"Passage"

From 1776 through 1920, women’s voting rights in the United States were repeatedly restricted and then gradually expanded through activism, conventions, territorial and state legislation, and constitutional change. Abigail Adams urged her husband in 1776 to “remember the ladies,” but women lost the right to vote in New York in 1777, Massachusetts in 1780, New Hampshire in 1784, in all states except New Jersey after the 1787 Constitutional Convention gave voting rights to the states, and in New Jersey in 1807. In 1840, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were barred from the World Anti-Slavery Convention in England because of their sex, and in 1848 the first Women’s Rights convention was held in Seneca Falls with James Mott presiding as chair. National women’s rights conventions began annually in 1850, and in 1866 Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the American Equal Rights Association to support universal suffrage. Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment in 1867 defining citizens as “male,” while Wyoming Territory granted women the right to vote in 1869, Utah Territory did so in 1870, and the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified that same year granting black men the right to vote. In 1878, Senator A.A. Sargeant of California introduced a federal amendment to grant women the right to vote. Women in Utah lost the vote in 1887, but Utah granted full franchise for women in 1895, followed by Idaho in 1896, Washington State in 1910, California in 1911, Oregon, Arizona, and Kansas in 1912, Alaska Territory in 1913, and Montana and Nevada in 1914; Illinois granted rights for municipal and presidential elections in 1913 but not state elections. Max Eastman became a founder of the Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage in 1910, Jeanette Rankin was elected from Montana to the House of Representatives in 1916, New York approved women’s right to vote on November 6, 1917, and in 1917 five hundred suffragists were arrested for picketing the White House, with 168 serving jail time. President Wilson supported the cause in 1918, though the suffrage amendment passed the House and failed in the Senate by two votes, before Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma granted women the right to vote in 1919 and the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920.

Seneca Falls, New York · United States