In July 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the first Convention on Women`s Rights in Seneca Falls, NY. The Seneca Falls Convention produced a list of demands called the Declaration of Feelings. Following the example of the Declaration of Independence, it called for expanding educational and professional opportunities for women and granting married women the right to control their wages and property. After this historic assembly, women`s suffrage became a central issue in the emerging debate on women`s rights in the United States. The coverage was based on the assumption that a family functions best when the male head of the household controls all his wealth. As a result, a married woman cannot own property independently of her husband unless she has signed a special contract called a marriage contract. Such contracts were rare and even illegal in some parts of the country. In the absence of a separate estate, all the personality that a woman brought into her marriage or acquired during the marriage, including the salary, became her husband. He could do it or give it as he wanted without consulting her. With the onset of the civil war, the suffrage movement lost momentum as many women focused on efforts related to interstate conflict. In the long struggle for women`s suffrage and the passage of the 19th Amendment, some prominent activists prioritized white women`s suffrage over all women`s suffrage.
Two of the most prominent women`s rights activists, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, were at one point. After the party congress, the demand for the right to vote became a central part of the women`s rights movement. Stanton and Mott, and Susan B. Anthony and other activists raised awareness and lobbied the government to give women the right to vote. After a long struggle, these groups finally emerged victorious with the passage of the 19th Amendment. Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan were the first states to ratify it. On August 18, 1920, it emerged that Tennessee had ratified the amendment — the result of a change in the vote of 24-year-old Rep. Harry Burn at the urging of his elderly mother.
But those who opposed the change managed to delay official ratification. Anti-suffrage lawmakers fled the state to avoid a quorum, and their allies held massive anti-suffrage rallies and tried to convince pro-suffrage lawmakers to oppose ratification. However, Tennessee reiterated its vote and delivered the crucial 36th ratification required for final adoption. While the decades-long struggle to include African Americans and other minority women in the promise of voting rights remained, the face of the American electorate changed forever. When the amendment was put to the vote, Wilson turned to the Senate in favour of the right to vote. As the New York Times reported on October 1, 1918, Wilson declared, “I consider the extension of the franchise to women vital to the successful pursuit of the great war of humanity in which we are involved.” It was not until 1848 that the women`s rights movement began to organize at the national level. Eventually, the suffragettes gained the political support to ratify the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. For 42 years, the measure had been introduced in every session of Congress, but ignored or rejected. It was finally passed by Congress in 1919 and was submitted to the states for ratification. In May, the House of Representatives passed it by a vote of 304 to 90; two weeks later, the Senate approved by a vote of 56 to 25.
Did you know? Wyoming, the first state to grant women the right to vote, was also the first state to elect a woman governor. Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876-1977) was elected governor of the Equality State – Wyoming`s official nickname – in 1924. And from 1933 to 1953, she was the first female director of the U.S. Mint. Adopted by the United States Senate and House of Representatives in Congress (two-thirds of each House agree) that the following article be proposed as an amendment to the Constitution, valid in all respects within the framework of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the individual states. 1. The women`s suffrage movement in the United States has its roots in the abolitionist movement. In the struggle for women`s suffrage, most early activists found their way through the abolitionist movement of the 1830s.
Abolitionist groups such as the American Anti-Slavery Society. After the congress, the idea of women`s suffrage was ridiculed in the press and some delegates withdrew their support for the Declaration of Sentiments. Nevertheless, Stanton and Mott persisted – they led other women`s rights conferences and were eventually supported in their advocacy work by Susan B. Anthony and other activists. Early in America`s history, women were denied some of the basic rights enjoyed by male citizens. The U.S. Constitution, written in 1787 and ratified a year later by nine of the original 13 states, is the longest-preserved written constitution in the world. But that doesn`t mean it has remained the same over time. The founding fathers wanted the document to be flexible for . An increasing number of black women actively supported women`s suffrage during this period.
They organized women`s clubs across the country to advocate for the right to vote, among other things. The prominent African-American suffragettes were Ida B. Wells-Barnett of Chicago, a leading crusader against lynching; Mary Church Terrell, educator and first president of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW); and Adella Hunt Logan, faculty member at the Tuskegee Institute, who emphasized in articles in The Crisis, a publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), that while white women needed a voice to protect their rights, black women – victims of racism and sexism – needed even more choices.
