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Seneca Falls Convention
After the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, women split over the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amdendments, which granted equal rights including the right vote to African American men, but exluded women. Susan B. Anthony, a leading proponent of woman suffrage, the right to vote said " I would sooner cut off my right hand than ask the ballot for the black man and not for women. -
Illegal Voting
First, women tried to convince state legislatures to grant women the right to vote, second women pursued court cases to test the Fourteenth Amendment, which declared that states denying their male citizens the right to vote would los congressional representation. Third, women pushed for a national constitutional amendment to grant women the vote. Stanton succeeded in having the amendment introduced in California, but it was killed later. -
Carry Nation and the WCTU
Woman's Christian Temperance Union spearheaded the crusade for prohibition. Members advanced their cause by entering saloons, singing, praying, and urging saloonkeepers to stop selling alcohol. As moentum grew, the Union ws transformed by Frances Willard from a small midwestern religious group in 1879 to a national organization. -
NAWSA Formed
In 1869 Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had founded the National Women Suffrage Association, which united with another group in 1890 to become the National American Woman Suffrage Association, or NAWSA. Other prominent leaders included Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe, the author of " The Battle Hymn of the Republic." -
Carrie Chapman Catt and New NAWSA Tactics
Susan B. Anthony's successor as president of NAWSA was Carrie Chapman catt, who served from 1900 to 1904 and resumed the presidency in 1915. When Catt returned to NAWSA after organizing New York's Women Suffrage Party, she concentrated on five tactics: 1. painstaking organization; 2. close ties between local,state, and national workers; 3. establishing a wides base of support; 4. cautious lobbying; and 5. gracious, ladylike behavior. -
19th Amendment
In 1919, Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the right to vote. The amendment won final ratification in August 1920-72 years after women had first convened and demanded the vote at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848.