Woman's Suffrage in the U.S. (1776-1965)

By Poulnwar

  • Declaration of Independence

  • "Remember the ladies" (Abigail Adams)

  • Period: to

    Women can vote in New Jersey

  • Letter from J. Adams to James Sullivan

    In which he argues against woman suffrage using essentialist arguments, but also against universal male suffrage as a way to maintain social purity

  • U.S. Constitution Ratified

    Yet "failed to impose a national conception of voting rights" (Keyssar, 2000)

  • "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" M. Wollstonecraft

  • War with Great Britain

  • American Colonization Society founded

    An alternative to emancipation in the U.S., based on the idea that blacks and white could not live together and thus that black people were better off migrating to Africa, to a country now known as Liberia

  • Troy Female Seminary founded

    by Emma Willard; A school in Troy, NY, which aimed at providing young women the same higher education as their male peers

  • NY: Universal White male suffrage, property qualifications for Black men

  • Hartford Female Seminary

    Created by Catharine Beecher; one of the first major educational institutions for women

  • Foundation of the United Tailoress Society

  • Petition of the women of Harrisville, Ohio

  • Oberlin College Founded

    First higher education institution for both men and women, black and white

  • First World's Antislavery Convention in London

    From which women were excluded by a vote on the first day

  • Petition for Women's Suffrage, NY State Constitutional Convention

  • Declaration of Sentiment

    Mostly written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  • NY: Marriage Property Act

    The real and personal property of any female who may hereafter marry, and which she shall own at the time of marriage, and the rents, issues and profits thereof shall not be subject to the disposal of her husband, nor be liable for his debts, and shall continue her sole and separate property, as if she were a single female
  • Period: to

    Seneca Falls Convention

  • Seneca Falls Resolution

    “That it is the duty of the women of this country to
    secure to themselves their sacred right to the
    elective franchise.”

  • Women's Right Convention in Rochester, NY

  • "Discourse on Women" L. Mott

  • First National Women's Rights Convention

    Worcester, Massachusetts

  • "Ain't I a Woman", WRC in Akron, Ohio

    Speech by Sojourner Truth at the Woman's Right Convention in Akron, Ohio

  • Dredd Scott v. Sanford

    Black citizenship denied

  • Disagreement over divorce at 10th NWRC

    Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Antoinette Brown Blackwell moved to add a resolution calling for legislation on marriage reform; they wanted laws that would give women the right to separate from or divorce a husband who had demonstrated drunkenness, insanity, desertion or cruelty. Wendell Phillips argued against the resolution, fracturing the executive committee on the matter. Susan B. Anthony also supported the measure, but it was defeated by vote after a heated debate.

  • Women's Loyal National League

    Goal = campaign for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would abolish slavery
    Organized by ECS (president), and SBA (secretary). In the largest petition drive in the nation's history up to that time, it collected nearly 400k signatures on petitions to abolish slavery and presented them to Congress. Its petition drive significantly assisted the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery in the U.S.
    Disbanded in Aug 1864

  • Election of A. Lincoln

  • Meeting of the American Antislavery Society

    During which Wendell Phillips famously said "the hour of the negro has come"

  • 13th Amendment ratified

    Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

  • 11th National Woman's Right Convention, NYC

    During which african-american activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper famously said in a speech: "You white women speak here of rights. I speak of wrongs. I, as a colored woman, have had in this country an education which has made me feel as if I were in the situation of Ishmael, my hand against every man, and every man's hand against me."

  • ECS ran for NY House of Representatives

    Even though she could not get elected

  • Kansas Campaign

    The results of the Kansas election saw both women's and black suffrage defeated, with black suffrage receiving 10,483 votes and women's receiving 9,070. With the defeat, equal rights activists were forced to realize that their campaign had failed.

  • AWSA founded

  • NWSA founded

  • 15th Amendment ratified

    The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

  • "The True Woman" periodical first published

  • V. Woodhull ran for U.S. Presidency

  • Susan B. Anthony tries to register to vote

    Sentenced to a fine

  • Woman's Christian Temperance Union created

  • Minor v. Happersett

    Court ruled that voting was not an inherent right of citizenship, that the Constitution neither granted nor forbade voting rights for women, and that allowing only male citizens to vote was not an infringement of Minor's rights under the Fourteenth Amendment.

  • Jim Crow Laws

  • 16th Amendment proposal

    Part of the Constitutional strategy for advancing woman's suffrage; amendment regularly defeated in Congress, sometimes not even introduced
  • Period: to

    "Doldrums" period

    Late 19th - early 20th: period of backlash to progress and of better organization of the opposition to woman suffrage;
    Only 11 States organized referenda on woman's suffrage bt 1870 and 1910
  • Period: to

    End of 19th evolutions of the situation of women

    More visibility in the public sphere
    Greater access to education and jobs + more jobs open (such as clerk)
    Emergence of the Gibson Girl, the New Woman
    Lights in the streets (made them feel safer)

  • Woman Suffrage in Washington

  • Woman's suffrage overturned in Washington

  • Senate examined a federal amendment for woman's suffrage and rejeted it

  • Merging of AWSA and NWSA into NAWSA

  • BTD: 22 states had included school suffrage for women

    (BTD = "By that date")

  • First NAWSA Convention

  • Wounded Knee Massacre

  • South Dakota: Two referenda on Woman and Indigenous suffrage defeated

  • Mississippi Plan

    New constitution, which effectively disenfranchised and disarmed most blacks by erecting barriers to firearms ownership as well as voter registration, by a method of poll taxes, subjective literacy tests, etc
    Only 9k black men registered out of 147k
  • Period: to

    Progressive Era

    (bornage approximatif)

  • "Indian versus women"

    Speech given by Anna Howard Shaw, in which she lamented the results of the South Dakota referenda, especially since the referendum on Indian suffrage got more votes than the one for woman suffrage

  • "Woman versus the Indian"

    Answer to Shaw's speech by Anna Julia Cooper

  • BTD: Women enfranchised in only four states

    Wyoming
    Utah
    Colorado
    Idaho

  • ECS advocates for a literacy test as pre-requisite for voting

  • First two antisuffrage associations formed in NY and Massachusetts

  • "Objection to Woman Suffrage answered"

    Speech by Henry B. Blackwell

  • National Association of Colored Women created

    Founders of the NACWC included Harriet Tubman, Margaret Murray Washington, Frances E. W. Harper, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, Victoria Earle Matthews, Josephine Silone Yates, and Mary Church Terrell.

  • "The progress of black women"

    Speech given by Mary Church Terrell, first president of the NACW, at the NAWSA Convention

  • Supreme Court upheld Mississippi restrictions (from 1890)

  • Belle Kearney advocates for white supremacy at NAWSA Convention in New Orlean

    Woman suffrage as a way to establish "immediate and durable white supremacy, honestly attained"

  • Women's Trade Union League created

  • American Feferation of Labor endorses woman suffrage

    (Main trade union at that time)

  • Equality League of Self-Supporting Women created

    By Harriet Stanton Blatch;
    Alliance between middle and working class suffragists

  • Act in Reference to the Expatriation of Citizens and their Protection Abroad

    Women married to non-U.S. citizens deprived of their citizenship until they divorced
  • Period: to

    Suffrage Marches in half the states

  • First Suffrage March, Oakland, Ca

  • NAWSA Convention

    Adoption of a resolution for equal wages & rights related to work
    Coincides with an increasing involvement of progressive activists and of working class women in the struggle for suffrage

  • NAWSA's Congressional Committee

  • Women enfranchised in Washington

  • Women enfranchised in California

  • National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage created

  • Progressive Party created

  • Women enfranchised in Arizona, Kansas, Oregon

  • Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage

  • Alpha Suffrage Club (IBW)

  • Inauguration of Woodrow Wilson

  • 5k women march in Washington D.C.

    Same time as the inauguration of WW for increased visibility

  • Montana: Women can vote and be candidates in local elections

  • Women enfranchised in Montana & Nevada

  • Everywoman Suffrage Club

    Create in St Paul, Minnesota - an association of black women from different social classes

  • Mackenzie v. Hare

    Upheld the Act in Reference to the Expatriation... from 1907

  • Montana: J. Rankin elected representative in Congress

  • Carrie Chapman Catt's "Crisis" speech

    in which she announced her winning plan, i.e. tuning down on activism to display patriotism during the war "The woman's hour has come" echoing Wendell Phillips' quote

  • Silent Sentinels protest

    Protest in front of the White House; unpopular due to war context (even Chapman Catt disapproved of it)

  • Jones Act

    Citizenship to Puerto Ricans, but no mention of woman suffrage

  • Wilson announces his support for a federal amendment

  • "War Measure" speech

  • "Guide to women voter"

    Published by NAWSA, with the aim to educate women

  • League of Women Voters

    Created by Emily Newell Blair

  • 1/3 of Native Americans not considered citizens

    Instead considered as "wards", and therefore disenfranchised
  • Period: to

    56k women registered to vote in Boston

    86% turnout in 1920 presidential election

  • 19th Amendment ratified

  • Wisconsin = first state to adopt and Equal Rights Law

  • Cable Act

    No more loss of U.S. citizenship, yet still restrictions
  • Period: to

    17 women, among whom 5 hispanics, elected in New Mexico

  • Lucretia Mott Amendment turned defeated in Congress

    "Men and women shall have equal rights
    throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction."

  • "Get-out-the-Vote" Campaign

    League of Women Voters

  • Nelli Tayoe Ross became governor of Wyoming

  • Indian Citizenship Act

    Yet some states kept disenfranchising them

  • Bertha Knight Landes became mayor of Seattle, Wsh

  • Election of Oscar Stanton DePriest, Illinois

    First black man in congress

  • Educated women in Puerto Rico enfranchised

  • "Women: Ten Years After"

    Article (?) in the Time by Emily Newell Blair;
    "Frankly I am quite discouraged about women in politics […] The suffragists have made the same mistake as the
    temperance group. Both thought that with their victory they had only to defend their positions […] The suffragists
    stopped their educational work of convincing people that
    women had a right to equality and devoted themselves to
    other interests."

  • Frances Perkins, former suffragist, nominated secretary of labor

    (Until 1945)
  • Period: to

    FDR Presidency

  • All Puerto Rican Women Enfranchised

  • Poll tax upheld in Georgia by the SC

  • Only 3% of black people registered in the South

  • J. Rankin re-elected as Montana representative in Congress

  • Executive Order 8802

    “no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or Government because of race, creed, color, or national origin.”

  • March on Washington Movement

    A. Phillip Randolph;
    threat of mass marches in D.C. to pressure government into ending segregation in the defense industry (initial march called off after order 8802)

  • Soldier Voting Act

  • Alice Paul Amendment (ERA)

    Supported by both Reps & Dems, yet not approved in Senate until 1972 - and never ratified due to strong conservative opposition in the 70s - NB: this was a "blanket amendment" and not all feminist agreed with its content (the League of Women Voters opposed it because it would jeopardize labor protection in some states, v. M Church Terrell: “the amendment is not anti-labor, it’s anti-unfair-labor”)

  • White Primaries abolished by the SC

  • "To Secure these Rights"

  • 50s: Clark & Baker educational programs

    Educational programs organized by Septima Clark and Ella Baker to help black people pass literacy tests

  • Civil Rights Act

    Bill designed to provide federal protection for African American voting rights

  • 24th Amendment Ratified

    The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any
    primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for Presidentor Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or bridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll taxor other tax

  • Civil Rights Act

    a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools and public accommodations, and employment discrimination.

  • Patsy Mink became the first woman of color elected in Congress

  • Voting Right Act

    Designed to enforce the voting rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, the Act sought to secure the right to vote for racial minorities throughout the country, especially in the South.

  • Bloody Sunday

  • "We Shall Overcome"

    Speech by LBJ

  • Shirley Chisholm, first black woman in Congress

  • Estimate of 5k black people lynched

    Between 1882 and 1968

  • Shelby County v. Holder

    SC strikes down state supervision of elections brought by the VRA