Women's Suffrage In American History Essay

“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 Declaration of Independence” was the goal of the right to vote, but that was

It also used attention-grabbing tactics in order to show that they truly care by going out of their comfort zone. National Women’s Party (NWP’s) contributions to the suffrage movement were most effective due to their drastic approaches such as different forms of campaigning, picketing during wartime, and their maltreatment in jail to their advantage.

My topic of choice is the background behind the 19TH Amendment of the United States. Voting is important in the United States because its shows that we’re a part of a movement that allows us to vote for whose best for running our country. Well what if you were denied this right not because of your race, but your gender? Women were denied the right to vote for years because men felt that they weren’t an important part of decision making in America. They believed we were already busy with raising children, taking care of the home, and “serving” our husbands, that we shouldn’t have to deal with the pressure of voting.

After the Civil War, the movement of women’s suffrage had a new inspiration, as they used African American suffrage as a stepping stone towards women’s suffrage. Organizations, such as the National Association Women’s Suffrage Association and Women’s Christian Temperance, had clear goals to reform the urban areas with women’s suffrage. As this empowering reform took place, women of the late 19th and early 20th centuries started to question their own roles within society. As women faced opposition and had diminished roles within society, the women of the late 19th century sought equality.

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.

During the late 19th century, women were in a society where man was dominant. Women not having natural born rights, such as the right to vote, to speak in public, access to equal education, and so forth, did not stop them to fight for their rights. Women's lives soon changed when Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony played a prominent role to help bring about change.

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).

Women began to speak out against the laws that were deliberately set against them. Throughout this time period, women were denied the right to vote in all federal and most state held elections. Women

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.

The NUWSS used peaceful and legal ways to try and win suffrage for women. However some women became dissatisfied with this peaceful stance and believed the only way to gain more support would be to use more aggressive methods. Thus, a faction broke away to form the WSPU, known as the suffragettes, and made a tactical and strategic decision to use actions not words.

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.”

In 1915, five years before women were permitted the vote in America, an article disseminated in The New York Times prescribed that, when everyone of every religion, sex, monetary status, and race had the ability to vote, class control would end and the honest to goodness vote based framework would take after. Such a declaration was cheerful, in the meantime, ideal around one hundred years sometime later, there are as yet a couple edges that stay consistent. Regardless, American history demonstrates that across the board suffrage is not satisfactory to ensure honest to goodness vote based framework and keep the abuse of minority social events.

A famous poet named Julia Ward Howe became a big part of the Women's Suffrage Movement. Howe the co-founder of the Women's Suffrage Movement, was a great poet and supported the 15th amendment. (Woman’s Suffrage) In addition, she was the leader of the women's club movement and she helped the making of the New England Suffrage Association.

Women had trouble being granted the same rights as men till they demanded change. There were many feminist groups that arose during these desperate times, which helped the issue to be recognized. The National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was formed by two women’s suffrage groups, American Woman Suffrage Association and National Woman Suffrage Association which protested with mass marches and hunger strikes (Suffrage, pars. 2-3). The NAWSA influenced other groups to come forward, like the National Council of Negro Women (Rights, par. 5). In 1869, African American men were granted the ballot, but African American women continue with the struggle to voice their opinions (Suffrage, par 2). Women today still struggle in work environments, with sexism and being paid less than men. Women are paid twenty two percent less than men, which according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research will take another forty four years for this gap to be diminished. In other words, race nor gender should determine one’s