Week 7 - Women's Suffrage Movement

Women never always had the right to vote in the United States. It took women roughly 144 years of hard work and dedication for the U.S. government to grant them suffrage. Back in 1776, only white men were allowed to vote. Black men were given the right to vote in 1870 due to the Fifteenth Amendment. Women were eventually given the right to vote with the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. However, this result was not as easy to accomplish as it took the efforts of strong women dedicated to the cause for the amendment to be ratified. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a leading figure of the women’s suffrage movement, was one of the first to address the issue of women not being able to vote. In 1869, Susan B. Anthony and Stanton formed the National Women’s Suffrage Society, an organization dedicated to gaining women’s suffrage. To encourage people to move out west, western territories began to offer women the right to vote. The first state to do so was Wyoming in 1869 and when it officially became a state, it continued to allow women to vote. Utah continued the trend of allowing women to vote as they were the next state to follow. Women’s higher level of education and their awareness of other suffrage movements also played a major role in their right to vote. The press also played an important role in women’s suffrage. The press covered important stories about the movement, from violence towards women, influencing citizens to join the fight for women’s suffrage, and helping women empathetically for the struggles they faced in society.
The fight for women’s suffrage in America was a very long process that began as early the country declaring independence back in 1776. The struggle required numerous sacrifices as women had to given the ultimatum between having a family or fighting for their rights. However, this result would not have been possible without westward expansion, the higher education of women and their awareness of other suffrage movements and the involvement of the press in reporting on the movement. Without these three factors, women gaining suffrage would likely have been delayed and gained only years after 1920. If it had been delayed, the advances of women since then may have also been delayed and we may not have seen the great achievements of women in multiple fields.

Image information: Picture called “Suffragists in Greenwich Village,' by Bettmann Archive/Getty Images.”     Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/opinion/how-to-celebrate-a-complicated-win-for-women.amp.html

Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, www.archives.gov/education/lessons/woman-suffrage.