackwell, the daughter of the American association leader Lucy Stone, spearheaded successful negotiations to merge the two groups in 1890.

For the first time, suffragists united behind a single national organization: the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Elizabeth Cady Stanton became the president of the new group, though she did not like the administrative duties of the office. Susan B. Anthony largely led NAWSA during Stanton's presidency (1890-1892) and her own (1892-1900). Anthony groomed protégées before she resigned, including Carrie Chapman Catt and Anna Howard Shaw. Catt held office from 1900 to 1904, and Shaw led NAWSA from 1904 to 1915. Catt regained the office of president in 1915 and held it through the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.

NAWSA coordinated the national suffrage movement. The group was made up of local and state groups throughout the United States. Member dues funded annual conventions where suffragists met to discuss campaigns. Women like Rachel Foster Avery circulated newsletters with the latest suffrage updates. NAWSA had local and national press committees that wrote pro-suffrage articles published in newspapers around the country.

Not everyone was able to participate in NAWSA. Although NAWSA did not exclude African American women from membership at the national level, state and local organizations could and did choose to exclude them. Conventions held in Southern cities like Atlanta (in 1895) and New Orleans (in 1903) were segregated. NAWSA also required black women to march separately during its 1913 parade in Washington, DC. Even within this socially progressive movement, racism persisted.

By Allison Lange, Ph.D.
Fall 2015

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National American Woman Suffrage Association - History of U.S. Woman's Suffrage

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The two competing national suffrage organizations-the National Woman Suffrage Association and American Woman Suffrage Association-joined in 1890 to become the National American Woman Suffrage Associatin. Alice Stone Blackwell, the daughter of the American association leader Lucy Stone, spearheaded successful negotiations to merge the two groups.

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Suffragists organize a parade in Washington, DC, which was the first public demonstration in the nation's capital for women's suffrage.
Annotated article -

https://scrible.com/s/c18kg

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March 3, 2016 at 9:32 AM ET by Danielle Cohen

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This Day in History: The 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade

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During Women’s History Month, the White House pays homage to the trailblazers who fought for women’s suffrage over a century ago.

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Historical Overview of the National  Party | Articles and Essays | Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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1913 - Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage

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1913 - Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage

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Alice Paul and Lucy Burns form the Congressional Union for Women's Suffrage. Their intent was to secure a federal suffrage amendment.
Annotated article -https://www.scrible.com/view/source/RGI2141L3G0M03I81041G88H8D24GM2N:876487078/

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The origins of the National Woman's Party (NWP) date from 1912, when Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, young Americans schooled in the militant tactics of the British suffrage movement, were appointed to the National American Woman Suffrage Association's (NAWSA) Congressional Committee. They injected a renewed militancy into the American campaign and shifted attention away from state voting rights toward a federal suffrage amendment.

[Detail] Suffrage envoys from San Francisco greeted in New Jersey on their way to Washington to present a petition to Congress containing more than 500,000 signatures. November-December 1915.

At odds with NAWSA over tactics and goals, Paul and Burns founded the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CU) in April 1913, but remained on NAWSA's Congressional Committee until December that year. Two months later, NAWSA severed all ties with the CU.

The CU continued its aggressive suffrage campaign. Its members held street meetings, distributed pamphlets, petitioned and lobbied legislators, and organized parades, pageants, and speaking tours. In June 1916 the CU formed the NWP, briefly known as the Woman's Party of Western Voters. The CU continued in states where women did not have the vote; the NWP existed in western states that had passed women's suffrage. In March 1917 the two groups reunited into a single organization-the NWP.

"Silent sentinel" Alison T. Hopkins at the White House gates on New Jersey Day. January 30, 1917.

In January 1917 the CU and NWP began to picket the White House. The government's initial tolerance gave way after the United States entered World War I. Beginning in June 1917, suffrage protestors were arrested, imprisoned, and often force-fed when they went on hunger strikes to protest being denied political prisoner status.

The NWP's militant tactics and steadfast lobbying, coupled with public support for imprisoned suffragists, forced President Woodrow Wilson to endorse a federal woman suffrage amendment in 1918. Congress passed the measure in 1919, and the NWP began campaigning for state ratification. Shortly after Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify women's suffrage, the 19th Amendment was signed into law on August 26, 1920.

Once suffrage was achieved, the NWP focused on passing an Equal Rights Amendment. The party remained a leading advocate of women's political, social, and economic equality throughout the 20th century.

View the complete essay (PDF).

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Historical Overview of the National Womans Party | Articles and Essays | Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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The origins of the National Woman's Party (NWP) date from 1912, when Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, young Americans schooled in the militant tactics of the British suffrage movement, were appointed to the National American Woman Suffrage Association's (NAWSA) Congressional Committee.

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1916 - First woman elected to the House of Representatives

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1916 - First woman elected to the House of Representatives

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Jeanette Rankin becomes the first ever woman to be elected into the House of Representatives, after, President Woodrow Wilson expresses how the Democratic Party will support suffrage.
Annotated article -

https://scrible.com/s/ex8gw

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On this date, Jeannette Rankin of Montana, the first woman elected to Congress, was sworn into the House. Rankin had campaigned as a progressive in 1916, pledging to work for a constitutional woman suffrage amendment and emphasizing social welfare issues. Long a committed pacifist, she did not hesitate to let voters know how she felt about possible U.S. participation in the European war that had been raging for two years: "If they are going to have war, they ought to take the old men and leave the young to propagate the race." She won one of Montana's At-Large seats and began her House service dramatically when Congress was called into an extraordinary April session after Germany declared unrestricted submarine warfare on all Atlantic shipping. She arrived at the Capitol to be sworn in along with the other Members of the 65th Congress (1917-1919). Escorted by her Montana colleague, Representative John M. Evans, Rankin looked like "a mature bride rather than a strong-minded female," an observer wrote. "When her name was called the House cheered and rose, so that she had to rise and bow twice, which she did with entire self-possession."

Related Highlight Subjects

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The Swearing-In of the First Woman Elected to Congress, Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives

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On this date, Jeannette Rankin of Montana, the first woman elected to Congress, was sworn into the House. Rankin had campaigned as a progressive in 1916, pledging to work for a constitutional woman suffrage amendment and emphasizing social welfare issues. Long a committed pacifist, she did not hesitate to let voters know how she felt about possible U.S.

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1920 - The 19th Amendment to the Constitution is certified as law

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1920 - The 19th Amendment to the Constitution is certified as law

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The 19th Amendment to the Constitution is certified as law, which guaranteed citizens the right to vote without being denied on the account of sex.
Annotated article -

https://scrible.com/s/cxogw

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Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote.
The 19th amendment legally guarantees American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle-victory took decades of agitation and protest. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change of the Constitution. Few early supporters lived to see final victory in 1920.

Beginning in the 1800s, women organized, petitioned, and picketed to win the right to vote, but it took them decades to accomplish their purpose. Between 1878, when the amendment was first introduced in Congress, and August 18, 1920, when it was ratified, champions of voting rights for women worked tirelessly, but strategies for achieving their goal varied. Some pursued a strategy of passing suffrage acts in each state-nine western states adopted woman suffrage legislation by 1912. Others challenged male-only voting laws in the courts. Some suffragists used more confrontational tactics such as picketing, silent vigils, and hunger strikes. Often supporters met fierce resistance. Opponents heckled, jailed, and sometimes physically abused them.

By 1916, almost all of the major suffrage organizations were united behind the goal of a constitutional amendment. When New York adopted woman suffrage in 1917 and President Wilson changed his position to support an amendment in 1918, the political balance began to shift.

On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the amendment, and 2 weeks later, the Senate followed. When Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on August 18, 1920, the amendment passed its final hurdle of obtaining the agreement of three-fourths of the states. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August 26, 1920, changing the face of the American electorate forever.

The campaign for woman suffrage was long, difficult, and sometimes dramatic; yet ratification did not ensure full enfranchisement. Decades of struggle to include African Americans and other minority women in the promise of voting rights remained. Many women remained unable to vote long into the 20th century because of discriminatory state voting laws.

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19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women's Right to Vote (1920)

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EnlargeDownload Link Citation: Joint Resolution of Congress proposing a constitutional amendment extending the right of suffrage to women, approved June 4, 1919.; Ratified Amendments, 1795-1992; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.

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The 19th amendment being added to the Constitution was the strongest turning point in my movement because this was the event that changed history for not only women, but for the nation as a whole.

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The 19th amendment being added to the Constitution was the strongest turning point in my movement because this was the event that changed history for not only women, but for the nation as a whole.

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/12jTcFvT9UG-ynn3iU28Dhrix9jF0-v31L2SELzGOpmU/edit?usp=sharing

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.