Did you know the 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote and yeah, today is the anniversary. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took decades of agitation and protest. Several generations of women’s suffrage activists lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans at the time considered a radical change of the Constitution.
Beginning in the 1800s, women organized, petitioned, and picketed to win the right to vote, but it took them decades to accomplish their purpose. 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 the tactic of passing suffrage acts in each state—nine western states had adopted woman suffrage legislation by 1912. Others challenged male-only voting laws in the courts. Activist suffragists used tactics such as parades, silent vigils, and hunger strikes. Often supporters met fierce resistance- opponents heckled, jailed, and sometimes physically abused them..
What does this teach us? That winning takes strategy but also patience and courage. These women stood face to face with adversity and triumphed.
By 1916, almost all of the major suffrage organizations were united behind the goal of a constitutional amendment. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August 26, 1920, changing the face of the American electorate forever.
Feeling Inspired? Call someone (sister, mom, auntie, grand-mom, partner, girlfriend, wife, etc) and tell them they are awesome. Also, you can watch this classic school-house rock video on how the 19th amendment came to be!
3 Comments
Thanks for the reminder of this important advancement in our history!
This is really inspiring. Our fore-mothers worked incredibly hard for our right to vote and we should not take this for granted. Make sure you vote locally and statewide ladies!
check out the film Iron Jawed Angels a 2004 an award winning film with Hilary Swank about the American women’s suffrage movement. As they begin to gain traction, they are sent to Occoquan Workhouse for 60-day terms where they suffer horrendous conditions. During this time, Paul, followed by others, stages a hunger strike during which prison authorities brutally force feed them over and over again and prohibit them from seeing visitors or lawyers. In 1970, at the age of ninety one, Alice Paul said “Women are still voiceless . . . We have to wait until complete equality becomes a reality. When you put your hand to the plow, you can’t put it down until you reach the end of the row.”
With access to safe, legal abortion impossible in some areas, with women still making around 70 cents for every dollar a man makes for comparable work, with our countries leaders still over 70% male and domestic violence against women who refuse to be subjugated still claiming thousands of lives a year, we have a long way to go in this forgotten war.