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The First Gathering
The first gathering devoted to women’s rights in the United States was in Seneca Falls, New York. The principal organizers of the Seneca Falls Convention were Elizabeth Cady Stanton. About 100 people attended the convention; two-thirds were women. Stanon drafted: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.” -
Succesive Waves
The sometimes-fractious suffrage movement that grew out of the Seneca Falls meeting proceeded in successive waves. Initially, women reformers addressed social and institutional barriers that limited women’s rights; including family responsibilities, a lack of educational and economic opportunities, and the absence of a voice in political debates. -
Stanton and Susan B.
Stanton and Susan met in 1850 and forged a lifetime alliance as women’s rights activists.They agitated against the denial of basic economic freedoms to women. Later, they unsuccessfully lobbied Congress to include women in the provisions of the 14th and 15th Amendments (extending citizenship rights and granting voting rights to freedmen, respectively). -
Two Distinct Factions Emerged
Stanton and Anthony created the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), which directed its efforts toward changing federal law and opposed the 15th Amendment because it excluded women. Lucy Stone, a one time Massachusetts antislavery advocate and a prominent lobbyist for women’s rights, formed the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). -
THE FIRST STATE
The first state to grant women complete voting rights was Wyoming in 1869. -
Senator Aaron Sargent
Senator Aaron Sargent introduced in Congress a women’s suffrage amendment. The overall campaign stalled. Eventually, the NWSA also shifted its efforts to the individual states where reformers hoped to start a ripple effect to win voting rights at the federal level. -
The Two Wings Struggled
e AWSA was better funded and the larger of the two groups, but it had only a regional reach. The NWSA, which was based in New York, relied on its statewide network but also drew recruits from around the nation, largely on the basis of the extensive speaking circuit of Stanton and Susan B. -
No Support
Neither group attracted broad support from women, or persuaded male politicians or voters to adopt its cause. Susan B. Anthony and Ida H. Harper cowrote, “In the indifference, the inertia, the apathy of women, lies the greatest obstacle to their enfranchisement.” -
The Turning Point
The turning point came in the late 1880s and early 1890s, when the nation experienced a surge of volunteerism among middle-class women—activists in progressive causes, members of women’s clubs and professional societies, temperance advocates, and participants in local civic and charity organizations. -
A New Group
By 1890, seeking to capitalize on their newfound “constituency,” the two groups united to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). -
NAWSA
Led initially by Stanton and then by Susan B., the NAWSA began to draw on the support of women activists in organizations as diverse as the Women’s Trade Union League, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), and the National Consumer’s League. -
NAWSA
For the next two decades, the NAWSA worked as a nonpartisan organization focused on gaining the vote in states, though managerial problems and a lack of coordination initially limited its success. -
VOTING RIGHTS
Colorado (1893) -
VOTING RIGHTS
Utah (1896) -
VOTING RIGHTS
Idaho (1896), followed shortly after NAWSA was founded -
VOTING RIGHTS
But prior to 1910, only these four states (Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho) allowed women to vote. Between 1910 and 1914, the NAWSA intensified its lobbying efforts and additional states extended the franchise to women: Washington, California, Arizona, Kansas, and Oregon. -
First World War
Catt’s steady strategy of securing voting rights state by state and Paul’s vocal and partisan protest campaign coincided with the Wilson administration’s decision to intervene in the First World War—a development that provided powerful rhetoric for and a measure of expediency for granting the vote. -
Carrie Chapman Catt
Catt proved an adept administrator and organizer, whose “Winning Plan” strategy called for disciplined and relentless efforts to achieve state referenda on the vote, especially in non-Western states.8 Key victories—the first in the South and East—followed in 1917 when Arkansas and New York granted partial and full voting rights, respectively. -
Achievments
President Wilson (a convert to the suffrage cause) urged Congress to pass a voting rights amendment. Another crowning achievement also occurred that year when Montana’s Jeannette Rankin (elected two years after her state enfranchised women) was sworn into the 65th Congress on April 2, as the first woman to serve in the national legislature. -
Make the World Safe for Democracy
The NAWSA publicly embraced the war cause, despite the fact that many women suffragists, including Rankin, were pacifists. Suffrage leaders suggested that the effort to “make the world safe for democracy” ought to begin at home, by extending the franchise. Moreover, they insisted, the failure to extend the vote to women might impede their participation in the war effort just when they were most needed to play a greater role as workers and volunteers outside the home. Responding to these overture -
After the War
It was not until after the war, however, that the measure finally cleared Congress with the House again voting its approval by a wide margin on May 21, 1919. The Senate concurring on June 14, 1919. -
FULL VOTING RIGHTS
A year later, on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment, providing full voting rights for women nationally, was ratified when Tennessee became the 36th state to approve it.
