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During this conference, Elizabeth Stanton wrote the Declaration of Sentiments in Seneca Falls. This document stated that they want equal rights and the right to vote along with educational rights. Even with many people against her, including her husband, they had 100 people sign it and they adopted the document.

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The Seneca Falls Convention is regarded by many as the birthplace of American feminism. Heralded as the first women's rights convention in the United States, it was held at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19 and 20, 1848.

At that conference, activist and leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted The Declaration of Sentiments, which called for women's equality and suffrage. Modeled after the Declaration of Independence and named after the founding document of the American Anti-Slavery Society the document began with "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal..." Stanton referenced Jefferson's principles but explained that they are conditioned solely for men. She further described the unequal, separate spheres women are forced into and called for action. Among the resolutions were the rights to property and education.

On July 20, the Declaration was ratified by the assembly. There was a fight regarding only one resolution: the right to vote. Not all agreed that the vote was imperative and some, including Stanton's husband, disagreed with the notion entirely. However, Stanton, along with abolitionist Frederick Douglass, argued the necessity of the vote and adopted the resolution. Signed by 68 women and 32 men, including Douglass, the Declaration, and the Seneca Falls Convention remain landmarks in the history of women's rights.

Stanton's father was New York State Supreme Court Justice Daniel Cady and she was familiar with legal concepts. She also was inspired by Lucretia Mott, whom she met almost eight years earlier in London at the World Anti-Slavery Convention. There, the two were brought to the women's only section and were not allowed to sit or speak at the event. This event and the outrage it inspired led to the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848.

Though some scholars debate the historical significance of the convention, Seneca Falls remains a potent symbol of equality.

The now-accepted narrative of Seneca Falls as the beginning of the women's movement in the United States began after the Civil War, as a form of leverage against the abolitionist movement. Historian Lisa Tetrault explains in her book The Myth of Seneca Falls that at the time of the ratification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, suffragettes such as Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were angered by the idea of the vote going to black men before it went to women. Thus, there was a need to remember how the women's movement began, and Stanton and Anthony commissioned The History of Women's Suffrage, a three-volume participant history of the movement.

Beginning in 1873, women began holding anniversary events for the Seneca Falls Convention. With each anniversary, the story became more elaborated and complex, creating a false narrative that the event was more than it seemed. Though the entire convention excluded poor women and black women, among other minorities, it was groundbreaking that women could hold this event at all.

Over 70 years after the convention in Seneca Falls, the nation ratified the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote in 1920. This victory led to the work of prominent feminist leaders in the 1950s and 60s, ushering in a new age and new hope for women's rights.

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On this day, the Seneca Falls Convention begins

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The Seneca Falls Convention is regarded by many as the birthplace of American feminism. Heralded as the first women's rights convention in the United States, it was held at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19 and 20, 1848.

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In 1867 Kansas turned down their request for suffrage and Susan and Elizabeth confided in Lucretia Mott. Susan and Elizabeth urged the association to support women's suffrage but some didn't see the hurry. They left the association but formed the Women Suffrage Association and eventually all groups joined in on it in 1890.

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American Equal Rights Association (AERA), organization that, from 1866 to 1869, worked to "secure Equal Rights to all American citizens, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color, or sex."

Founded on May 10, 1866, during the Eleventh National Woman's Rights Convention, the AERA met its first test in 1867. In that year Kansas, a Republican state, voted down two separate referenda granting suffrage to blacks and women, respectively. During the Kansas campaign, organization founders Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony had accepted the help of a known racist, alienating abolitionist members as well as AERA president Lucretia Mott.

Angry with the wording and passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 because it ignored women's rights in favour of blacks', Stanton and Anthony urged the AERA to support a 16th amendment giving women the vote. More cautious leaders refused, and Stanton and Anthony left the AERA in May 1869 to form the exclusively female National Woman Suffrage Association. Unable to reconcile with the radical feminists, Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and other conservative feminists formed the American Woman Suffrage Association from the ashes of the AERA in November 1869. In 1890 the groups merged as the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

American Equal Rights Association

date

related people

areas of involvement

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American Equal Rights Association | American organization

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American Equal Rights Association (AERA), organization that, from 1866 to 1869, worked to "secure Equal Rights to all American citizens, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color, or sex." Founded on May 10, 1866, during the Eleventh National Woman's Rights Convention, the AERA

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1872, Susan Anthony voted and got arrested

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1872, Susan Anthony voted and got arrested

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Susan was arrested after her and 14 women voted in a presidential race. She persuaded the workers to let her vote using the 14th amendment and she was put on trial later in June. When she got arrested she created publicity by asking the officer to be arrested like a man would be. She also never paid the fine given of $100.

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Four days before the election of 1872, Susan B. Anthony marched into a makeshift voter registration office in Rochester, New York, and demanded to be added to the list of eligible voters.

"I made the remark that I didn't think we could register her name," recalled election official Beverly W. Jones in court testimony preserved by the National Archives. "She asked me upon what grounds. I told her that the constitution of the State of New York only gave the right of franchise to male citizens. She asked me if I was acquainted with the 14th [A]mendment to the Constitution of the U.S. I told her I was."

Anthony eventually persuaded Jones and his two young colleagues to accept her registration. On November 5, she and 14 other women cast their ballots in the presidential race between Ulysses S. Grant and Horace Greeley, fully aware that their actions were technically illegal. The pioneering suffragist was later singled out, arrested and charged with voting unlawfully. Her trial took place the following June.

Now, almost 150 years after Anthony's arrest, President Donald Trump has announced plans to posthumously pardon the activist. Fittingly, the news arrived on the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which enfranchised many-but not all -American women upon its August 18, 1920, ratification.

Anthony is widely considered one of the founders of the early women's rights movement. But in recent years, she has faced increased scrutiny due to her racist remarks and exclusion of black suffragists from the mainstream movement, note Maggie Haberman and Katie Rogers for the New York Times.

As historian Ann D. Gordon wrote in a 2005 report for the Federal Judicial History Office, the deputy federal marshal who arrested Anthony on November 18 asked her to "accompany him downtown." In response, she posed a question of her own: "Is that the way you arrest men?" After the officer replied no, Anthony requested to be "arrested properly."

The incident made national headlines, generating publicity that Anthony used to draw attention to her cause. Before her trial began, reports CNN's Scottie Andrew, she traveled to 29 towns, promoting women's suffrage in impassioned speeches that questioned whether it was a crime for U.S. citizens to vote.

Anthony's actions blatantly transgressed societal expectations at the time. Overt concern with the gender-role implications of her crime is evident in the National Archives testimony, which finds the prosecutor asking, "What was her appearance, as a man or woman?"

Jones replies, "She was dressed as a woman."

During the two-day trial, Anthony insisted on speaking despite the judge repeatedly telling her to sit down, according to a Library of Congress transcript. Upon receiving the sentence of a $100 fine (roughly $2,150 USD today), she told the judge, "I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty."

In 1906-just nine years before New York State granted women the right to vote and 14 years before the 19th Amendment was finally ratified-Anthony died at age 86. She'd led the American women's suffrage movement for much of her adult life.

As CNN reports, some contemporary scholars and politicians argue that Anthony wore her arrest as a badge of honor and wouldn't have necessarily wanted to be pardoned.

Later in life, note Janet Adamy and Gordon Lubold for the Wall Street Journal, she described the arrest as the "greatest judicial outrage history has ever recorded."

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In 1872, Susan B. Anthony Was Arrested for Voting 'Unlawfully'

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Four days before the election of 1872, Susan B. Anthony marched into a makeshift voter registration office in Rochester, New York, and demanded to be added to the list of eligible voters. "I made the remark that I didn't think we could register her name," recalled election official Beverly W.

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In 1875 Virginia Minor took Reese Happersett to court because she wasn't allowed to vote. The argument was that suffrage was a right of citizens and therefore women should be able to vote. The court ultimately decided that suffrage was not a right and she lost.

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Legal Case of Minor v. Happersett — History of U.S. Woman’s Suffrage

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In addition to seeking a new suffrage amendment or winning the vote state by state, suffragists turned to the courts. Virginia Minor was not allowed to register to vote, so she brought a case against the registrar, Reese Happersett. In 1875, Minor v. Happersett went to the Supreme Court of the Unite

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1879 Belva Lockwood is admitted to the supreme court

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1879 Belva Lockwood is admitted to the supreme court

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After she got her application denied to be admitted to the Supreme Court she decided to make a bill allowing women to be admitted that are legal. The bill got passed and in 1879 she was admitted to the Supreme Court. She then went on in 1880 to argue in the Supreme Court and even though her client lost it brought popularity. Her most famous case was when she represented the Cherokee Nation about money the US owed them and she won with $5 million as a result.

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Belva Lockwood's interest in law and politics brought her from upstate New York to Washington, D.C., in 1866. Later that year, she opened her own seminary school for women and became part of a community of progressive women activists who participated in the temperance and suffrage movements.

In 1871, 15 women, including Lockwood, enrolled at the National University Law School (now part of George Washington University) in Washington, D.C. The following year, Lockwood and another woman completed the program, after which law school administrators told them they would not receive diplomas. Lockwood appealed to President Ulysses S. Grant, who was chancellor ex officio of the National University, and she received her diploma one week later.

Supreme Court Bar Admission: Mrs. Lockwood's Victory

"[T]he Court which has said to woman 'You cannot enter here,' must now open its doors at her approach when she comes armed with the proper documents..."
- Myra Bradwell, Chicago Legal News, February 15, 1879

Albert G. Riddle, a Washington lawyer, moved Belva Lockwood for admission to the Supreme Court Bar in October 1876. The Court rejected Lockwood's application. When Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite denied the motion, he announced that "none but men are admitted to practice before [the Court] as attorneys and counsellors . . ."

This legal setback prompted Lockwood to garner support from male attorneys and members of Congress for the creation of legislation that would allow qualified women to be admitted to the Supreme Court Bar. A bill titled "An act to relieve certain legal disabilities of women" was debated several times in both the House of Representatives and the Senate in 1878 and 1879, and was eventually enacted. Popularly known as the "Lockwood Bill," President Rutherford B. Hayes signed it into law. On March 3, 1879, Riddle again moved Lockwood's admission to the Supreme Court Bar, and the Court admitted her.

Arguing Before the Court

In November 1880, Belva Lockwood became the first woman to argue before the Supreme Court when she appeared in Kaiser v. Stickney, 102 U.S. 176 (1880). The case concerned a $16,000 debt owed by Lockwood's client, Caroline Kaiser. Ironically, given Lockwood's beliefs and experience, she and her co-counsel invoked the legal doctrine of coverture-under which a married woman was deemed to be under her husband's legal protection and authority-to contend that Kaiser did not have to pay the money owed. Lockwood argued in Court on Kaiser's behalf for 20 minutes. Although Kaiser lost her case, Lockwood made history.

Lockwood's most famous argument was in United States v. Cherokee Nation, 202 U.S. 101 (1906), which brought her before the Supreme Court a second time. Lockwood represented the Cherokee Nation, which sought full payment from the federal government under an 1835 treaty in which the tribe had ceded land in Georgia to the federal government for $1 million. The government had not paid in full. The lower court ordered the government to pay the balance owed, and the government appealed to the Supreme Court. Over two days, Lockwood successfully argued to uphold the judgment for the money owed, with interest, to the Cherokee Nation. The result was a $5 million dollar payment, one of the largest made to that date to a Native American tribe for land ceded to the government.

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In Re Lady Lawyers: The Rise of Women Attorneys and the Supreme Court

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Belva Lockwood's interest in law and politics brought her from upstate New York to Washington, D.C., in 1866. Later that year, she opened her own seminary school for women and became part of a community of progressive women activists who participated in the temperance and suffrage movements.

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The anti-suffragist party kind of set back women's rights because it gave a different perspective of women. These women explained how they believe that having suffrage is against the nature of women and how they did not wish to have it. Fortunately, the party discontinued in 1912 because of a proposal for it's own article.

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Table of Contents

The Anti-Suffragist, American periodical, from 1908 to 1912 the voice of a movement whose proponents opposed giving women the vote because they believed it contrary to nature.

In July 1908 the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage published the first issue of The Anti-Suffragist. The quarterly magazine echoed the views of the antisuffrage movement, which began in Massachusetts and New York in the 1890s and eventually gained a foothold in some 20 other states. For the most part, antisuffragists were middle-class, conservative, Protestant women who subscribed to the notion that women were biologically destined to be child-bearers and homemakers, whereas men were to be the lawmakers and leaders. In short, antisuffragists believed it was against the laws of nature for women to seek enfranchisement.

Edited by Mrs. William Winslow Crannell, chairman of the executive committee of the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, The Anti-Suffragist's mission was to present arguments against woman suffrage and to provide a forum for the views of women who did not seek suffrage-a group of women that, according to the magazine, were in the majority. For nearly four years The Anti-Suffragist provided its readers with gratified reports upon woman-suffrage defeats in various states. It also supplied carefully selected examples of instances in which enfranchised women in western states had, from the magazine's perspective, failed to use their votes to better society. In 1911 the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage was formed, and the proposal that the national organization publish its own periodical, The Woman's Protest, resulted in the voluntary discontinuation of The Anti-Suffragist in April 1912.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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The Anti-Suffragist | Description & Facts

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The Anti-Suffragist, American periodical, from 1908 to 1912 the voice of a movement whose proponents opposed giving women the vote because they believed it contrary to nature. In July 1908 the New York State Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage published the first issue of The Anti-Suffragist.

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In 1913 Alice Paul and Lucy Burns planned the procession the day before a presidential inauguration. Inez Milholland was the face of the procession riding on a horse riding "as the herald of the future". This new generation of women weren't trying to be reserved they wanted to be provacotive. During the procession men crowded the streets and harrassing the women but they held their ground.

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"Dawn Mist" and Native American Women

Before the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession, newspapers announced that one of the marchers would be "Dawn Mist, the beautiful daughter of Chief Three Bears of the Glacier National Park Indians." The papers reported that Dawn Mist and her friends would ride their Indian ponies in their buckskin dresses in the parade, and camp on the National Mall in their teepees. They would "represent the wildest type of American womanhood" side by side with white women like Inez Milholland, who represented "the highest type of cultured womanhood."

But Dawn Mist wasn't a real person.

She was a character created by the public relations department of the Great Northern Railroad. The railroad hired Native American women to perform as Dawn Mist - at least three of them. They used images of the women posing as Dawn Mist in advertising and on postcards. In 1913, Daisy Norris, a Blackfoot woman, was working in the role of Dawn Mist for the Railroad. But she wasn't in D.C. for the Suffrage Procession. It was all a publicity stunt.

There was, however, at least one native woman in the 1913 parade. Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin marched with the lawyers contingent in the procession. Of mixed French and Ojibway heritage, she was the first native woman to become a lawyer. She had moved to D.C. with her father to fight for tribal sovereignty and became a federal civil servant, working for the Federal Indian Bureau. She later advocated for Native American suffrage in her work with the Society for American Indians.

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1913 Woman Suffrage Procession (U.S. National Park Service)

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Before the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession, newspapers announced that one of the marchers would be "Dawn Mist, the beautiful daughter of Chief Three Bears of the Glacier National Park Indians." The papers reported that Dawn Mist and her friends would ride their Indian ponies in their buckskin dresses in the parade, and camp on the National Mall in their teepees.

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In 1915 Sara Field and three others drove across the country to get signatures on a petition and promote women's suffrage. The group suffered a lot of difficulties during the trip and one of them even stopped. They put everything on the line for this trip including not seeing their kids for months and being with strangers. The group eventually ended the journey at the White House to meet with President Wilson.

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Suffrage envoy Sara Bard Field (left) and her driver, Maria Kindberg (center), and machinist Ingeborg Kindstedt (right) during their cross-country journey to present suffrage petitions to Congress, September-December 1915
Library of Congress. Location: National Woman's Party Records, Group I, Container I:159, Folder: Envoys from San Francisco

The "Suffrage Envoy" Cross Country Road Trip

On December 6, 1915, Maria Kindberg pulled a battle tested Overland touring car into Washington D.C. It bore a banner stating, "WE DEMAND AN AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION ENFRANCHISING WOMEN." Her passengers were poet Sara Bard Field, drama critic Frances Jolliffe, and fellow Swedish immigrant Ingeborg Kindstedt. Three of the four had driven across the United states to promote women's suffrage.

Nearly three months earlier, Maria and Ingeborg purchased the brand new Overland while attending the 1915 World's Fair, also known as the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition. The pair was from Providence, RI and planned to drive their vehicle back to the east coast. They knew that Alice Paul was interested in planning a transcontinental delegation. The Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage published an editorial in "The Suffragist" proposing the idea. When the Maria and Ingeborg agreed to donate their vehicle and assist with the journey, everything seemed to come together, just as Alice envisioned.

The Suffrage Envoys faced rough terrain, a grueling schedule, and numerous unexpected delays. In fact, the stress was too much for Frances. She was with the group as they pulled out from San Francisco but quit when they reached Sacramento. Frances then rejoined as the other three neared the nation's capital. The journey took quite an emotional toll on Sara as well; she nearly dropped out by Chicago. The length of trip meant she wouldn't see her children for several months, and despite the Maria and Ingeborg's generous offer to donate their brand new car to the cause, they were still complete strangers.

As the exhausted crew approached the White House, how would President Wilson react to their journey? Find out from Ranger Lorne in the video.

Want to know more about the evolving tactics of the woman suffrage movement? Read Susan Goodier's article " Flexing Feminine Muscles: Strategies and Conflicts in the Suffrage Movement."

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Suffrage Envoy Sara Bard Field (U.S. National Park Service)

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On December 6, 1915, Maria Kindberg pulled a battle tested Overland touring car into Washington D.C. It bore a banner stating, "WE DEMAND AN AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION ENFRANCHISING WOMEN." Her passengers were poet Sara Bard Field, drama critic Frances Jolliffe, and fellow Swedish immigrant Ingeborg Kindstedt.

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1917 first women is elected to the house of representatives

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1917 first women is elected to the house of representatives

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Rankin ran for congress in 1916 promoting women's suffrage and neutrality in the European War. In 1917 she was inducted and two days later she was the only one who voted against the declaration of war against Germany. Once again in 1940 she was the only opposing vote against war after the pearl harbor attack and left office after in 1943. She helped prove that women can run in office and have their opinions.

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Jeannette Pickering Rankin, the first woman ever elected to Congress, takes her seat in the U.S. Capitol as a representative from Montana.

Born on a ranch near Missoula, Montana Territory, in 1880, Rankin was a social worker in the states of Montana and Washington before joining the women's suffrage movement in 1910. Working with various suffrage groups, she campaigned for the women's vote on a national level and in 1914 was instrumental in the passage of suffrage legislation in Montana. Two years later, she successfully ran for Congress in Montana on a progressive Republican platform calling for total women's suffrage, legislation protecting children, and U.S. neutrality in the European war. Following her election as a representative, Rankin's entrance into Congress was delayed for a month as congressmen discussed whether a woman should be admitted into the House of Representatives.
READ MORE: 7 Things You May Not Know About Jeannette Rankin
Finally, on April 2, 1917, she was introduced in Congress as its first female member. The same day, President Woodrow Wilson addressed a joint session of Congress and urged a declaration of war against Germany. On April 4, the Senate voted for war by a wide majority, and on April 6 the vote went to the House. Citing public opinion in Montana and her own pacifist beliefs, Jeannette Rankin was one of only 50 representatives who voted against the American declaration of war. For the remainder of her first term in Congress, she sponsored legislation to aid women and children, and advocated the passage of a federal suffrage amendment.

In 1918, Rankin unsuccessfully ran for a Senate seat, and in 1919 she left Congress to become an important figure in a number of suffrage and pacifist organizations. In 1940, with the U.S. entrance into another world war imminent, she was again elected as a pacifist representative from Montana and, after assuming office, argued vehemently against President Franklin D. Roosevelt's war preparations. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the next day, at Roosevelt's urging, Congress passed a formal declaration of war against Japan. Representative Rankin cast the sole dissenting vote. This action created a furor and Rankin declined to seek reelection. After leaving office in 1943, Rankin continued to be an important spokesperson for pacifism and social reform. In 1967, she organized the Jeannette Rankin Brigade, an organization that staged a number of highly publicized protests against the Vietnam War. She died in 1973 at the age of 93.

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Jeannette Rankin, first woman elected to U.S. Congress, assumes office

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Jeannette Pickering Rankin, the first woman ever elected to Congress, takes her seat in the U.S. Capitol as a representative from Montana. Born on a ranch near Missoula, Montana Territory, in 1880, Rankin was a social worker in the states of Montana and Washington before joining the women's suffrage movement in 1910.

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James Mann proposed the 19th amendment to the house on May 21 and the decision was 304 votes to 89. Then the senate passed the amendment and 35 states. The decision was up to Harry Burn and, with the help of his mother, he approved it to get Tennessee to approve it. After it was passed over 8 million women voted in the next election putting an end to the movement.

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Women's Suffrage

During America's early history, women were denied some of the basic rights enjoyed by male citizens.

For example, married women couldn't own property and had no legal claim to any money they might earn, and no female had the right to vote. Women were expected to focus on housework and motherhood, not politics.

The campaign for women's suffrage was a small but growing movement in the decades before the Civil War. Starting in the 1820s, various reform groups proliferated across the U.S. including temperance leagues, the abolitionist movement and religious groups. Women played a prominent role in a number of them.

Meanwhile, many American women were resisting the notion that the ideal woman was a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family. Combined, these factors contributed to a new way of thinking about what it meant to be a woman and a citizen in the United States.

Seneca Falls Convention

It was not until 1848 that the movement for women's rights began to organize at the national level.

In July of that year, reformers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York (where Stanton lived). More than 300 people-mostly women, but also some men-attended, including former African-American slave and activist Frederick Douglass.

In addition to their belief that women should be afforded better opportunities for education and employment, most of the delegates at the Seneca Falls Convention agreed that American women were autonomous individuals who deserved their own political identities.

Declaration of Sentiments

A group of delegates led by Stanton produced a "Declaration of Sentiments" document, modeled after the Declaration of Independence, which stated: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

What this meant, among other things, was that the delegates believed women should have the right to vote.

Following the convention, the idea of voting rights for women was mocked in the press and some delegates withdrew their support for the Declaration of Sentiments. Nonetheless, Stanton and Mott persisted-they went on to spearhead additional women's rights conferences and they were eventually joined in their advocacy work by Susan B. Anthony and other activists.

National Suffrage Groups Established

With the onset of the Civil War, the suffrage movement lost some momentum, as many women turned their attention to assisting in efforts related to the conflict between the states.

After the war, women's suffrage endured another setback, when the women's rights movement found itself divided over the issue of voting rights for Black men. Stanton and some other suffrage leaders objected to the proposed 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would give Black men the right to vote, but failed to extend the same privilege to American women of any skin color.

In 1869, Stanton and Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) with their eyes on a federal constitutional amendment that would grant women the right to vote.

That same year, abolitionists Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell founded the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA); the group's leaders supported the 15th Amendment and feared it would not pass if it included voting rights for women. ( The 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870.)

The AWSA believed women's enfranchisement could best be gained through amendments to individual state constitutions. Despite the divisions between the two organizations, there was a victory for voting rights in 1869 when the Wyoming Territory granted all-female residents age 21 and older the right to vote. (When Wyoming was admitted to the Union in 1890, women's suffrage remained part of the state constitution.)

By 1878, the NWSA and the collective suffrage movement had gathered enough influence to lobby the U.S. Congress for a constitutional amendment. Congress responded by forming committees in the House of Representatives and the Senate to study and debate the issue. However, when the proposal finally reached the Senate floor in 1886, it was defeated.

In 1890, the NWSA and the AWSA merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). The new organization's strategy was to lobby for women's voting rights on a state-by-state basis. Within six years, Colorado, Utah and Idaho adopted amendments to their state constitutions granting women the right to vote. In 1900, with Stanton and Anthony advancing in age, Carrie Chapman Catt stepped up to lead NAWSA.

Black Women in the Suffrage Movement

During debate over the 15th Amendment, white suffragist leaders like Stanton and Anthony had argued fiercely against Black men getting the vote before white women. Such a stance led to a break with their abolitionist allies, like Douglass, and ignored the distinct viewpoints and goals of Black women, led by prominent activists like Sojourner Truth and Frances E.W. Harper, fighting alongside them for the right to vote.

As the fight for voting rights continued, Black women in the suffrage movement continued to experience discrimination from white suffragists who wanted to distance their fight for voting rights from the question of race.

Pushed out of national suffrage organizations, Black suffragists founded their own groups, including the National Association of Colored Women Clubs (NACWC), founded in 1896 by a group of women including Harper, Mary Church Terrell and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. They fought hard for the passage of the 19th Amendment, seeing the women's right to vote as a crucial tool to winning legal protections for Black women (as well as Black men) against continued repression and violence.

State-level Successes for Voting Rights

The turn of the 20th century brought renewed momentum to the women's suffrage cause. Although the deaths of Stanton in 1902 and Anthony in 1906 appeared to be setbacks, the NASWA under the leadership of Catt achieved rolling successes for women's enfranchisement at state levels.

Between 1910 and 1918, the Alaska Territory, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota and Washington extended voting rights to women.

Also during this time, through the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women (later, the Women's Political Union), Stanton's daughter Harriot Stanton Blatch introduced parades, pickets and marches as means of calling attention to the cause. These tactics succeeded in raising awareness and led to unrest in Washington, D.C.

Did you know? Wyoming, the first state to grant voting rights to women, was also the first state to elect a female governor. Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876-1977) was elected governor of the Equality State-Wyoming's official nickname-in 1924. And from 1933 to 1953, she served as the first woman director of the U.S. Mint.

Protest and Progress

On the eve of the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson in 1913, protesters thronged a massive suffrage parade in the nation's capital, and hundreds of women were injured. That same year, Alice Paul founded the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage, which later became the National Woman's Party.

The organization staged numerous demonstrations and regularly picketed the White House, among other militant tactics. As a result of these actions, some group members were arrested and served jail time.

In 1918, President Wilson switched his stand on women's voting rights from objection to support through the influence of Catt, who had a less-combative style than Paul. Wilson also tied the proposed suffrage amendment to America's involvement in World War I and the increased role women had played in the war efforts.

When the amendment came up for vote, Wilson addressed the Senate in favor of suffrage. As reported in The New York Times on October 1, 1918, Wilson said, "I regard the extension of suffrage to women as vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the great war of humanity in which we are engaged."

However, despite Wilson's newfound support, the amendment proposal failed in the Senate by two votes. Another year passed before Congress took up the measure again.

The Final Struggle For Passage

On May 21, 1919, U.S. Representative James R. Mann, a Republican from Illinois and chairman of the Suffrage Committee, proposed the House resolution to approve the Susan Anthony Amendment granting women the right to vote. The measure passed the House 304 to 89-a full 42 votes above the required two-thirds majority.

Two weeks later, on June 4, 1919, the U.S. Senate passed the 19th Amendment by two votes over its two-thirds required majority, 56-25. The amendment was then sent to the states for ratification.

Within six days of the ratification cycle, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin each ratified the amendment. Kansas, New York and Ohio followed on June 16, 1919. By March of the following year, a total of 35 states had approved the amendment, just shy of the three-fourths required for ratification.

Southern states were adamantly opposed to the amendment, however, and seven of them-Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, South Carolina and Virginia-had already rejected it before Tennessee's vote on August 18, 1920. It was up to Tennessee to tip the scale for woman suffrage.

The outlook appeared bleak, given the outcomes in other Southern states and given the position of Tennessee's state legislators in their 48-48 tie. The state's decision came down to 23-year-old Representative Harry T. Burn, a Republican from McMinn County, to cast the deciding vote.

Although Burn opposed the amendment, his mother convinced him to approve it. Mrs. Burn reportedly wrote to her son: "Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the 'rat' in ratification."

With Burn's vote, the 19th Amendment was fully ratified.

When Did Women Get the Right to Vote?

On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment was certified by U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby, and women finally achieved the long-sought right to vote throughout the United States.

On November 2 of that same year, more than 8 million women across the U.S. voted in elections for the first time.

It took over 60 years for the remaining 12 states to ratify the 19th Amendment. Mississippi was the last to do so, on March 22, 1984.

What Is the 19 Amendment?

The 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote, and reads:

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

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19th Amendment - Definition, Passage & Summary

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The passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 guaranteed women the right to vote. Learn how suffragists fought for the cause and hear a summary of amendment in this brief video.