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First Women Suffrage Right Convention 1847-1849

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First Women Suffrage Right Convention 1847-1849

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The First Women Suffrage Convention was in Seneca Falls, New York. 68 women and 32 men  signed an Declaration of Sentiments. Which modeled on the Declaration of Independence, and sets the agenda for the Women's Right Movement.

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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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Ain't I A Woman is the name of a speech that sojourner truth delivered in 1850; where she continued to speak out about the rights of African Americans and women during and after the Civil War.

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"I sell the shadow to support the substance." -- Sojourner Truth. Carte de Visite, circa 1864, in the collections of the Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/97513239/)

Born into slavery in 1797, Isabella Baumfree, who later changed her name to Sojourner Truth, would become one of the most powerful advocates for human rights in the nineteenth century. Her early childhood was spent on a New York estate owned by a Dutch American named Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh. Like other slaves, she experienced the miseries of being sold and was cruelly beaten and mistreated. Around 1815 she fell in love with a fellow slave named Robert, but they were forced apart by Robert's master. Isabella was instead forced to marry a slave named Thomas, with whom she had five children.

In 1827, after her master failed to honor his promise to free her or to uphold the New York Anti-Slavery Law of 1827, Isabella ran away, or, as she later informed her master, "I did not run away, I walked away by daylight...." After experiencing a religious conversion, Isabella became an itinerant preacher and in 1843 changed her name to Sojourner Truth. During this period she became involved in the growing antislavery movement, and by the 1850s she was involved in the woman's rights movement as well. At the 1851 Women's Rights Convention held in Akron, Ohio, Sojourner Truth delivered what is now recognized as one of the most famous abolitionist and women's rights speeches in American history, "Ain't I a Woman?" She continued to speak out for the rights of African Americans and women during and after the Civil War. Sojourner Truth died in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1883.

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?
Delivered 1851
Women's Rights Convention, Old Stone Church (since demolished), Akron, Ohio

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.[1]

But Wait!
There is some controversy regarding Sojourner Truth's famous 'Ain't I a Woman?' Speech listed above. There are different versions of the speech. The popular 'Ain't I a Woman' Speech was first published by Frances Gage in 1863, 12 years after the speech itself. Another version was published a month after the speech was given in the Anti-Slavery Bugle by Rev. Marius Robinson. In Robinson's Version the phrase 'Ain't I a Woman' is not present.

Compare the speeches and decide yourself at the Library of Congress or at The Sojourner Truth Project. [2]

[1] This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook.
[2] This article first appeared on the Women's Rights National Historical Park website.

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Sojourner Truth: Ain't I A Woman? (U.S. National Park Service)

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Born into slavery in 1797, Isabella Baumfree, who later changed her name to Sojourner Truth, would become one of the most powerful advocates for human rights in the nineteenth century. Her early childhood was spent on a New York estate owned by a Dutch American named Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh.

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Ratification of the 14th Amendment 1867-1869

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Ratification of the 14th Amendment 1867-1869

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This amendment grants citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the United States. This frees women and men, also slaves.

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Three amendments passed after the Civil War transformed the women's rights movement. The Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1865, made slavery illegal. Black women who were enslaved before the war became free and gained new rights to control their labor, bodies, and time.

The Fourteenth Amendment affirmed the new rights of freed women and men in 1868. The law stated that everyone born in the United States, including former slaves, was an American citizen. No state could pass a law that took away their rights to "life, liberty, or property."

The Fourteenth Amendment also added the first mention of gender into the Constitution. It declared that all male citizens over twenty-one years old should be able to vote. In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment affirmed that the right to vote "shall not be denied...on account of race."

The insertion of the word "male" into the Constitution and the enfranchisement of African American men presented new challenges for women's rights activists. For the first time, the Constitution asserted that men-not women-had the right to vote. Previously, only state laws restricted voting rights to men. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote, "If that word 'male' be inserted, it will take us a century at least to get it out."

Activists bitterly fought about whether to support or oppose the Fifteenth Amendment. Stanton and Susan B. Anthony objected to the new law. They wanted women to be included with black men. Others-like Lucy Stone -supported the amendment as it was. Stone believed that women would win the vote soon. The emphasis on voting during the 1860s led women's rights activists to focus on woman suffrage. The two sides established two rival national organizations that aimed to win women the vote.

By Allison Lange, Ph.D.
Fall 2015

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The 14th and 15th Amendments - History of U.S. Woman's Suffrage

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Three amendments passed after the Civil War transformed the women's rights movement. The Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1865, made slavery illegal. Black women who were enslaved before the war became free and gained new rights to control their labor, bodies, and time. The Fourteenth Amendment affirmed the new rights of freed women and men in 1868.

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Declaration of rights for women 1875-1877

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Declaration of rights for women 1875-1877

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Susan b Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage disrupt the official US Centennial program at Independence Hall Philadelphia presenting a "Declaration of rights for women."

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The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen ( French: Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne), also known as the Declaration of the Rights of Woman, was written on 14 September 1791 by French activist, feminist, and playwright Olympe de Gouges in response to the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. By publishing this document on 15 September, de Gouges hoped to expose the failures of the French Revolution in the recognition of gender equality. As a result of her writings (including the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen), de Gouges was accused, tried and convicted of treason, resulting in her immediate execution, along with the Girondists, becoming one of only three women beheaded during the ensuing Reign of Terror - and the only executed for her political writings.

The Declaration of the Rights of Woman is significant because it brought attention to a set of what would later be known as feminist concerns that collectively reflected and influenced the aims of many French Revolutionaries and other contemporaries.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was adopted in 1789 by the National Constituent Assembly ( Assemblée nationale constituante), during the French revolution. Prepared and proposed by the Marquis de Lafayette, the declaration asserted that all men "are born and remain free and equal in rights" and that these rights were universal. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen became a key human rights document and a classic formulation of the rights of individuals vis-a-vis the state. The Declaration exposed inconsistencies of laws that treated citizens differently on the basis of sex, race, class, or religion. In 1791, new articles were added to the French constitution which extended civil and political rights to Protestants and Jews, who had previously been persecuted in France.

In 1790, Nicolas de Condorcet and Etta Palm d'Aelders unsuccessfully called on the National Assembly to extend civil and political rights to women. Condorcet declared that "he who votes against the right of another, whatever the religion, color, or sex of that other, has henceforth abjured his own".

In October 1789, women in the marketplaces of Paris, rioting over the high price and scarcity of bread, began to march to Versailles, often called the Women's March on Versailles. While not solely an attempt for the extension of natural and political rights to women, the demonstrators believed that equality among all French citizens would extend those rights to women, political minorities, and landless citizens. Although upon the march, the king acknowledged the changes associated with the French Revolution and no longer resisted such liberal reforms, the leaders of the Revolution failed to recognize that women were the largest force in the march, and did not extend natural rights to women.

In November 1789, in response to both the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the failure of the National Assembly to recognize the natural and political rights of women, a group of women submitted a petition for the extension of egalité to women, referred to as the Women's Petition to the National Assembly. While thousands of petitions were repeatedly submitted to the National Assembly, this one was never brought up or discussed.

The French Revolution did not lead to a recognition of women's rights, and this prompted de Gouges to publish her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen in early 1791.

Olympe de Gouges was a French playwright and political activist whose feminist and abolitionist writings reached large audiences. She began her career as a playwright in the early 1780s, and as the political tensions of the French Revolution built, she became more involved in politics and law.

In 1788 she published Réflexions sur les hommes négres, which demanded compassion for the plight of slaves in the French colonies. For Gouges there was a direct link between the autocratic monarchy in France and the institution of slavery, she argued that "Men everywhere are equal... Kings who are just do not want slaves; they know that they have submissive subjects". She came to the public's attention with the play l'Esclavage des Noirs, which was staged at the famous Comédie-Française in 1785.

Gouges wrote her famous Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen shortly after the French Constitution of 1791 was ratified by King Louis XVI, and dedicated it to his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette. The French Constitution marked the birth of the short-lived constitutional monarchy and implemented a status based citizenship. Citizens were defined as men over 25, were "independent" and had paid the poll tax. These citizens had the right to vote. Furthermore active citizenship was two-tiered, with those who could vote and those who were fit for public office. Women were by definition not afforded any rights of active citizenship. Like men who could not pay the poll tax, children, domestic servants, rural day-laborers and slaves, Jews, actors and hangmen, women had no political rights. In transferring sovereignty to the nation the constitution dismantled the old regime, but Gouges argued that it did not go far enough. This was followed by her ("Social Contract ," named after a famous work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau), proposing marriage based upon gender equality.

The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen was published on 15 September 1791. It is modeled on the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789. Olympe de Gouges dedicated the text to Marie Antoinette, whom de Gouges described as "the most detested" of women. The Declaration states that "This revolution will only take effect when all women become fully aware of their deplorable condition, and of the rights they have lost in society".

The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen follows the seventeen articles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen point for point. Despite its serious intent, it has been described by one writer, Camille Naish, as "almost a parody... of the original document".

De Gouges opens her Declaration with the famous quote, "Man, are you capable of being fair? A woman is asking: at least you will allow her that right. Tell me? What gave you the sovereign right to oppress my sex?" She demands that her reader observe nature and the rules of the animals surrounding them - in every other species, sexes coexist and intermingle peacefully and fairly. She asks why humans cannot act likewise and demands (in the preamble) that the National Assembly decree the Declaration a part of French law. Also they have seen many wars in combat with the men of France therefore they sought out rights for themselves.

In the preamble to her Declaration, de Gouges mirrors the language of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and explains that women, just as men, are guaranteed natural, inalienable, sacred rights - and that political institutions are instituted with the purpose of protecting these natural rights. She closes the preamble by declaring that "the sex that is superior in beauty as it is in courage during the pains of childbirth recognizes and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen."

The first article of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen proclaims that "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on common utility." The first article of Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen responds: "Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights. Social distinctions may only be based on common utility."

Articles II and III extend the articles in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen to include both women and men in their statements.

Article IV declares that "the only limit to the exercise of the natural rights of woman is the perpetual tyranny that man opposes to it" and that "these limits must be reformed by the laws of nature and reason". In this statement, de Gouges is specifically stating that men have tyrannically opposed the natural rights of women, and that these limits must be reformed by the laws of a political organization in order to create a society that is just and protects the Natural Rights of all.

Article V is unchanged from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

De Gouges expands the sixth article of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which declared the rights of citizens to take part in the formation of law, to: "All citizens including women are equally admissible to all public dignities, offices and employments, according to their capacity, and with no other distinction than that of their virtues and talents."

Articles VII through IX again extend the articles in the Declaration of the Rights of Man to include both women and men in their statements.

In Article X, de Gouges draws attention to the fact that, under French law, women were fully punishable, yet denied equal rights, declaring: "Women have the right to mount the scaffold, they must also have the right to mount the speaker's rostrum". This statement would go on to be well-known and spread to wide audiences.

De Gouges declares, in Article XI, that a woman should be allowed to identify the father of her child/children. Historians believe that this could relate to de Gouges' upbringing as a possible illegitimate child, and allows women to demand support from fathers of illegitimate children.

This article explains that the declaration of these rights for women is a great benefit to society, and does not only benefit those protected by it. According to her biographer, Olivier Blanc, de Gouges maintained that this article be included to explain to men the benefit they would receive from support of this Declaration despite the advice to her of the Society of the Friends of Truth.

Articles XIII through XVI extend the articles in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen to include both women and men in their statements.

The seventeenth article of the Declaration expresses sexual equality of marriage, and that upon marriage, women and men are found equal in the eyes of the law - this means that upon divorce, property is split evenly between the involved parties, and property cannot be seized without reason from women (as it is not seized from men).

De Gouges opens her postscript to the Declaration with a declaration: "Woman, wake up; the tocsin of reason is resounding throughout the universe: acknowledge your rights." In her first paragraph, she implores women to consider what they have gained from the Revolution - "a greater scorn, a greater disdain." She maintains that men and women have everything in common, and that women must "unite under the banner of philosophy." She declares that whatever barriers women come up against, it is in their power to overcome those barriers and progress in society. She goes on to describe that "marriage is the tomb of trust and love" and implores men to consider the morally correct thing to do when creating the framework for the education of women.

De Gouges then writes a framework for a social contract (borrowing from Rousseau) for men and women, and goes into details about the specifics of the legal ramifications and equality in marriage. In many ways, she reformulates Rousseau's Social Contract with a focus that obliterates the gendered conception of a citizen and creates the conditions that are necessary for both parties to flourish.

According to de Gouges's journal, what ails government are fixed social hierarchies that are impossible to maintain. What heals a government is an equal balance of powers and a shared virtue. This is consistent with her continuing approval of a constitutional monarchy. Marriages are to be voluntary unions by equal rights-bearing partners who hold property and children mutually and dispense of same by agreement. All children produced during this union have the right to their mother's and father's name, "from whatever bed they come."

In response to the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, many of the radicals of the Revolution immediately suspected de Gouges of treason. The Jacobins (led by Robespierre), upon seeing that the Declaration was addressed to the Queen, suspected de Gouges (as well as her allies in the Girondists) of being Royalists. After de Gouges attempted to post a note demanding a plebiscite to decide between three forms of government (which included a Constitutional monarchy), the Jacobins quickly tried and convicted her of treason. She was sentenced to execution by the guillotine, and was one of many "political enemies" to the state of France claimed by the Reign of Terror.

At the time of her death, the Parisian press no longer mockingly dismissed her as harmless. While journalists and writers argued that her programs and plans for France had been irrational, they also noted that in proposing them she had wanted to be a "statesman." Her crime, the Feuille du Salut public reported, was that she had "forgotten the virtues which belonged to her sex." In the misogynistic environment of Jacobian Paris, her feminism and "political meddlings" were a dangerous combination.

De Gouges was a strict critic of the principle of equality touted in Revolutionary France because it gave no attention to whom it left out, and she worked to claim the rightful place of women and slaves within its protection. By writing numerous plays about the topics of black and women's rights and suffrage, the issues she brought up were spread not only through France, but also throughout Europe and the newly created United States of America.

In the UK, Mary Wollstonecraft was prompted to write A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects in 1792. This was in response to both de Gouges' Declaration as well as Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord's 1791 address to the French National Assembly, which stated that women should only receive a domestic education. Wollstonecraft wrote the Rights of Woman to launch a broad attack against sexual double standards and to indict men for encouraging women to indulge in excessive emotion.

As opposed to de Gouges, Wollstonecraft does call for equality between the sexes in particular areas of life but does not explicitly state that men and women are equal. Her ambiguous statements regarding the equality of the sexes have made it difficult to classify Wollstonecraft as a modern feminist. Rights of Woman was relatively well received in 1792 England.

While there were no immediate effects in the United States upon publishing of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, it was used extensively in the modeling of the Declaration of Sentiments, written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others at the Seneca Falls Convention, held in the summer of 1848. The Declaration of Sentiments, much like the Declaration of the Rights of Woman, was written in the style of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen which was written in the style of the United States Declaration of Independence.

In her Declaration, de Gouges is forceful and sarcastic in tone and militant in spirit. For de Gouges, the most important expression of liberty was the right to free speech; she had been exercising that right her whole life. Access to the rostrum was another question, and one that she demanded be put at the forefront of the discussion about women's rights and suffrage.

The Enlightenment's presumption of the natural rights of humans (or inalienable rights as in the United States Declaration of Independence) is in direct contradiction with the beliefs of natural sexual inequality (sometimes called the "founding principles of nature"). The rights the equality of the French Declaration states, but does not intend, implies, according to de Gouges, the need to be recognized as having a more far-reaching application; if rights are natural and if these rights are somehow inherent in bodies, then all bodies are deserving of such rights, regardless of any particularities like gender or race.

De Gouges generally agreed with Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his understanding of how education of a nation could transform the society in which that nation resided. However, seeing well beyond Rousseau in terms of gender, she argued that the failure of society to educate its women was the sole cause of corruption in government. Her social contract, a direct appropriation of Rousseau, proclaims that the right in marriage to equal property and parental and inheritance rights is the only way to build a society of harmony.

At the time of the French Revolution, marriage was the center for political exploitation. In her Social Contract, de Gouges describes marriage as the "tomb of trust and love" and the place of "perpetual tyranny." The singly most common site of institutionalized gender inequality, marriage created the conditions for the development of women's unreliability and capacity for deception. In her Social Contract, many similarities to movements around the world become apparent. Similarly to how Mary Wollstonecraft explains marriage in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), de Gouges points to female artifice and weakness as a consequence of woman's powerless place in it. De Gouges, much like Wollstonecraft, attempts to combat societal and educational deficiencies: the vicious cycle which neglects to educate its females and then offers their narrower interests as the reason for the refusal of full citizenship. Additionally, both see the resulting fact of women's "corruption and weak-mindedness" as a major source of the problems of society - and therein lies the solution, as well.

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Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen - Wikipedia

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The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen ( French: Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne), also known as the Declaration of the Rights of Woman, was written on 14 September 1791 by French activist, feminist, and playwright Olympe de Gouges in response to the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

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Introduction the Woman Suffrage Amendment into Congress 1877-1890

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Introduction the Woman Suffrage Amendment into Congress 1877-1890

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California Senator AA Sargeant introduces the Woman Suffrage Amendment into Congress. Which has the language that would eventually become the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Which also gives women the right to vote.

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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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Formation of the National American Woman Suffrage Association 1890-1896

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Formation of the National American Woman Suffrage Association 1890-1896

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The National Woman's Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association work together to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

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The National American Woman Suffrage Association | Articles and Essays | National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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Formed in 1890, NAWSA was the result of a merger between two rival factions--the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), led by Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe.

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Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party supports women’s suffrage 1912-1913

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Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party supports women’s suffrage 1912-1913

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Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party becomes the first national major political party to support women’s suffrage.

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Theodore Roosevelt and Women's Suffrage | American Experience | PBS

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In 1912 Theodore Roosevelt came out for women's suffrage and became the great champion of women's rights.

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Mabel Vernon and Sara Bard Field lead a transcontinental tour which gathers over 500,000 signatures on petitions to Congress in favor of women’s suffrage.

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by Katherine Kitterman, Better Days Historical Director

May 8, 2019

2019 marks the 150th anniversary of the transcontinental railroad. Completed with a ceremonial golden spike driven at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10, 1869, the railroad brought technological, economic, and cultural changes to Utah Territory. Despite the fact that women do not appear in photographs of railroad workers and businessmen celebrating the project's completion, they are part of the story, too. Women across the world and in Utah impacted the railroad in many ways and in turn the railroad had unique effects on them, both positive and negative. One of the most surprising effects of the railroad for Utah women who were U.S. citizens was that it directly contributed to their gaining suffrage rights in 1870.

For Utah women, the completion of the transcontinental railroad brought increased attention from federal lawmakers. Now that the western territories were more easily accessible, Congress started having more discussions about polygamy, which the Republican party had termed "one of the twin relics of barbarism" along with slavery. Now that they had ended slavery, political leaders were looking for ways to end polygamy. While these discussions were happening, suffragists began lobbying Congress to grant suffrage to women in U.S. territories, hoping the experiment would go well and spread from there to the rest of the states. Some lawmakers sympathetic to the suffrage cause saw a way to combine both issues, and Indiana Congressman George W. Julian introduced "A Bill to Discourage Polygamy in Utah," which would simply give Utah women the right to vote. When Congressmen found out that political leaders in Utah Territory liked the idea, they dropped the bill. But discussions continued within Utah. Let's take a look at what was happening here.

One of the biggest ways the railroad reframed and shifted possibilities for women was through the spread of ideas. The railroad and other technological changes helped to shift and redefine the concepts of men's and women's spheres in the late nineteenth century through clothing, transportation (like the bicycle), and more. Women in mid-nineteenth century Utah read widely and they were well aware of issues and debates taking place across the country. Once the railroad connected the country, they could get access to eastern newspapers, pamphlets, and novels much more quickly, and they could spread their own words and ideas as well.

In 1869, Sarah M. Kimball was President of the 15th Ward Relief Society, which had built the first woman-owned building in Salt Lake City to house a cooperative store and meeting space. She sent away for a copy of a newspaper called The Revolution, which was published in New York City by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton . At a suffrage convention in Salt Lake City years later, Kimball recalled: "I would not have dared to say the bold, grand things that Miss Anthony said, it would have made me so unpopular and I hardly dared to shoulder it; but the seed was planted within my soul and I have been laboring for the same cause."

When discussions reached Utah about enfranchising Utah women, leading Latter-day Saint women found a way to show Utah's political leaders that they could be entrusted as political partners. As anti-polygamy legislation was being considered in Congress in early 1870, Sarah Kimball led a meeting of Latter-day Saint women in her Relief Society hall on January 6 to protest that legislation. They also passed a motion to "demand the right of franchise," i.e., the right to vote. This first organized effort to gain the right to vote wasn't publicly noised about, but almost 5,000 women gathered in Salt Lake City's "Old Tabernacle" the next week to protest anti-polygamy legislation in a show of political force that was aimed at both national and local audiences. Less than a month later, the Utah territorial legislature unanimously passed a bill extending voting rights to all women citizens 21 years or older. Kimball quickly organized classes to teach women about civic government and the U.S. Constitution. She was certainly putting Anthony and Stanton's call for "education and agitation" into practice!

Kimball and other Utah women like Emmeline B. Wells worked with Susan B. Anthony and other national suffrage leaders who traveled to Utah by train in 1871. When Utah women's voting rights were taken away by Congress in 1887, these national leaders worked with Utah suffragists to secure them once again in Utah's 1896 state constitution. Utah suffragists continued to travel East by train to attend national suffrage conventions and work toward a constitutional amendment for women's suffrage. The railroad not only helped spark discussions about women's suffrage in Utah, but it also made it possible by enabling women to organize, opening up new social and civic opportunities for women in Utah and across the nation.

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The Transcontinental Railroad and Utah Women's Suffrage - Better Days Curriculum

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by Katherine Kitterman, Better Days Historical Director May 8, 2019 2019 marks the 150th anniversary of the transcontinental railroad. Completed with a ceremonial golden spike driven at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10, 1869, the railroad brought technological, economic, and cultural changes to Utah Territory. Despite the fact that women do not appear in [...]

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The Woman Suffrage Amendment is introduced in Congress 1919-1920

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The Woman Suffrage Amendment is introduced in Congress 1919-1920

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The Woman Suffrage Amendment, was written n by Susan B. Anthony and introduced in Congress in 1878, is passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate.

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The 19th Amendment makes it illegal to deny the right to vote to any citizen based on their sex, which effectively granted women the right to vote. It was first introduced to Congress in 1878 and was finally certified 42 years later in 1920.

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The National American Woman Suffrage Association disbands 1920

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The National American Woman Suffrage Association disbands 1920

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Its work complete, and the National American Woman Suffrage Association is disband.

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The National American Woman Suffrage Association | Articles and Essays | National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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Formed in 1890, NAWSA was the result of a merger between two rival factions--the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), led by Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe.