Votes for Women
On this day in 1919, the United States Congress passed a joint resolution to extend the right to vote to women. The amendment was first introduced in 1878 with a Senate Select Committee on Woman Suffrage created in 1882, but not fully ratified until Tennessee became the 36th state to do so in August 1920.
The movement for women’s suffrage began in the U.S. in the 1800s. In 1848, the first Woman’s Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls, N.Y., during which a Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions was introduced. Until the passage of the 19th Amendment, suffragists held protests, hunger strikes, and vigils to plead their case. For their efforts, they were jailed and physically and verbally abused.
States led the way in women’s suffrage well before Congress, however. The first major victory for women’s rights came in 1869, when Wyoming granted women over age 21 the right to vote. In Washington State, women can be found on the voter rolls as early as the 1870s. Women lost the right to vote and to serve on juries that they gained in 1883 by the Territorial legislature, when the Washington State Supreme Court declared the statute unconstitutional Bloomer v. Todd (1888). However, Washington was still the first state in the 20th Century and the fifth state in the union to pass voting rights. The 6th Amendment to the Washington State Constitution (HB 59) passed the legislature, with the final decision coming down to a vote of the people — a full nine years before the constitutional amendment.
It is important to note that not all women gained the right to vote in 1920. Japanese Americans were not able to vote in the U.S. until 1952. The final state to allow Native Americans to vote was New Mexico in 1962. And despite being active in national suffragist groups since the end of the Civil War, organizing conventions, and starting their own suffrage associations, African American women did not enjoy full voting rights until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. The final state to ratify the 19th Amendment did not do so until 1984.
Today, women make up more than half of the population and according to the Center for American Women and Politics, every presidential election since 1980 has seen a higher female voter turnout than men. Women are also increasing their numbers on the ballot, with a record number running for office this year, including an historic number of women of color. (LE)
