4.05 Women Get the Vote
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| Three suffragists voting in
New York City (circa 1917). The original caption read, Calm about it...the
women voters showed no ignorance or trepidation, but cast thier ballots
in a businesslike way that bespoke study of suffrage. |
By the beginning of the 20th century, the efforts of suffragists had begun to bear fruit. Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Idaho had given women full suffrage rights, and in many states women were allowed to vote in municipal and school board elections. A women's suffrage amendment was debated nationally for the first time in 1878, and Stanton, Anthony, and other suffragists used civil disobedience -- attempting to vote -- to gain attention for their cause.
During the Progressive
Era (1890-1920), women played more active roles in the larger economic,
cultural, and political transformation of American society. This growth in
women's public roles allowed suffragists to be more aggressive in support
of their cause as they developed stronger bases of support in the settlement
houses, temperance organizations, labor unions, and reform movements that
now sprang up across the country. The National American
Women's Suffrage Association, led by Carrie
Chapman Catt, fought for suffrage using parades, street speakers, petitions,
and rallies.
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| Wonder Women for President
Wonder Women 1000 Years in the Future! (1943) |
Sixteen states, including New York, had given women the right to vote by
1917, but the U.S. Constitution was not amended to enfranchise women until
after World War I. Alice
Paul, a founder of the National
Woman's Party, led daily marches in front of the White House during the
war, using President Woodrow
Wilson's rhetoric of democracy and self-government to support the cause.
As more and more states endorsed suffrage, so did their representatives in
Congress. In 1918 Wilson reluctantly approved a constitutional change, and
in 1920 the Nineteenth
Amendment made women's suffrage the law of the land.
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| Headquarters of the National
Women's Anti-Suffrage Association, circa 1911. |
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