Women’s Suffrage Blog, Part 1: A Collaboration with the Blue Ridge Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution
2020 is a special year for many reasons: it is the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution which gave African American and all male citizens the right to vote; it is the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution which gave women the right to vote; and it is a presidential election year, which will be this country’s 59th. To gain these freedoms, the price paid was steep both to individuals and to society. It is work that continues to this day.
We are fortunate to be able to share with you a brief history of one of these fought-for freedoms: the history of women’s suffrage in the United States. Abby Tuomala, a member of the Blue Ridge Chapter, National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) has graciously shared with us her research into this topic. Here on our “7 Hills” blog platform, we’ll share Abby’s research over the course of the next few months, which coincides with the opening of our new exhibit “We the Women: Commemorating 100 Years of the 19th Amendment.”
Please visit the new exhibit opening March 6, and stay tuned all year long, as more exhibits and programs tied to women’s suffrage, including a public art project, make their appearance. We thank Abby Tuomala for her excellent research and writing, and we’re looking forward to learning more about the history of women’s suffrage. We’ll all be better informed citizens on Election Day 2020!
Questioning the How and Why of
Women’s Suffrage in the USA
By Abby Tuomala, Blue Ridge Chapter,
National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR)
As we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing the right of women to vote, we may wonder, “How did this take so long?” and “Why was it such a struggle?” We may have a variety of answers, and some of them might include the notion of outmoded views of women held by incurably backward men. But this notion by itself does not do justice to the complex, deeply imbedded, and millennials-long story of “women’s place” in society—which led to their right to vote in the U.S. in 1920. A century later, if we consider some of the societal factors shaping the struggle, we might have better answers to our “how” and “why” questions.
The 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, is touted as the inauguration of the women’s suffrage movement. But what led up to Seneca Falls? It’s a story of families, nation-building, industrialization, contending with human slavery, and much more. We will consider this story by looking at three eras in U.S. history: colonial America (and its Western traditions), the industrial age (exploding with workers’ rights, abolition, and temperance activism), and the post-Civil-War era, when a growing number of women saw their need to vote as essential to being change agents and enjoying the same rights as male citizens (though not necessarily the same duties, e.g., military service).
Woman’s Suffrage Timeline (1840-1920)
1840 Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton are barred from attending the World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London. This prompts them to hold a Women’s Convention in the US.
1848 Seneca Falls, New York is the location for the first Women’s Rights Convention. Elizabeth Cady Stanton writes “The Declaration of Sentiments” creating the agenda of women’s activism for decades to come.
1849 The first state constitution in California extends property rights to women.
1850 Worcester, Massachusetts, is the site of the first National Women’s Rights Convention. Frederick Douglass, Paulina Wright Davis, Abby Kelley Foster, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucy Stone and Sojourner Truth are in attendance. A strong alliance is formed with the Abolitionist Movement.
1851 Worcester, Massachusetts is the site of the second National Women’s Rights Convention. Participants included Horace Mann, New York Tribune columnist Elizabeth Oaks Smith, and Reverend Harry Ward Beecher, one of the nation’s most popular preachers. 1851 At a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio, Sojourner Truth, a former slave, delivers a memorable speech, which is later remembered as “Ain’t I a woman?”
1852 The issue of women’s property rights is presented to the Vermont Senate by Clara Howard Nichols.
This is a major issue for the Suffragists. 1852 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is published and quickly becomes a bestseller.
1853 Women delegates, Antoinette Brown and Susan B. Anthony, are not allowed to speak at The World’s Temperance Convention held in New York City.
1861-1865 During the Civil War, efforts for the suffrage movement come to a halt. Women put their energies toward the war effort.
1866 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony form the American Equal Rights Association, an organization dedicated to the goal of suffrage for all regardless of gender or race.
1868 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Parker Pillsbury publish the first edition of The Revolution. This periodical carries the motto “Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less!” 1868 Caroline Seymour Severance establishes the New England Woman’s Club. The “Mother of Clubs” sparked the club movement which became popular by the late nineteenth century. 1868 In Vineland, New Jersey, 172 women cast ballots in a separate box during the presidential election. 1868 Senator S.C. Pomeroy of Kansas introduces the federal woman’s suffrage amendment in Congress. 1868 Many early suffrage supporters, including Susan B. Anthony, remained single because in the mid-1800s, married women could not own property in their own rights and could not make legal contracts on their own behalf. 1868 The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified. “Citizens” and “voters” are defined exclusively as male.
1869 The American Equal Rights Association is wrecked by disagreements over the Fourteenth Amendment and the question of whether to support the proposed Fifteenth Amendment which would enfranchise Black American males while avoiding the question of woman suffrage entirely. 1869 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony found the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), a more radical institution, to achieve the vote through a Constitutional amendment as well as push for other woman’s rights issues. NWSA was based in New York. 1869 Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe and other more conservative activists form the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) to work for woman suffrage through amending individual state constitutions. AWSA was based in Boston. 1869 Wyoming territory is organized with a woman suffrage provision.
1870 The Fifteenth Amendment gave black men the right to vote. NWSA refused to work for its ratification and instead the members advocate for a Sixteenth Amendment that would dictate universal suffrage. Frederick Douglass broke with Stanton and Anthony over the position of NWSA. 1870 The Woman’s Journal is founded and edited by Mary Livermore, Lucy Stone, and Henry Blackwell.
1871 Victoria Woodhull addresses the House Judiciary Committee, arguing women’s rights to vote under the fourteenth amendment. 1871 The Anti-Suffrage Party is founded.
1872 Susan B. Anthony casts her ballot for Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential election and is arrested and brought to trial in Rochester, New York. Fifteen other women are arrested for illegally voting. Sojourner Truth appears at a polling booth in Battle Creek, Michigan, demanding a ballot to vote; she is turned away. 1872 Abigail Scott Duniway convinces Oregon lawmakers to pass laws granting a married woman’s rights such as starting and operating her own business, controlling the money she earns, and the right to protect her property if her husband leaves.
1874 The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is founded by Annie Wittenmyer. With Frances Willard at its head (1876), the WCTU became an important proponent in the fight for woman suffrage. As a result, one of the strongest opponents to women’s enfranchisement was the liquor lobby, which feared women might use their vote to prohibit the sale of liquor.
1876 Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage disrupt the official Centennial program at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, presenting a “Declaration of Rights for Women” to the Vice President.
1878 A Woman Suffrage Amendment is proposed in the U.S. Congress. When the 19th Amendment passes forty-one years later, it is worded exactly the same as this 1878 Amendment.
1887 The first vote on woman suffrage is taken in the Senate and is defeated.
1888 The National Council of Women in the United States is established to promote the advancement of women in society.
1890 NWSA and AWSA merge and the National American Woman Suffrage Association is formed. Stanton is the first president. The Movement focuses efforts on securing suffrage at the state level. 1890 Wyoming is admitted to the Union with a state constitution granting woman suffrage. 1890 The American Federation of Labor declares support for woman suffrage. 1890 The South Dakota campaign for woman suffrage loses.
1890-1925 The Progressive Era begins. Women from all classes and backgrounds enter public life. Women’s roles expand and result in an increasing politicization of women. Consequently, the issue of woman suffrage becomes part of mainstream politics.
1892 Olympia Brown founds the Federal Suffrage Association to campaign for woman’s suffrage.
1893 Colorado adopts woman suffrage.
1894 600,000 signatures are presented to the New York State Constitutional Convention in a failed effort to bring a woman suffrage amendment to the voters.
1895 Elizabeth Cady Stanton publishes The Woman’s Bible. After its publication, NAWSA moves to distance itself from Stanton because many conservative suffragists considered her to be too radical and, thus, potentially damaging to the suffrage campaign.
1896 Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Frances E.W. Harper among others found the the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. 1896 Utah joins the Union with full suffrage for women. 1896 Idaho adopts woman suffrage.
1903 Mary Dreier, Rheta Childe Dorr, Leonora O’Reilly, and others form the Women’s Trade Union League of New York, an organization of middle- and working-class women dedicated to unionization for working women and to woman suffrage.
1910 Washington State adopts woman suffrage. 1910 The Women’s Political Union organizes the first suffrage parade in New York City.
1911 The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) is organized. Led by Mrs. Arthur Dodge, its members included wealthy, influential women, some Catholic clergymen, distillers and brewers, urban political machines, Southern congressmen, and corporate capitalists. 1911 The elaborate California suffrage campaign succeeds by a small margin.
1912 Woman Suffrage is supported for the first time at the national level by a major political party -- Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party. 1912 Twenty thousand suffrage supporters join a New York City suffrage parade. 1912 Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona adopt woman suffrage.
1913 In 1913, suffragists organized a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. The parade was the first major suffrage spectacle organized by the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
The two women then organized the Congressional Union, later known at the National Women’s Party (1916). They borrowed strategies from the radical Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in England.
1914 Nevada and Montana adopt woman suffrage. 1914 The National Federation of Women’s Clubs, which had over two million women members throughout the U.S., formally endorses the suffrage campaign.
1915 Mabel Vernon and Sara Bard Field are involved in a transcontinental tour which gathers over a half-million signatures on petitions to Congress. 1915 Forty thousand march in a NYC suffrage parade. Many women are dressed in white and carry placards with the names of the states they represent. 1915 Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts continue to reject woman suffrage.
1916 Jeannette Rankin of Montana is the first woman elected to the House of Representatives. Woodrow Wilson states that the Democratic Party platform will support suffrage.
1917 New York women gain suffrage. 1917 Arkansas women are allowed to vote in primary elections. 1917 National Woman’s Party picketers appear in front of the White House holding two banners, “Mr. President, What Will You Do For Woman Suffrage?” and “How Long Must Women Wait for Liberty?” 1917 Jeannette Rankin of Montana, the first woman elected to Congress, is formally seated in the U.S. House of Representatives. 1917 Alice Paul, leader of the National Woman’s Party, was put in solitary confinement in the mental ward of the prison as a way to “break” her will and to undermine her credibility with the public. 1917 In June, arrests of the National Woman’s party picketers begin on charges of obstructing sidewalk traffic. Subsequent picketers are sentenced to up to six months in jail. In November, the government unconditionally releases the picketers in response to public outcry and an inability to stop National Woman’s Party picketers’ hunger strike.
1918 Representative Rankin opens debate on a suffrage amendment in the House. The amendment passes.
The amendment fails to win the required two thirds majority in the Senate. 1918 Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma adopt woman suffrage. 1918 President Woodrow Wilson states his support for a federal woman suffrage amendment. 1918 President Wilson addresses the Senate about adopting woman suffrage at the end of World War I.
1919 The Senate finally passes the Nineteenth Amendment and the ratification process begins.
August 26, 1920 Three quarters of the state legislatures ratify the Nineteenth Amendment. American Women win full voting rights.
From the National Women’s History Museum
https://www.womenshistory.org/resources/timeline/womans-suffrage-timeline205 S. Whiting Street, Suite 254, Alexandria, Virginia 22304 | 703.461.1920 | womenshistory.org