Timeline of Women's Suffrage in the United States

[MadrasT]

It is worth remembering, that after many decades of using reason and logic, the thing that finally got women the right to vote was demonstration, rebellion, and generally being a pain in the ass about it.

In this country that timeline started in 1776, with Abigail Adams plea to her husband John to "remember the ladies":

"I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.

"Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.

"Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.

"That your sex are naturally tyrannical is a truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute; but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up -- the harsh tide of master for the more tender and endearing one of friend.

"Why, then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity?

And ended thus:

1907 Harriet Stanton Blatch, Elizabeth's daughter, forms the Equality League of Self Supporting Women which becomes the Women's Political Union in 1910. She introduces the English suffragists' tactics of parades, street speakers, and pickets.

1910 Washington (state) grants woman suffrage.

1911 California grants woman suffrage. In New York City, 3,000 march for suffrage.

1912 Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive Party includes woman suffrage in their platform. Oregon, Arizona, and Kansas grant woman suffrage.

1913 Women's Suffrage parade on the eve of Wilson's inauguration is attacked by a mob. Hundreds of women are injured, no arrests are made. Alaskan Territory grants suffrage. Illinois grants municipal and presidential but not state suffrage to women.

1916 Alice Paul and others break away from the NASWA and form the National Women's Party.

1917 Beginning in January, NWP posts silent "Sentinels of Liberty" at the White House. In June, the arrests begin. Nearly 500 women are arrested, 168 women serve jail time, some are brutalized by their jailers. North Dakota, Indiana, Nebraska, and Michigan grant presidential suffrage; Arkansas grants primary suffrage. New York, South Dakota, and Oklahoma state constitutions grant suffrage.

1918 The jailed suffragists released from prison. Appellate court rules all the arrests were illegal. President Wilson declares support for suffrage. Suffrage Amendment passes US House with exactly a two-thirds vote but loses by two votes in the Senate.

1919 In January, the NWP lights and guards a "Watchfire for Freedom." It is maintained until the Suffrage Amendment passes US Senate on June 4. The battle for ratification by at least 36 states begins.

1920 The Nineteenth Amendment, called the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, is ratified by Tennessee on August 18. It becomes law on August 26.

Many (if not most) of us take the right to vote for granted. We haven't always had it.

And women didn't get the right to vote by "being nice" to men. They got it by being loud, strong, and persistent.

Link to the timeline: http://dpsinfo.com/women/history/timeline.html

[madamesilverspurs]

1. Thanks for this.

I'd just come online to search for a timeline, and here you are.

Excellent!


-

[redqueen]

2. Whaaaaaat? "All men would be tyrants if they could."?????

WHAAAAAARRGARBLE!

How dare she! She probably set the movement back single handedly with that mean, unfair slur!

[hlthe2b]

3. WA was the first state to grant suffrage in 1910, Wyoming was the first territory to do so, in 1869

So by the time suffrage was ratified nationally in 1920, women of Wyoming had already been voting for 50 years and Colorado nearly as long....

The first territorial legislature of the Wyoming Territory granted women suffrage in 1869.[43] In 1890, Wyoming was admitted to the Union as the first state that allowed women to vote, and in fact insisted it would not accept statehood without keeping suffrage. In 1893, voters of Colorado made that state the second of the woman suffrage states and the first state where the men voted to give women the right to vote.[44] In 1896 Idaho approved a constitutional amendment in statewide vote giving women the right to vote.

On the whole, western states and territories were more favorable to women's suffrage than eastern ones (see map). It has been suggested that western areas, faced with a shortage of women on the frontier, "sweetened the deal" in order to make themselves more attractive to women so as to encourage female immigration or that they gave the vote as a reward to those women already there. Susan Anthony said that western men were more chivalrous than their eastern brethren.[31] In 1871 Anthony and Stanton toured several western states, with special attention to the territories of Wyoming and Utah where women already had equal suffrage. Their suffragist speeches were often ridiculed or denounced by the opinion makers - the politicians, ministers, and editors. Anthony returned to the West in 1877, 1895, and 1896. By the last trip, at age 76, Anthony's views had gained popularity and respect. Activists concentrated on the single issue of suffrage and went directly to the opinion makers to educate them and to persuade them to support the goal of suffrage.[32]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_suffrage_in_the_United_States

As a Westerner, I've always been proud of this fact.


Women's suffrage laws before passage of the Nineteenth Amendment
Full suffrage (Green)
Presidential suffrage (Orange)
Primary suffrage (Dark Blue)
Municipal suffrage (Yellow)
School, bond, or tax suffrage (light blue)
Municipal suffrage in some cities (Burgundy)
Primary suffrage in some cities (Pink)
No suffrage (red)

[MadrasT]

4. I just learned that today!

And I also didn't know this part:

1777 Women lose the right to vote in New York.

1780 Women lose the right to vote in Massachusetts.

1784 Women lose the right to vote in New Hampshire.

1787 U.S. Constitutional Convention places voting qualifications in the hands of the states. Women in all states except New Jersey lose the right to vote.

1792 Mary Wollstonecraft publishes Vindication of the Rights of Women in England.

1807 Women lose the right to vote in New Jersey, the last state to revoke the right.

http://www.thelizlibrary.org/suffrage/

I had no idea they had it, and then lost it!

[hlthe2b]

5. Wyoming was also the first to elect a female governor (Nellie Tayloe Ross in 1925)

Unfortunately, apparently the ONLY woman governor ever elected in the state... sigh...

More signs (as in the suffrage example) that we tend to take a step forward and two backwards....

[sufrommich]

6. I would love to see the reasoning for taking away

their right to vote.

[redqueen]

7. IIRC it had to do with allegations of voter fraud in NY.

Not sure if that was the cause for every instance though.

[MadrasT]

8. That was the case in New Jersey. n/t

[sufrommich]

9. Gender specific voter fraud? nt

[redqueen]

10. I can't remember... and MadrasT is right, it was New Jersey.

We discussed it in my sociology class and I remember thinking it sounded like a strange reason, but we barely covered it.

[MadrasT]

12. It seems

There were allegations of voter fraud, linked to nonresidents, women, and men dressed as women (to vote twice), and they used that as an excuse to "simplify" the voting laws and restrict it to white males.

Hard to find much but I found this: New Jersey Women Could Vote In 1776. Why Was That Right Taken From Them

Even nonresidents were transported in to fatten the vote for Newark. Women and girls voted again and again, and even men and boys disguised themselves as women in order to repeat their votes.

A new election law under consideration was immediately amended by Mr. Condict, a republican candidate of 1797 who's political career was nearly terminated, then, by a hugh women's vote for his opponent. His amendment contained a provision stripping away the right to vote from all women residing in New Jersey. He cited the voting fraud of the largely female (and cross-dressing males) in Essex over the new courthouse. The bill passed both houses by heavy majorities to become law. The women of New Jersey appeared largely indifferent to losing their voting rights.

The women's vote was hugh!!! LOL.

I found another place where it said the voter turnout in Camden was three times what it had been in the prior election, so it does seem suspicious that there was some amount of fraud... hard to know who committed it.

Not that we'd ever have fraudulent elections in America or anything.

Also, only unmarried female property owners had the right to vote to begin with, which wasn't very many women at all.

[cwydro]

11. thank you