1995 marked the 75th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment to
the Constitution. The amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote.
Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory
took decades of agitation and protest. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several
generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied,
and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a
radical change of the Constitution. Few early supporters lived to see final
victory in 1920.
Between 1878, when the amendment was first introduced in Congress, and August 18, 1920, when it was ratified, champions of voting rights for women worked tirelessly, but strategies for achieving their goal varied. Some pursued a strategy of passing suffrage acts in each state--nine western states adopted woman suffrage legislation by 1912. Others challenged male-only voting laws in the courts. Militant suffragists used tactics such as parades, silent vigils, and hunger strikes. Often supporters met fierce resistance. Opponents heckled, jailed, and sometimes physically abused them.
1916, almost all of the major suffrage organizations were united behind the
goal of a constitutional amendment. When New York adopted woman suffrage in
1917 and President Wilson changed his position to support an amendment in 1918,
the political balance began to shift.
On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the amendment, and 2 weeks later, the Senate followed. When Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on August 18, 1920, the amendment passed its final hurdle of obtaining the agreement of three-fourths of the states. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August 26, 1920, changing the face of the American electorate forever.
Image Top Right:
House Joint Resolution 1 proposing the 19th amendment to the states Enlarged
Image Middle Left:
Suffrage Parade, New York City, ca. 1912
Image Bottom Right:
"During World War I, militant suffragists, demanding that President Wilson
reverse his opposition to a federal amendment, stood vigil at the White House
and carried banners such as this one comparing the President to Kaiser Wilhelm
II of Germany. In the heated patriotic climate of wartime, such tactics met
with hostility and sometimes violence and arrest."
Photograph by Harris and Ewing
Record Group 165
American Unofficial Collection of World War I Photographs
National Archives and Records Administration
( 165-WW-600A-5 ) Enlarged