Women's Suffrage

The decades-long effort for women's suffrage was under way as early as the 1830s. Women working to abolish slavery were struck by the similarity of their lot, under law, to that of slaves. A key event was the 1848 Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York, where women passed a Declaration of Principles, a broad manifesto that included a call for the vote.

After the Civil War, some women contended they were granted equal rights, including voting privileges, by the Fourteenth Amendment, which freed slaves. Susan B. Anthony urged women to claim their right to vote at the polls; she did so in Rochester, New York, in 1872. Anthony was arrested and later convicted of “voting without having a lawful right to vote.” Anthony and her followers pressed Congress for a constitutional amendment granting the franchise to women, but in 1887 the Senate rejected the proposal, 16–34.

The suffragists then turned to the states, where they were more successful. By the turn of the century, four western states had extended the franchise to women: Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho. Then, as the Progressive movement gained influence, additional states gave women the vote: Washington in 1910; California in 1911; Arizona, Kansas, and Oregon in 1912; Montana and Nevada in 1914; New York in 1917; and Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma in 1918.

Arguments for and against the vote included extravagant claims; some said women's enfranchisement would end corruption in American politics, while others cautioned that it would lead to free love. By 1914, some advocates of women's suffrage, led by Alice Paul, were using more militant tactics. They opposed every Democratic candidate in the eleven states where women could vote, regardless of the candidate's position on women's suffrage. They reasoned that the majority party should be held responsible for the failure of Congress to endorse a constitutional amendment. More than half of the forty-three Democrats running in those states were defeated.

Many suffragists saw President Woodrow Wilson as a major obstacle to their movement. Wilson, who endorsed women's suffrage, preferred to let the states handle voting qualifications and opposed a constitutional amendment. Women responded by demonstrating in Washington, and thousands were arrested and jailed.

In January 1918, Wilson finally announced his support for the proposed amendment. The House agreed the next day. Only after a new Congress met in 1919, however, did the Senate join the House in mustering the two-thirds majority required to send the amendment to the states for ratification. The amendment took effect in August 1920, when three-fourths of the states consented to ratification.

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