Women’s Suffrage: A Path to
the Ballot Box
By:
Mrs. Meadows
Credits
• The dates were compiled by E. Susan
Barber and Barbara Orbach Natanson
under “One Hundred Years toward
Suffrage: An Overview,” at the Library of
Congress
• All photos herein were taken from the
American Memory collections at the
Library of Congress
Rockford Connections
• Ellen Gates Starr
• Julia Lathrop
• Jane Addams
Delegation to the Women's Suffrage Legislature Jane
Addams of Hull House (left) and Miss Elizabeth Burke of
the University of Chicago (right, looking to the left) (1911)
Ellen Gates Starr
• She was arrested for
interfering with a waitress
strike in front of the
Henrici restaurant,
located at 67 West
Randolph Street in the
Loop community area of
Chicago, Illinois. Miss
Ellen Gates Starr and
Jane Addams founded
Hull House.
• 5 March 1914
Julia Lathrop (1908)
• Portrait of William B. Moulton, attorney; Miss Julia C. Lathrop,
member of the State Board of Charities; William C. Graves,
secretary of the State Board of Charities and Dr. H. G. Hardt
(standing) in a room in Chicago, Illinois.
A Century of Change
• 1776
– Abigail Adams writes to her husband, John, who is attending the
Continental Congress in Philadelphia, asking that he and the
other men--who were at work on the Declaration of
Independence--"Remember the Ladies." John responds with
humor. The Declaration's wording specifies that "all men are
created equal."
• 1820 to 1880
– Evidence from a variety of printed sources published during this
period--advice manuals, poetry and literature, sermons, medical
texts--reveals that Americans, in general, held highly
stereotypical notions about women's and men's roles in society.
Historians would later term this phenomenon "The Cult of
Domesticity."
A Century of Change
• 1821
– Emma Hart Willard founds the Troy Female
Seminary in New York--the first endowed
school for girls.
• 1833
– Oberlin College becomes the first
coeducational college in the United States. In
1841, Oberlin awards the first academic
degrees to three women. Early graduates
include Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown.
A Century of Change
• 1836
– Sarah Grimke begins her speaking career as an
abolitionist and a women's rights advocate. She is
eventually silenced by male abolitionists who consider
her public speaking a liability.
• 1837
– The first National Female Anti-Slavery Society
convention meets in New York City. Lucretia Mott, a
Quaker activist, is instrumental in organizing the
convention, having had the experience of being
denied membership in earlier anti-slavery
organizations because she was a woman. Eighty-one
delegates from twelve states attend.
A Century of Change
• 1837
– Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke College in
Massachusetts, eventually the first four-year
college exclusively for women in the United
States. Mt. Holyoke was followed by Vassar in
1861, and Wellesley and Smith Colleges, both
in 1875. In 1873, the School Sisters of Notre
Dame found a school in Baltimore, Maryland,
which would eventually become the nation's
first college for Catholic
Official Program
A Century of Change
• 1839
– Mississippi passes the first Married Woman's Property Act.
• 1840 March
– The World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London rejects the
credentials of American delegate Lucretia Mott and other female
American delegates. This experience prompts Mott and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton to take up the cause of women's rights.
• 1844
– Female textile workers in Massachusetts organize the Lowell
Female Labor Reform Association (LFLRA) and demand a 10hour workday. This was one of the first permanent labor
associations for working women in the United States.
A Century of Change
• 1848 July 19-20
– The first women's rights convention in the United
States is held in Seneca Falls, New York. The idea for
the convention arises spontaneously out of a
discussion among Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and three other women over tea. Many
participants sign a "Declaration of Sentiments and
Resolutions" that outlines the main issues and goals
for the emerging women's movement. Thereafter,
women's rights meetings are held on a regular basis.
• 1849
– Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery. Over the next
ten years she leads many slaves to freedom by the
Underground Railroad.
A Century of Change
• 1850
– Amelia Jenks Bloomer launches the dress reform
movement with a costume bearing her name. The
Bloomer costume was later abandoned by many
suffragists who feared it detracted attention from more
serious women's rights issues.
• 1851
– Former slave Sojourner Truth delivers her "Ain't I a
Woman?" speech before a spellbound audience at a
women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio.
A Century of Change
• 1852
– Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin, which
rapidly becomes a bestseller. Lucretia Mott writes Discourse on
Woman, arguing that the apparent inferiority of women can be
attributed to their inferior educational opportunities.
• 1853-1855
– Paulina Wright Davis publishes one of the first women's rights
periodicals, The Una.
• 1859
– The successful vulcanization of rubber provides women with
reliable condoms for the first time. The birth rate in the United
States continues its downward, century-long spiral. By the late
1900s, women will raise an average of only two to three children,
in contrast to the five or six children they raised at the beginning
of the century
A Century of Change
• 1861 to 65
– The American Civil War disrupts suffrage activity as women, North and
South, divert their energies to "war work." The War itself, however,
serves as a "training ground," as women gain important organizational
and occupational skills they will later use in postbellum organizational
activity.
• 1865 to 1880
– Southern white women create Confederate memorial societies to help
preserve the memory of the "Lost Cause." This activity propels many
white Southern women into the public sphere for the first time. During
this same period, newly emancipated Southern black women form
thousands of organizations aimed at "uplifting the race."
• 1866
– Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony form the American Equal
Rights Association, an organization for white and black women and men
dedicated to the goal of universal suffrage.
A Century of Change
• 1868
– The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified, which extends to all
citizens the protections of the Constitution against unjust state
laws. This Amendment is the first to define "citizens" and "voters"
as "male."
• 1869
– The women's rights movement splits into two factions as a result
of disagreements over the Fourteenth and soon-to-be-passed
Fifteenth Amendments. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.
Anthony form the more radical, New York-based National
Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). Lucy Stone, Henry
Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe organize the more conservative
American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), which is
centered in Boston. In this same year, the Wyoming territory is
organized with a woman suffrage provision. In 1890, Wyoming
was admitted to the Union with its suffrage provision intact.
Anti-Suffrage
A Century of Change
• 1870
– The Fifteenth Amendment enfranchises black men. NWSA refuses to
work for its ratification, arguing, instead, that it be "scrapped" in favor of
a Sixteenth Amendment providing universal suffrage. Frederick
Douglass breaks with Stanton and Anthony over NWSA's position.
– The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) begins publishing
the Woman's Journal, under the editorship of Lucy Stone, Henry
Blackwell, and Mary A. Livermore (who gives up her own Chicago
publication, The Agitator in order to participate in the venture).
• 1870 to 1875
– Several women--including Virginia Louisa Minor, Victoria Woodhull, and
Myra Bradwell--attempt to use the Fourteenth Amendment in the courts
to secure the vote (Minor and Woodhull) or the right to practice law
(Bradwell). They all are unsuccessful.
• 1871
– In Portland, Oregon, Abigail Scott Duniway begins publishing a weekly
newspaper, New Northwest, dedicated to women's rights and suffrage.
A Century of Change
• 1872
– Susan B. Anthony is arrested and brought to trial in Rochester, New
York, for attempting to vote for Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential
election. At the same time, Sojourner Truth appears at a polling booth in
Grand Rapids, Michigan, demanding a ballot; she is turned away.
• 1874
– The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is founded by Annie
Wittenmyer. With Frances Willard at its head (1876), the WCTU
becomes an important force in the fight for woman suffrage. Not
surprisingly, one of the most vehement opponents to women's
enfranchisement is the liquor lobby, which fears women might use the
franchise to prohibit the sale of liquor.
• 1876 to 1879
– Lawyer Belva Ann Lockwood is denied permission to practice before the
Supreme Court. She spends three years pushing through legislation
that enables women to practice before the Court and becomes the first
woman to do so in 1879.
Susan B. Anthony & Elizabeth
Cady Stanton (seated)
A Century of Change
• 1878
– A Woman Suffrage Amendment is introduced in the
United States Congress. The wording is unchanged in
1919, when the amendment finally passes both
houses.
• 1884
– In the presidential contest of this year, Belva Ann
Lockwood runs for president on the National Equal
Rights Party ticket and a reform platform. She wins
4,149 votes in six states.
A Century of Change
• 1890
– The NWSA and the AWSA are reunited as the National American
Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) under the leadership of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Alice Stone Blackwell , editor of the
Woman's Journal, an organ of the American Woman Suffrage
Association, is instrumental in merging the two groups. During
this same year, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr found Hull
House, a settlement house project in Chicago's 19th Ward.
Within one year, there are more than a hundred settlement
houses--largely operated by women--throughout the United
States. The settlement house movement and the Progressive
campaign of which it is a part propels thousands of collegeeducated white women and a number of women of color into
lifetime careers in social work. It also makes women an
important voice to be reckoned with in American politics.
1914 Chicago Parade
Suffrage parade on Michigan
Avenue, 7 June 1916
A Century of Change
• 1891
– Physician and ordained minister Anna Howard Shaw becomes a
national lecturer for NAWSA. She will rise to the office of
president of NAWSA (1904-1915) and, although she does not
prove to be the organization's most effective leader, she will fight
valiantly for suffrage all her life, dying just one year short of
seeing women get the vote.
– Ida B. Wells-Barnett launches her nation-wide anti-lynching
campaign after the murder of three black businessmen in
Memphis, Tennessee.
• 1893
– Hannah Greenbaum Solomon founds the National Council of
Jewish Women (NCJW) after a meeting of the Jewish Women's
Congress at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. In that
same year, Colorado becomes the first state to adopt a state
amendment enfranchising women.
A Century of Change
• 1895
– Elizabeth Cady Stanton publishes The Woman's Bible . After its
publication, NAWSA moves to distance itself from this venerable
suffrage pioneer because many conservative suffragists consider
her to be too radical and, thus, potentially damaging to the
suffrage campaign. From this time, Stanton--who resigned as
NAWSA president in 1892--is no longer invited to sit on the stage
at NAWSA conventions.
• 1896
– Mary Church Terrell , Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Margaret Murray
Washington, Fanny Jackson Coppin, Frances Ellen Watkins
Harper, Charlotte Forten Grimké, and former slave Harriet
Tubman meet in Washington, D.C., to form the National
Association of Colored Women (NACW).
A Century of Change
• 1900
– At the age of 29, Maud Wood Park finds herself the youngest delegate
to the NAWSA convention of this year. Working with Inez Haynes
Gillmore, she works to attract more young members, establishing what
will eventually become the national College Equal Suffrage League.
Symbolizing the passing of the suffrage torch to a new generation,
Susan B. Anthony steps down as president of NAWSA. Recognizing
Carrie Chapman Catt's potential as an organizer and a speaker,
Anthony chooses Catt to succeed her.
• 1903
– Mary Dreier, Rheta Childe Dorr, Leonora O'Reilly, and others form the
Women's Trade Union League of New York, an organization of middleand working-class women dedicated to unionization for working women
and to woman suffrage. This group later became a nucleus of the
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU).
A Century of Change
•
1911
– The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) s organized.
Led by Mrs. Arthur Dodge, its members include wealthy, influential women and
some Catholic clergymen--including Cardinal Gibbons who, in 1916, sends an
address to NAOWS's convention in Washington, D.C. In addition to the distillers
and brewers, who work largely behind the scenes, the "antis" also draw support
from urban political machines, Southern congressmen, and corporate capitalists-like railroad magnates and meatpackers--who support the "antis" by contributing
to their "war chests."
•
1912
– Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive (Bull Moose/Republican) Party becomes the
first national political party to adopt a woman suffrage plank.
•
1913
– Alice Paul and Lucy Burns organize the Congressional Union, later known as the
National Women's Party (1916). Borrowing the tactics of the radical, militant
Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in England, members of the
Woman's Party participate in hunger strikes, picket the White House, and engage
in other forms of civil disobedience to publicize the suffrage cause.
NYC Parade: 6 May 1912
NYC Parade (1913)
A Century of Change
• 1913 March 3
– Members of the Congressional Union organize a suffrage
parade, carefully scheduling it for the day before President
Wilson's inauguration (it is said that when Wilson arrived in town,
he found the streets empty of welcoming crowds and was told
that everyone was on Pennsylvania Avenue watching the
parade). Not all of the parade observers are suffrage supporters.
Hostile members of the crowd swarm and insult the marching
women. The publicity resulting from this incident instigates an
investigation by District of Columbia Commissioners and
provides further momentum for the suffrage campaign.
• 1914
– The National Federation of Women's Clubs--which by this time
includes more than two million white women and women of color
throughout the United States--formally endorses the suffrage
campaign.
“Election Day!”
A Century of Change
• 1916
– NAWSA president Carrie Chapman Catt unveils her "winning plan" for
suffrage victory at a convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Catt's plan
required the coordination of activities by a vast cadre of suffrage
workers in both state and local associations .
• 1916
– Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first American woman
elected to represent her state in the U.S. House of Representatives.
• 1917
– Women win the vote in New York State. A suffrage petition signed by
more than a million women signals the determination of the women of
the state (and the suffrage campaign workers who gathered the
signatures) to gain the vote. Aiding the suffrage cause is a last-minute
decision by Tammany Hall, the powerful Democratic "machine," not to
oppose suffrage, given the danger alienating potential women voters
might pose in future elections. The suffrage measure wins by a margin
of 100,000 votes in New York City and breaks even in the rest of the
state.
A Century of Change
• 1918 to 1920
– The Great War (World War I) intervenes to slow down the
suffrage campaign as some--but not all--suffragists decide to
shelve their suffrage activism in favor of "war work." In the long
run, however, this decision proves to be a prudent one as it adds
yet another reason to why women deserve the vote.
• 1919 May-June
– The Nineteenth Amendment passes both House and Senate in a
special session and goes to the states for ratification.
• 1920 August 26
– Following ratification by the necessary thirty-six states, the
Nineteenth Amendment is adopted
College day in the picket line line
(February 1917)
“The apotheosis of suffrage”
A Century of Change
• 1920 to 1921
– Its victory accomplished, NAWSA ceases to exist, but
its organization becomes the nucleus of the League
of Women Voters. Maud Wood Park becomes the first
president of the League.
• 1923
– The National Woman's Party first proposes the Equal
Rights Amendment to eliminate discrimination on the
basis of gender. It has never been ratified.
Miss Dorothy Pethnick and Miss
Margaret Hodge
• Group portrait of Miss
Dorothy Pethnick and
Miss Margaret Hodge
standing on the sidewalk
of a residential street with
buildings visible behind
them in Chicago,
Illinois. Text on negative
reads: British militants on
Election day.
• Chicago Daily News
• 7 April 1914
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