When the states ratified the original U.S. Constitution in 1790 only white males with property could vote for federal office. Decades later at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, women gathered to begin a campaign for the right to vote that would last over 70 years.
When the 15th amendment, they granted African-Americans the right to vote after the Civil War did not include women. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton responded by starting the National Women’s Suffrage Association.
The states could still go their own and grant right. In 1869, the Wyoming territory granted suffrage to women in the hope they could attract more where they were outnumbered by men six to one.
Susan B. Anthony was a tireless advocate and was arrested in 1872 for trying to vote, despite her efforts it would be another 20 years before the next state, Colorado would grant women to vote in 1893. Gradually, Western states began to open their ballot boxes to women yet by 1912 not a single state East of the Mississippi had done so.
A new generation of leadership emerged, forced to resign from Susan B. Anthony’s organization because of her militant tactics, Alice Paul formed the National Women’s Party which engaged to marches and hunger strikes. As the movement continued to gain momentum in the west, New York became the first state in the east to grant full suffrage in 1917. It was an era of many changes and the first great World War.
Both women’s organizations persevered and more and more states granted rights. On January 10, 1918, the House approved the 19th Amendment. The rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any other state on account of sex. While the Senate considered disapproval, still more states granted rights.
Finally, after a year and a half, the Senate passed the amendment on June 19th 1919. A year later its ratification by the states made the women rights to vote a permanent part of the United States Constitution.
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