Passed by Congress June 4, 1919, and ratified on August 18, 1920, the 19th amendment granted women the right to vote.
The 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote. Achieving
this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took decades
of agitation and protest. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations
of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced
civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change
of the Constitution. Few early supporters lived to see final victory in 1920.
Beginning in the 1800s, women organized, petitioned, and picketed to win the
right to vote, but it took them decades to accomplish their purpose. Between
1878, when the amendment was first introduced in Congress, and August 18, 1920,
when it was ratified, champions of voting rights for women worked tirelessly,
but strategies for achieving their goal varied. Some pursued a strategy of passing
suffrage acts in each state—nine western states adopted woman suffrage
legislation by 1912. Others challenged male-only voting laws in the courts.
Militant suffragists used tactics such as parades, silent vigils, and hunger
strikes. Often supporters met fierce resistance. Opponents heckled, jailed,
and sometimes physically abused them.
By 1916, almost all of the major suffrage organizations were united behind
the goal of a constitutional amendment. When New York adopted woman suffrage
in 1917 and President Wilson changed his position to support an amendment in
1918, the political balance began to shift.
On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the amendment, and 2 weeks
later, the Senate followed. When Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the
amendment on August 18, 1920, the amendment passed its final hurdle of obtaining
the agreement of three-fourths of the states. Secretary of State Bainbridge
Colby certified the ratification on August 26, 1920, changing the face of the
American electorate forever.
For more information, visit the National Archives’ Digital Classroom
Teaching With Documents Lesson Plan: Woman
Suffrage and the 19th Amendment.
