The women’s suffrage movement began in the US in the mid-1800s and gained momentum after the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848. The movement split into two groups after the Civil War, but reconciled in 1890 to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The association changed its message to emphasize moral authority and gradually won the right to vote in states. The federal constitutional amendment strategy continued to fail until 1918, but the 19th amendment was eventually ratified in 1920, giving women the right to vote.
The women’s suffrage movement was the crusade to get women the same rights as men to vote and run for public office. Some accounts trace the origins of the movement to France during the 18th century. In the United States, women’s dedication to the cause probably began with the birth of the nation. At first slow-growing, the women’s suffrage movement began to gain momentum in the mid-1800s, but did not achieve its ultimate goal until the ratification of the 1800th Amendment to the United States Constitution on Aug. 19-26.
After the Declaration of Independence, women in the new nation had limited voting rights. Then states began to strip away the rights, starting with New York in 1777, Massachusetts in 1780, and New Hampshire in 1784. When the United States Constitutional Convention in 1787 gave states the power to establish voting standards, all states except New Jersey revoked women’s voting rights. New Jersey eventually followed suit in 1807.
The women offered little significant resistance until some began joining anti-slavery associations as part of the abolitionist movement. Some abolitionists have also begun to advocate for women’s rights. This led a group of women led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott to call for a conference dedicated specifically to women’s rights. The convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York from July 19 to 20, 1848, is generally considered to be the beginning of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States.
Although the women’s suffrage movement grew steadily at first, its progress was greatly slowed by the Civil War of 1861 to 1865. It was put on hold for the duration over the objections of Susan B. Anthony, who had meanwhile become also a leader of the movement. After the war, it split into two separate movements: one, founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, believed that suffrage should be secured by amending the United States Constitution; the other, which favored lobbying state legislatures for amendments to state constitutions, was led by Lucy Stone and Julia Ward. The two groups reconciled in 1890 to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as its first president. The new organization applied both strategies in tandem.
The women’s suffrage association changed the image its predecessors had earned by moving away from a message of militancy to one that emphasized that giving women the vote was likely to usher in an era of greater moral authority. From 1890 to 1917, states gradually began to entitle women to vote. The association, however, continued its federal constitutional amendment strategy, which ensured that suffrage legislation was put to a vote by every congress. The amendment continued to fail over the years, usually by considerable margins, until 1918. That year, likely due to the active involvement of the suffragettes in World War I, then President Wilson’s announcement of a position in favor of suffrage and a court ruling that the arrest and jailing of 168 women’s suffrage movement protesters the previous year had been unlawful: the amendment fell just two votes short.
The amendment eventually got enough votes in Congress to pass on June 4, 1919. It then had to be ratified by 36 states before it became law. Tennessee became the state to ratify the amendment on August 18, 1920, and the 19th amendment, also called the Susan B. Anthony amendment, became law on August 26 of that year. The Women’s Suffrage Association later changed its name to the Women’s Voters’ League. In 1948, the United Nations gave women’s suffrage the status of international law by adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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