19th Amendment Research Paper

Just one hundred years ago, women in the United States were not allowed to vote. The 19th amendment was not ratified until June 4, 1919. The 19th amendment granted women the right to vote. Women activists had been fighting decades to have such a right. There were many factors that made the 19th amendment possible such as women’s rights organizations, advocates, conventions, and marches. The women’s right movement paved the way to accomplishing the ratification of a female’s right to vote.

Did you know that women in the United States did not have the right to vote until the year 1920? Exactly 144 years after the United States was granted freedom from Great Britain. The women’s suffrage movement, however, did not actually start until 1848, and lasted up until they were granted the right to vote in 1920. Women all over the country were fighting for their right to vote in hopes of bettering their lives. The women’s suffrage movement was a long fought process by many people all over the world, over all different races, religions, even gender. (Cooney 1)

August 26, 1920 was perhaps one of the greatest victories of the century for women. Now when the polls open women and men stand next to each other and cast a vote that holds the same importance. Every person should remember the time and effort it took to get here as they approach the poll booth. There was a struggle to over come and that struggle was won. The landmark acceptance of the Nineteenth Amendment changed the way of life in American forever.

The entire Women’s Movement in the United States has been quite extensive. It can be traced back to 1848, when the first women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. After two days of discussions, 100 men and women signed the Declaration of Sentiments. Drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, this document called for equal treatment of women and men under the law and voting rights for women. This gathering set the agenda for the rest of the Women’s Movement long ago (Imbornoni). Over the next 100 years, many women played a part in supporting equal treatment for women, most notably leading to the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which allowed women the right to vote.

Despite the fact that all races were permitted to vote, women did not completely have that benefit until the nineteenth amendment was set up in 1920. The current development for women to vote traces back to the start of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, when supporters of a Constitutional Amendment, wanted to permit women to vote, gathered. While their development was moderated amid the Civil War years, the two noteworthy suffragist associations united after the war and pushed forward with the development that was completed, after numerous troublesome years in the nineteenth amendment. The nineteenth amendment expresses that the privileges of citizens of the United States should not be denied or compressed to vote due to gender differences.

The Amendment was passed August 26, 1920. Their fight to vote started sometime in the 1820s. In the 1820s american women were titled to be a perfect housewife which included cooking for the men and children, cleaning, looking after children, and should be submissive towards the other gender. They were not allowed to have paying jobs because men thought women could not handle that things except for taking care of their family. In 1851 Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton work together to fight for women’s rights. A lot of people were against what they were trying to accomplish and still are. They worked together in making a newspaper to promote the idea of women’s rights. Around 1869 the National Women’s Suffrage Association was formed

The improvement of women’s rights began back when Republicans first began to work on the Fifteenth amendment, this amendment was ratified in 1870 and it made the denial of voting due to race, illegal. The exclusion of women from this amendment caused women’s right’s activists to start to take a stand and raise their voices for what they thought they deserved. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was quoted with saying, “think of Patrick and Sambo and Hans and Ung Tung who

The 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920. The 19th Amendment provided men and women with equal voting rights. The United States Constitution created in 1789 unattended the subject of suffrage. In the beginning of the 1800s many women suffrage supporters marched, lectured and even practiced civil disobedience to achieve a big change in the constitution. It took decades to accomplish this around 1878 is when the amendment was first introduced in congress.

“To the wrongs that need resistance, to the right that needs assistance, to the future in the distance, give yourselves.” These are the powerful words of Carrie Chapman Catt, a notorious American Women’s Suffrage leader who had a tremendous impact on the Women’s Right Movement, and the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. This inspirational quote not only symbolizes the Women’s Rights Movement and what it stood for, but also shows a glimpse of just how determined and driven women were to make a difference then, and for the future. The 19th amendment to the constitution of the United States guarantees all women nationwide the right to vote,

Women’s rights did not officially begin to be a problem until 1848. Many believe that it’s been a problem from at most the 1600’s. Colonial women didn’t give a thought about their rights, but there were some female political leaders. Margaret Brent, a woman who had been given power-of-attorney from Lord Baltimore. Judith Sargent Stevens Murray, the writer of the United States’ first feminist theory. “Will it be said that the judgment of a male of two years old is more sage than that of a female the same age? I believe the reverse is generally observed to be true. But from that period what partiality! How is the one exalted and the other depressed…. The one is taught to aspire, and the other is early confined and limited.”

Wars have been happening all throughout history. With every war, there is conflict. The war that our female American ancestors had to fight was the war against the injustices toward women that consumed our patriarchal society. They had been part of what we now call The Women’s Suffrage Movement. This movement was composed of feminist activists who have had enough of the male superiority that dominated the United States economically, socially, and politically. Their motivation to change the United States caused a movement that would impact future generations of women. The ratification of the 19th amendment greatly impacted the United States for women today by giving them greater opportunities in education, politics, and the workplace, transforming them from being seen as submissive beings to powerful members of society.

World War I also provided women with the means to finally achieve suffrage. Groups such as the National American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Carrie Chapman Catt, enthusiastically joined the war effort, thereby intertwining patriotism and women’s rights. After the House of Representatives passed the women’s suffrage amendment in January 1918, President Wilson told the nation, “We have made partners of the women in this war. Shall we admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a partnership of privilege and right?” (James and Wells, 67-68). True political equality did not result from the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment—very few female candidates were elected in the 1920s—but, in the words of Allen, “the winning of the suffrage had its effect. It consolidated woman’s position as man’s equal” (96).

The timeline of women’s suffrage is a one that spans from 1848 to 1920. The women’s rights movement in the United States started in the year 1848 with the first women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York. During this convention the ‘Declaration of sentiments’ was signed by 68 women who agreed that women deserved their own political identities. This document set forward the agenda for the women’s rights movement. In the year 1869, Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Women’s suffrage Association which demanded that the 15th amendment be changed to include women right to vote. In the year 1890, The National Women Suffrage Association and the American Women Suffrage Association merged to form National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Colorado was the first state to grant women the right to vote in the year 1893, followed by Utah, Idaho, Washington, California, Oregon, Kansas, Arizona, Alaska, Illinois, Montana, Nevada, New York, Michigan, South Dakota and Oklahoma. The National Association of Colored Women was formed in the year 1896 to promote the civil rights of colored women. The National Women’s Trade Union League was established in the year 1903 in order to improve the working condition for women and also to bring their wages in par with that of men.

Women’s suffrage, or the crusade to achieve the equal right for women to vote and run for political office, was a difficult fight that took activists in the United States almost 100 years to win. On August 26, 1920 the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was ratified, declaring all women be empowered with the same rights and responsibilities of citizenship as men, and on Election Day, 1920 millions of women exercised their right to vote for the very first time.

With this done, the 19th Amendment became a part of the Constitution. Finally, women had achieved the right to vote, but Alice Paul and her colleagues didn’t stop there. They later tried to push for an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution that if passed would guarantee women protection against discrimination. It has been 80 years and they are still fighting over that.