Finally Women Can Vote -- August 26, 1920
It has been only 100 years since the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution was passed and certified. When my mother was born (1910) her mother could not vote. The amendment was first introduced in congress in 1878, and was not passed by both houses of Congress until June of 1919. Then the State of Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on August 18, 1920 and Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August 26, 1920. The number of eligible voters in all American elections was doubled with the stroke of a pen. What a long struggle!
Our founding fathers, while establishing our unique democratic form of government, were hesitant to even allow all men to vote (too many uneducated masses.) Women were considered too dainty to think about, much less participate, in the rough and tumble of politics, legal matters and world affairs. Perhaps they even thought women were not smart enough even though women were expected to see that their children were educated, maintain a household and of course, tend to their husbands. The results of this notion of male superiority was that women were not only disenfranchised, they could not own property unless willed to them by husbands or fathers, and did not even own their household goods. Women, of course, were decidedly unhappy about their legal limbo and began to express themselves quite early. The first women’s rights convention was held at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. The organized movement was on. This movement took many forms and women suffragists were often scoffed at, scorned, physically attacked and even jailed. The first successes were gained in the western states where attitudes were more “American” than those eastern states which were more influenced by British colonialism. Montana, Wyoming and Colorado approved woman suffrages by or before 1914. In 1916 a Montana Suffragist, Jeanette Rankin, became the first woman in U.S. history to be elected to the United States Congress. So it came about during W.W. I and much lobbying that President Woodrow Wilson changed his mind along with enough senators to pass the 19th amendment and woman gained the right to vote. Did this right bring legal equality? Certainly not as most woman will let you know. Any group in power will relinquish even a reasonable part of that power very reluctantly and so the legal struggle continues.
Authors note: Okay ladies, if I have rattled enough cages, check out the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), the proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution and all its controversies.