Women’s right to vote

When my mama was born in 1920, women were not allowed to vote. And that wasn’t even 100 years ago – almost, but not quite.

The 19^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed later that same year sometime near the end of August. In 1971, Congress designated August 26 as the official day to commemorate women’s right to vote – almost 150 years after white men and 50 years after black men.

Known as Women’s Equality Day, August 26 has become an important milestone. Not only is it a time to celebrate passage of the 19^th Amendment but also to call attention to women’s efforts to achieve equality in other arenas as well.

If you’re looking for ways to acknowledge the occasion, the National Women’s History Project site has lots of ideas and resources. 

Women’s right to vote a long time coming

Women tried from the beginning of this new country to be treated equally. 

Women’s Equality Day celebrates women’s right to vote

In 1776, when John Adams sat in Philadelphia with a committee of men drawing up the laws of the land, he received a heartfelt letter from his wife, Abigail.

“John, in the new code of laws … remember the ladies … Do not put such unlimited power in the hands of the husbands … We will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice.”

However, he obviously didn’t put much stock in what his wife wanted. Women were not included in the founding documents.

Beginning of a swell

In 1829, Fanny Wright argued for women’s right to vote, the abolition of slavery, free education, birth control and more liberal divorce laws in her book, “Course of Popular Lectures.”

She didn’t get much support until 20 years later when a group of outraged women organized the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. In those days, “respectable” women didn’t speak in public, much less organize meetings. 

Tossing such restrictions aside, they rewrote the Declaration of Independence to include women and called for equal rights all around. They weren’t taken seriously, either.

In the 1850s, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone and others formed the American Equal Rights Association calling for abolition and universal suffrage. They split into a couple of groups for a few years before realizing they were more powerful working together.

They merged back in 1890 to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. For decades, the suffragists mounted vigorous campaigns, mostly in state legislatures, to gain women’s right to vote. 

Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, California, Arizona, Kansas, Oregon, Illinois, Nevada and Montana all eventually passed laws making it legal for women to vote. No Southern states were so inclined.

Hundreds of women were jailed for their suffrage activities. Finally, in 1918, President Woodrow Wilson declared that women’s suffrage was urgently needed as a “war measure.” Then it took another two years before an amendment was passed and ratified by enough states to become law.

Women now voting and running in record numbers

More and more women are now running for office across the spectrum.

While women still have a way to go even well into the 21^st Century for full equality, we need to celebrate the women before us who cleared the way. Without the vote, we’d be in deep, deep trouble.

Don’t ever forget that and don’t let your daughters and granddaughters forget. Regardless of politics, women of all colors and persuasions need to always exercise that hard-won right to vote.

And they need to run for and get elected to political offices at every level. We can show everyone how governments could and should be operated.

Thank goodness for the suffragettes. Thank goodness for the women who are navigating the political seas today. And thank goodness for women’s right to vote!

Let’s put it to good use.

Maybe 2018 will be the year that women triumph!