The Women 's Suffrage Movement

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)

Over a hundred years ago, one event created chaos among gender roles and here are some of the initial factors of how rights for women started as a predicament which later began to evolve into a much larger problem that involved many people around the nations. Over the course of history, many issues had change the world to what it has become today. Many problems led to social, economic, and other changes. One small event is able to cause more obstacles, which eventually leads to larger complications. Even though society had tried to resolve these issues, they still encountered many hardships that were disruptive to their own perspectives as also for other people within the community. Thus, this was an important issue because it had changed

Generations of women fought courageously for equality for decades. The ratification of the Nineteenth amendment was vindication for so many women across the country. After having spent so many years oppressed and unable to make way for themselves, women everywhere were growing tired of being unable to own property, keep their wages and the independence that an academic education gave them. The decades that ensued brought with them various female activists, men that supported them and a division of its own within the movement. The women’s suffrage movement lasted 71 years and cam with great discourse to the lives of many women who fought for the cause.

Women’s rights is apparent in the fight for suffrage in the late 1800’s-early 1900’s . It can

Dolly Parton once quoted, “If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.” This quote helps understand the impact the Women’s Suffrage Movement makes on the present day. In 1848 the battle for women’s privileges started with the first Women 's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. On August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment, which provided full voting rights for women nationally, was ratified in the United States Constitution when Tennessee became the 36th state to approve it (Burkhalter). Freya Johnson Ross and Ceri Goddard stated a quite valid argument in a secondary source Unequal Nation saying, “Since the ratification of the 19th Amendment, major social changes have transformed the lives of women and men in many ways but the United States has not noticed how far away our nation is from the gender equal future” (5). When women were finally granted the right to vote, barriers were broken which would allow an increasing chance to make progressive steps to a more equal nation, but our nation has yet to realize our full potential.

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

With the advancement of suffrage to equal pay, over the last century, women’s rights have progressed immensely. Through historic marches and demonstrations across the United States, women protested for their equal place in politics and social progress. Despite the fear-mongering components used in achieving these rights, women’s rights are still thoroughly debated within society today. Over the last century, incredible and unreachable goals have been fulfilled for women, such as the right to vote and a sense of equal state in the “Free World,” and can only improve in the years to come.

The right to vote, the right to go to college, the right to own property. Some people take it as a right that they had all along. That is far from the truth. Suffragists fought long and hard for many years to gain women suffrage. Before the suffrage movement began, women did not have the right to vote, child custody rights, property rights, and more (Rynder). The American Women Suffrage Movement was going to change that. People known as suffragists spoke up, and joined the effort to get women their rights. Without them, things would be very different today. The American Suffrage Movement lasted over the course of many years and changed the lives of American women forever.

The Women’s Suffrage Movement of the 1920’s worked to grant women the right to vote nationally, thereby allowing women more political equality. Due to many industrial and social changes during the early 19th century, many women were involved in social advocacy efforts, which eventually led them to advocate for their own right to vote and take part in government agencies. Women have been an integral part of society, working to help those in need, which then fueled a desire to advocate for their own social and political equality. While many women worked tirelessly for the vote, many obstacles, factions, and ultimately time would pass in order for women to see the vote on the national level. The 19th Amendment, providing women the right to vote, enable women further their pursuit for full inclusion in the working of American society.

The woman suffrage movement, which succeeded in 1920 with the adoption of the Nineteenth Amendment, coincided with major national reform movements seeking to improve public education, create public health programs, regulate business and industrial practices, and establish standards agencies to ensure pure food and public water supplies. In 1870, the first attempt that Virginia women, as a campaign, fought for the right to vote in New Jersey when native Anna Whitehead Bodeker invited several men and women sympathetic to the cause to a meeting that launched the first Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association in Richmond. Though it is not the same concept as fight for the right to vote, women have been fighting an invisible fight for along time in the terms of rape culture on college campuses. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women are sexually assaulted while in college. The fight women take to get help on college campuses is a hard battle when many times put through victim blaming and rejection by the police. Those who chose to stand up for their rights against the injustice, often placed upon them by societal and cultural expectations, make progress towards

During this time NAWSA became increasingly divided. Having long held to the belief that suffrage would come quickest- if not only- via stat-by-state reform. However the controversial, radical work by Alice Paul and the National Women’s Party caused no small divide with in NAWSA as to the question if the NWP’s methods were better or more of a hindrance to the cause. In 1915, after advocating for women’s suffrage abroad as president of the International Women’s Suffrage Association, Carrie Chapman Catt returned to the states to resume her presidency over NAWSA. Catt’s leadership focused on diplomacy and lady-like respectability so as to convince people of the legitimacy of their cause and to separate themselves from the more militant and controversial suffragists of England. She redirected NAWSA back to solely

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.

The National Woman Suffrage Association was founded in 1869, one of the main suffrage organizations in the US during the 19th century. It was a unification of the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The (NAWSA) became the parent that combined all of women’s suffrage small and stated organizations. It was one of the largest and most important suffrage organizations as well as being the primary promoter to woman's right to vote. Women during the gilded age, progressive Era received many injustices and suffered from inequality. The National Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) main goal is to pursue the right to vote in different ways. The organization was established in 1890. In 1890 it became necessary to combine the efforts to try to pursue their goals. Their strategy is to pressure federal government to offer women the same constitutional protections in the Fifteenth Amendment (Keyssar,2009). After establishing (NAWSA) it became the mainstream and the most nationally visible women suffrage organization. NAWSA was the largest women's organization established to help pass woman suffrage legislation. For decades the woman suffrage movement story has been written as national stories. It’s a story that has been written through individuals and collective biography (Sneider, 2010).

This new generation of activists fought with this new agenda for almost 20 years until a few states in the West began to extend the vote to women. The Eastern and Southern states still refused to give in, but this didn’t stop the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In 1916, Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the NAWSA, worked vigorously to get women’s organizations from all over the country together and fight side by side. “One group of activists, led by Alice Paul and her National Woman’s Party, lobbied for full quality for women under the law” (Divine). She used mass marches and hunger strikes as strategies, but she was eventually forced to resign because of her insistence on the use of militant direct-action tactics (Grolier). Finally, during World War 1, women were given more opportunities to work, and were able to show that they were just as deserving as men when it came to the right to vote. On August 18th, 1920, the 19th amendment was ratified, allowing women to vote. This drawn-out and arduous battle opened a new window of opportunity for women all over the country. Significant changes in both social life and job availability began to create what is now referred to as the “new women.”

The women 's suffrage movement, the time when women fought for their rights, began in the year 1848 and continued on all the way through the 1860s. Although women in the new republic had important roles in the family, the house, and other obligations, they were excluded from most rights. These rights included political and legal rights. Due to their gender, they have been held back because they did not have as much opportunities as the men did. The new republic made alterations in the roles of women by disparaging them in society. During this era, men received a higher status than women. Because women were forced to follow laws without being allowed to state their opinions, they tried to resist laws, fight for their freedom and strive to gain equality with men. This leads to feminism, the belief in political, social, and economic equality between men and women. It is the feminist efforts that have successfully tried to give rights that men had, to women who have been denied those rights. Upon the deprivation of those rights, the Seneca Falls convention and the Declaration of Sentiments helped women gain the privileges and opportunities to accomplish the task of equality that they have been striving for.