Happy 19th Amendment
Sun Aug 26, 2007 at 05:44:44 PM PDT
Today, Sunday, August 26th, marks the 87th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. Before 1920, women were not full citizens of the USA - and both my grandmothers were born before 1920.
The movement formally began in 1848. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention. This convention was not just about the right to vote, but about the right to be educated, to practice professions, and to own property. As late as the 1960's, a married woman could not have credit in her own name. The university I attended did not admit women until 1970 - why waste a technical education on someone who would only become a mother? Justice Sandra Day O'Connor graduated with honors (3rd of 102) in the same class at Stanford Law School as William Rehnquist, yet could not find private employment as an attorney upon graduation. She was, however, offered a job as a legal secretary. Only the public sector would hire a woman.
In 1915, writer Alice Duer Miller wrote this to counter condescending arguments about why women shouldn't vote:
Why We Don't Want Men to Vote
- Because man's place is in the army.
- Because no really manly man wants to settle any question otherwise than by fighting about it.
- Because if men should adopt peaceable methods women will no longer look up to them.
- Because men will lose their charm if they step out of their natural sphere and interest themselves in other matters than feats of arms, uniforms, and drums.
- Because men are too emotional to vote. Their conduct at baseball games and political conventions shows this, while their innate tendency to appeal to force renders them unfit for government.
The 19th Amendment was introduced in 1878, thirty years after the convention, and took another forty two years to pass. A variety of approaches were pursued - legal actions in the courts, the national amendment, and legislation in individual states. Only one woman who attended the Seneca Falls Convention lived to see the result.
Throughout the early 1900s, there were suffragette marches, vigils, and hunger strikes, featuring thousands of ordinary women who protested and went to jail. Susan B. Anthony gave 75-100 speeches a year on women's rights for 45 years - remarkable today, but even more remarkable when you consider how much travel has changed in the last 100 years. Both of Woodrow Wilson's inagurations were protested. During his second term, Wilson publicly changed his stance, which helped change the balance in favor of suffrage.
from Jone Johnsone Lewis at about.com
When thirty-five of the necessary thirty-six states had ratified the amendment, the battle came to Nashville, Tennessee. Anti-suffrage and pro-suffrage forces from around the nation descended on the town. And on August 18, 1920, the final vote was scheduled.
One young legislator, 24 year old Harry Burn, had voted with the anti-suffrage forces to that time. But his mother had urged that he vote for the amendment and for suffrage. When he saw that the vote was very close, and with his anti-suffrage vote would be tied 48 to 48, he decided to vote as his mother had urged him: for the right of women to vote. And so on August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th and deciding state to ratify.
Except that the anti-suffrage forces used parliamentary maneuvers to delay, trying to convert some of the pro-suffrage votes to their side. But eventually their tactics failed, and the governor sent the required notification of the ratification to Washington, D.C.
And so on August 26, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution became law, and women could vote in the fall elections, including in the Presidential election.
The last state to ratify the 19th amendment, after rejecting it initially, was Mississippi, in 1984.
Timeline of Women's Suffrage
Enjoy these Letters between Abigail Adams and John Adams, where she lobbies for the right to vote, and he replies that he will not yield to the"despotism of the petticoat".
So, today, remember the great women who fought for the vote and their long struggle of two steps forward, one step back.
