History Of Women's Suffrage

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association. The primary goal of the organization is to achieve voting rights for women by means of a Congressional amendment to the Constitution.

July 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized a group to meet in Seneca Falls, New York, to discuss their rights. After much ridicule, many of the attendees dropped out, but this marked the beginning of the women's suffrage movement in America.1 The first national women's rights convention was held in 1850, and was then repeated continuously. In 1869 the National Women's Suffrage Association was founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They would push for women's right to be amended into the constitution. Another organization was formed that same year by Lucy Stone, which was called the American Women’s Suffrage Association.2 This group would work through the state legislatures. These two groups would later be united in 1890 to become the National American Woman Suffrage Association.3

National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) opposed the Fifteenth Amendment, while the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) supported the new law. Stanton and Anthony founded the NWSA first. Article 2 of the Constitution of the organization states, “The object of this Association shall be to secure STATE and NATIONAL protection for women citizens in the exercise of

“Beginning in the 1800s, women organized petitioned and pocketed to won three right to vote but it took them decades to accomplish their purpose”(archive.com). The organized movement started at Seneca Falls, NY with a meeting called by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott. The most influential leaders during the movements were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The Suffragists and Suffragettes were trying to prove to the public that women could be doing other things apart from looking after the children and taking care of the homes. The Seneca Falls convention was organized by a group of women who had been active in the antislavery movement. The Seneca Falls Declaration called for an increase in women’s rights in these areas, as well as in education for women and the jobs available to

Women’s suffrage in the United States began in the nineteenth century and continued into the twentieth century until the nineteenth amendment was passed in 1920 to give women the right to vote. Women’s rights activists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony protested the fifteenth amendment that was passed in 1869 because the amendment unfairly did not include women. While Anthony and Stanton protested this proposed amendment other activists such as Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe fought against the women’s suffrage movement by saying that if African-Americans got their right to vote women would gain theirs soon after. The conflict that arose from the two sides butting heads gave way to the formation of two organizations, the National Women’s Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association. The National Women’s Suffrage Association fought for women’s right to vote at a federal level, they also fought for married women to have the same rights as their husbands in regards to property. The American Woman Suffrage Association took a slightly different approach by attempting to get women the right to vote through much simpler means of the state legislature. The women involved in these movements finally got their day in Washington on January 12, 1915 as a women’s suffrage bill was brought before the House of Representatives but

Remember your Ladies” (Revolutionary Changes and Limitations) is what Abigale Adams told to her husband John Adams when he was signing a new federal document. She was one of the earliest woman suffrage activists and her words towards her husband would eventually snowball into one of the most remembered suffrage movements in the history of the United States (Revolutionary Changes and Limitations). The women’s suffrage movement picked up speed in the 1840-1920 when women such as Susan B. Anthony, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Alice Paul came into the spot light. These women spearheaded the women suffrage movement by forming parties, parading, debating, and protesting. The most renowned women suffrage parties that were created during the 1840-1920 was the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), and the National Woman’s Party (NWP). The parties not only had similar names but similar goals: women will one day receive the right to vote. Each party had its own unique agenda of how women will receive the right to vote, the NWSA had Susan B. Anthony’s dedication, the NAWSA had Catt’s “Winning Plan” (Carrie Chapman Catt) and the NWP had Alice Paul’s perseverance to go to extremes by captivating people’s attention. Eventually the goal of the parties was reached when the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified. The Amendment granted women the right to vote, granting them all the same rights that were held by men. Women would have never

In 1869 Staton, Mott, and Anthony created the “NWSA” also known as the National Women’s Suffrage Association. This group did not allow male figures in and focused around the right to vote in national elections and passing the constitutional amendment. Soon after the other suffragist Lucy Stone founded her own organization. Stone started the “NAWSA” also known as the National American Women’s Suffrage Association. This group focused on getting votes state by state for suffrage. The only difference with this organization was that men were allowed to join, which caused many problems. 20 years later in 1890 Lucy Stone had become very ill and had passed away, since no one was there to run her organization (NAWSA) the NWSA group connected together. It was now fully known as The National American Women’s Suffrage Association (NAWSA) but this time men were not allowed to join.

Stanton and Anthony created the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) in the wake of the Civil War.

In 1869, Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association, an organization devoted to gaining rights for women. Anthony made sure that Stanton was president as long as possible; Anthony served as vice president until 1892 when she became president of the NWSA

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.

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman Suffrage Association and Lucy Stone and other women formed the American Woman Suffrage Association.

that this would take to long and tried to the the courts to declare that voting

In order to examine the actions of the NAWSA and the NWP it is important to understand their individual origins. NAWSA, the largest suffrage organization in the United States, was formed in 1890 by the merging of two rival suffrage groups, the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). Elizabeth Cady Stanton, founder of the NWSA alongside Susan B. Anthony, spoke at the first women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York and declared “We are assembled to protest against a form

The suffrage movement roots go back to the anti-slavery movement before the eruption of the Civil War (19). American women recruited their efforts through political activism to bring slavery to an end. Consequently, joining the antislavery movements was used as a platform where the feminists articulated their claims about women’s rights. Moreover, they gave them the needed experience and self-confidence to launch their own movement. By the end of the Civil War, feminists realized that they need an independent political groundwork to base their movement on since America was going through radical social changes after the end of slavery (19).

“In 1893 to 1896, the newest states Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho amended their state constitutions to include women’s suffrage” (Lewis). This was a step in the right direction. The organization kept working hard and organized tons of campaigns to get the movement on state ballots, however, every time they were on the ballots they did not go through. As of 1906, the leaders who started the movement had all passed away. In spite of this, from 1910 to 1912 Washington State, California, Michigan, Kansas, Oregon, and Arizona had all approved of women’s suffrage (Lewis). The states passing these laws created a fear in the Southern states that this progression in the movement would impact the voting rights for African Americans. The end of this large organization was near and a new organization created by Lucy Burns and Alice Paul called the Congressional Committee had been created within NAWSA and was later called the National Woman’s Party.