Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Kambrey R. Tarbox
Abstract
This is a paper written on the history and development of the Women’s Suffrage Movement that
lead to the creation of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. Though women are by no means
a minority within the population of the United States; we have often been segregated out of
politics and any meaningful positions within society at large in much the same way the Jim Crow
laws allowed African-Americans to be pushed to one side. In this essay we will explore just a
few of the often overlooked contributions that women played during and after WWI, and the
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged
The history of women’s struggle for the right to be able to vote is a long and tedious one.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor;
it must be demanded by the oppressed.” (King, n.d.) As he usually was, Dr. King was correct
and by the early 1900’s women were done waiting and started demanding that their voices be
heard. Our right, as women, to be allowed to vote was truly a marathon though, not a sprint. In
many ways, we are still fighting to defend that right today with even other women – such as the
Women Against Feminism group – claiming that women should not be allowed to vote. (Women
Against Feminism, n.d.) In an article posted recently to their cite titled “3 Reasons Women
Should NOT Vote”, it cites the number 1 reason being that women can not be drafted. The
rabbit hole spirals down fast from there, claiming also that women being given the vote is also
the direct reason for a steady increase in national spending since the 20’s.
The drive behind the Women’s Suffrage Movement in America goes back long before
1920 however. Women’s rights movements have been reported dating all the way back to the
1830’s to when they were also pushing hard to abolish slavery. The anti-slavery movement often
overshadowed the women’s movement, so very few are aware that it was even already an issue
In 1848, the first women’s right convention organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Lucretia Mott was held in Seneca Falls, New York. This meeting is often thought of as the
“The demand for the vote became a centerpiece of the women’s right movement.”
-Unknown
Women had hoped that their work to abolish slavery would also help their own cause to
gain more individual rights. When the 14th Amendment passed in 1868, implying equity in the
rights of all citizens to vote, many were very dismayed to learn that this still was interpreted to
only include male citizens. Though they fought this in the Supreme Court, they ruled against the
Suffrage’s upholding the interpretation. It was 1878 before a proposal for the 19th Amendment
was finally introduced into Congress. Over the course of the next 4 decades the proposal was
shot down several times, never quite getting the number of votes it needed to pass.
It should also be mentioned that several of the western states, including Utah, did indeed
pass suffrage bills and were allowing women to vote much sooner than the eventual national
ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Members of such organizations as the National
American Woman Suffrage Association, also known as N.A.W.S.A.; and the National Woman’s
Party, N.W.P., became “strongly militant”. They were holding demonstrations and conducting
campaigns for the ratification of the amendment on a state by state basis. After New York
started allowing women to vote Woodrow Wilson was finally convinced to support the passing
“We have made partners of the women in this war [referring to WWI]; shall we
admit them only to a partnership of suffering and sacrifice and toil and not to a
This voice of support from the President helped gain the needed votes and on June 4, 1919, the
The 35th state to ratify the Amendment to their State’s Constitution was Kentucky, being
signed by Governor Edwin P. Morrow. The day this signing happened, the 19th Amendment
became officially federally ratified into the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920 (Our
Documents - 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ..., n.d.); and declared to be law by the
Secretary of State forcing the remaining states that had not yet ratified, to comply. Some states,
like Alabama, that voted against ratification refused to add it into their State’s Constitution even
though they could no longer legally bar women from voting. They did not officially add it into
the Alabama State Constitution until 33 years later in 1953 (Alabama Pioneers – Women were
This was still a huge win for the Women’s Movement though, but there was little
celebrating done. Once again, their great achievement had been overshadowed; this time by the
passing of the 18th Amendment – Prohibition. Still, despite all of this and the challenges and
opposition they and women today would still face; women went out in droves to the polls to cast
their votes. They voted that year, and we vote still today. NAWSA evolved into ‘The League of
Women Voters’ and female activists still continue to work hard to use politics to help reform
society. This time period would later be known as “1st Wave Feminism”, to be followed by “2nd
Wave Feminism” in the 60’s and 70’s, and “3rd Wave Feminism” happening right now.
We have made monumental progress towards equality as a society, but we still have work
to do – just as our fore-mothers did before us. Both women and men need to continue to work
together towards a system that provides equal rights and equal protections under the law; where
both our sons and our daughters can live up to their full potentials.
Essay on the 19th Amendment 6
Bibliography
King, M. L. (n.d.). Letter from Birmingham Jail. Retrieved 4 16, 2018, from Bates College:
http://abacus.bates.edu/admin/offices/dos/mlk/letter.html
Our Documents - 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ... (n.d.). Retrieved 4 18, 2018, from
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=63
http://womenagainstfeminism.tumblr.com/
http://www.alabamapioneers.com/women-were-not-considered-full-citizens-in-alabama-
in-1965/
Corwin and Peltason (1970) Understanding the Constitution, Fifth Edition; University of
(NWHM); Passing the 19th Amendment, Allison Lange, Ph.D. (Fall 2015)