Women's suffrage in the United States

Women's suffrage, or the right of women to vote, was established in the United States over the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It started in some states and localities and finally became a national right in 1920 with the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The idea of women voting began to grow in the 1840s as part of a larger movement for women's rights. In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention was the first meeting to support women's right to vote. By 1850, this idea became an important part of the women's rights movement.

The first national groups fighting for women's voting rights were created in 1869. Two leaders, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, started one group, while Lucy Stone and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper started another. These groups joined together in 1890 to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Another big group, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, also supported women's voting rights.

Some women tried to vote in the 1870s and faced arrest, like Susan B. Anthony, who voted in 1872. After many years of trying, the first state to let women vote was Wyoming in 1869. More states followed over the next decades.

In 1916, Alice Paul created the National Woman's Party to focus on getting a national law passed. After many efforts, the Nineteenth Amendment was added to the U.S. Constitution on August 18, 1920, giving all women the right to vote.

National history

For a chronological guide, see Timeline of women's suffrage in the United States.

See also: Women's suffrage in states of the United States

Background

Most early U.S. states, following traditions from when they were British colonies, wrote into their constitutions that women could not vote. This was based on old ideas about society and laws. During the Middle Ages, English law followed a rule that a married woman was not a separate person from her husband.

Early voting activity

Lydia Taft (1712–1778), a wealthy widow, was allowed to vote in town meetings in Uxbridge, Massachusetts in 1756. No other women are known to have voted during that time.

The New Jersey constitution of 1776 allowed all adult property owners to vote. Laws from 1790 and 1797 mentioned voters as "he or she", and women voted regularly. But a law in 1807 took that right away.

Kentucky passed a law in 1838 allowing widows and women who were legally independent to vote for school funding, but only if they owned property and paid taxes.

Emergence of the women's rights movement

The push for women to vote grew as part of a larger movement for women's rights. In the UK in 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a book about women's rights. American John Neal spoke in support of women voting in the 1820s and 1840s. In 1838, Sarah Grimké published a book calling for equality between men and women. In 1845, Margaret Fuller wrote about women in the 19th century.

Many people opposed women being involved in public life, even among those who supported other reforms. Women were not always welcome in groups working for change. Some women faced harsh criticism for speaking in public, especially to mixed audiences of men and women. Despite this, women began speaking out, especially against slavery and for women's rights.

Laws also limited what married women could do. These laws made it hard for the movement to organize. But some states passed laws allowing married women to own property, which helped the movement.

Early backing for women's suffrage

The New York State Constitutional Convention of 1846 received requests for women to vote from people in several counties.

Some members of the movement against slavery supported women voting. In 1846, Samuel J. May, a minister, strongly supported women voting in a sermon. The Liberty League, a group from the abolitionist Liberty Party, asked Congress to let women vote in 1846. A meeting of the Liberty Party in Rochester, New York in May 1848 approved a resolution calling for voting rights for everyone, including women. Gerrit Smith, a candidate for president, spoke about women voting soon after. Lucretia Mott was suggested as a vice-presidential candidate, the first time a woman was proposed for a federal office in the U.S.

Early women's rights conventions

Women voting was not a big focus at first. Many activists were tied to groups that did not want to get involved in politics. But a series of conventions helped change these views.

Seneca Falls convention

The first women's rights convention was the Seneca Falls Convention, held on July 19 and 20, 1848, in Seneca Falls, New York. Five women organized it, four of them Quaker social activists, including Lucretia Mott. The fifth was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who believed politics was important for change and that voting was key. About 300 women and men attended.

The only resolution not agreed on by everyone was the one asking for women to vote, introduced by Stanton. Her husband did not want her to suggest it. Lucretia Mott was also unsure. But after Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist and former slave, spoke in support, the resolution passed. The convention's Declaration of Sentiments, written mainly by Stanton, wanted to build a movement for women's rights and listed problems, starting with not being able to vote.

This convention was followed two weeks later by the Rochester Women's Rights Convention of 1848, which also supported women voting. It was the first to be led by a woman. Then came the Ohio Women's Convention at Salem in 1850, the first statewide convention to support women voting.

National conventions

The first National Women's Rights Conventions was held in Worcester, Massachusetts on October 23–24, 1850, started by Lucy Stone and Paulina Wright Davis. Conventions were held almost every year until the Civil War (1861–1865) stopped them. Voting rights became a main goal, not a controversial idea anymore. At the first national convention, Stone spoke about asking state legislatures to let women vote.

Reports from this convention reached Britain, leading Harriet Taylor to write an essay called "The Enfranchisement of Women," which started a similar movement in Britain.

Wendell Phillips, a well-known abolitionist and supporter of women's rights, spoke at the second national convention in 1851 about whether women should vote. His speech was later shared widely.

Several women who led these conventions, especially Stone, Anthony, and Stanton, also helped start groups for women voting after the Civil War. They included voting rights in their work during the 1850s. In 1852, Stanton spoke about voting rights at a convention in New York. In 1853, Stone spoke to lawmakers in Massachusetts about it. In 1854, Anthony started a campaign in New York asking for voting rights. In 1857, Stone refused to pay taxes because women could not vote on tax laws. Her goods were sold to pay the tax.

The movement was loosely organized, with few state groups and no national group except a committee for the conventions. Stone was the most visible leader during this time. In 1852, there was a suggestion to form a national group, but it was dropped because people were worried it would cause problems.

Anthony–Stanton collaboration

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton became friends and worked together in 1851. Their work together was important for the movement and for women's rights in general. Stanton called it "the greatest revolution the world has ever known or ever will know." Anthony was good at organizing, and Stanton was good at writing and thinking. Stanton wrote speeches that Anthony spoke at meetings she organized. They worked together in New York State, focusing on women's issues in general at first, not just voting. Anthony later said she did not want to vote but wanted equal pay for equal work. Before the Civil War, Anthony focused more on ending slavery than on women's rights.

Women's Loyal National League

Anthony did not agree, but leaders decided to stop women's rights activities during the Civil War to focus on ending slavery. In 1863, Anthony and Stanton started the Women's Loyal National League, the first national women's political group in the U.S. It collected almost 400,000 signatures on petitions to end slavery, the most in the country's history up to that time.

Although it was not a group for voting rights, the League made it clear that it supported political equality for women. It showed the value of organizing and helped create a group of experienced women activists for future work, including voting rights.

American Equal Rights Association

The Eleventh National Women's Rights Convention, the first since the Civil War, was held in 1866, helping the movement gain strength again. The convention decided to become the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), whose goal was to campaign for equal rights for all citizens, especially voting rights.

Anthony and Stanton started the convention, and the leaders included Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, and Frederick Douglass. But its goal of universal suffrage faced resistance from some abolitionists and their allies in the Republican Party, who wanted women to wait until voting rights were given to male African Americans. Horace Greeley, a newspaper editor, told Anthony and Stanton that this was a critical time for the Republican Party and the country, and that their first duty was to support the rights of African Americans. But they and others, including Lucy Stone, refused to wait and kept pushing for voting rights for everyone.

In April 1867, Stone and her husband, Henry Blackwell, started the AERA campaign in Kansas to support votes for both African Americans and women. Wendell Phillips, an abolitionist leader, blocked funding for the campaign, which caused anger. Kansas Republicans decided to support voting only for black men and formed a group to oppose the AERA. By summer, the AERA campaign almost fell apart, and it ran out of money. Anthony and Stanton were criticized by Stone and others for accepting help from George Francis Train, a businessman who supported women's rights but attacked the Republican Party and made negative comments about African Americans.

After the Kansas campaign, the AERA split into two groups. One, led by Lucy Stone, was willing to wait for black men to get voting rights first and wanted to keep close ties with the Republican Party. The other, led by Anthony and Stanton, insisted that women and black men should get voting rights at the same time and worked toward an independent women's movement. The angry meeting of the AERA in May 1869 marked the end of the organization, and two new groups for women voting were created.

New England Woman Suffrage Association

Because of the split in the women's movement, the New England Woman Suffrage Association (NEWSA) was formed in 1868, the first major political group in the U.S. with voting rights for women as its goal. The organizers worked to get support from Republicans and invited a U.S. senator to speak. Lucy Stone, who would become president of the NEWSA, showed she wanted both women and African Americans to vote by suggesting the Republican Party should support universal suffrage instead of "Manhood Suffrage." But two months later, when the Fifteenth Amendment was in danger of not passing Congress, Stone said women would have to wait for African Americans.

The Fifteenth Amendment

In May 1869, two days after the last AERA meeting, Anthony, Stanton and others formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). In November 1869, Lucy Stone, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Julia Ward Howe, Henry Blackwell and others formed the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). The fight between these two groups created a partisan atmosphere that lasted for decades.

The immediate reason for the split was the proposed Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would stop voting discrimination based on race. The original text included a part banning voting discrimination based on sex, but it was later removed. Stanton and Anthony opposed passing it unless there was also an amendment banning voting discrimination based on sex. They said that by giving voting rights to all men but not women, the amendment would create an "aristocracy of sex." They and others were not sure that black men would support women voting. Frederick Douglass, however, strongly supported the amendment, saying it was a matter of life and death for former slaves. Lucy Stone supported the amendment but believed women voting would be more helpful to the country than black men voting. The AWSA and most AERA members supported the amendment.

Both groups were strongly against slavery, but their leaders sometimes said things that showed the racial attitudes of the time. Stanton believed that former slaves and immigrant workers needed education before they could vote well. She wrote that wealthy, educated American women should not let men from China, Africa, Germany, and Ireland make laws for them. Lucy Stone asked a meeting in New Jersey whether women should be left out of voting and "ranked politically below the most ignorant and degraded men." Henry Blackwell, Stone's husband and an AWSA leader, wrote to Southern legislatures that if they allowed African Americans and women to vote, "the political supremacy of your white race will remain unchanged."

The AWSA wanted close ties with the Republican Party, hoping the Fifteenth Amendment would lead to Republicans supporting women voting. The NWSA wanted to be independent but criticized the Republicans. Anthony and Stanton wrote to the 1868 Democratic National Convention criticizing the Republicans for the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave citizenship to black men but introduced the word "male" into the Constitution. They asked liberal Democrats to support voting rights for everyone.

The two groups also differed in other ways. The NWSA worked more at the national level, and the AWSA worked more at the state level. The NWSA focused on more issues than the AWSA, like divorce and equal pay for women. The NWSA was led only by women, while the AWSA included men and women in leadership.

Events later reduced the reasons for the split. The Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in 1870. In 1872, many reformers left the Republicans because of government corruption. But the rivalry was so strong that the two groups did not merge until 1890.

New Departure

In 1869, Francis and Virginia Minor from Missouri suggested a strategy called the New Departure, which the suffrage movement followed for several years. They argued that the U.S. Constitution already gave women the right to vote. This strategy used Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which says that everyone born in the U.S. is a citizen and that states cannot take away their rights without due process or equal protection.

In 1871, the NWSA officially adopted the New Departure strategy, urging women to try to vote and sue if stopped. Hundreds of women tried to vote in many places. In 1868 in Vineland, New Jersey, nearly 200 women put their ballots in a separate box but were not allowed to count. The AWSA did not officially use this strategy, but Lucy Stone tried to vote in her town in New Jersey. A court case in Washington, D.C., ruled that women did not have an implicit right to vote.

In 1871, Victoria Woodhull, a stockbroker, spoke before a committee of Congress, the first woman to do so. She suggested that Congress should declare that the Constitution gave women the right to vote. The committee did not agree. The NWSA first supported Woodhull, but later had problems with her. In 1872, she shared details about a relationship between Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, leader of the AWSA, and Elizabeth Tilton, which damaged the movement's reputation.

The Supreme Court ended the New Departure strategy in 1875 by ruling in Minor v. Happersett that the Constitution did not give women the right to vote. The NWSA decided to campaign for a constitutional amendment to guarantee voting rights for women.

United States v. Susan B. Anthony

Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting in the 1872 presidential election, breaking the Enforcement Act of 1870. At the trial, the judge told the jury to find her guilty. When asked if she had anything to say, Anthony gave a famous speech calling the arrest a violation of her rights. She was fined $100 but said she would not pay. The judge did not send her to jail unless she paid, and she never did. In 2020, President Donald Trump forgave her punishment on the centennial of the 19th Amendment.

History of Woman Suffrage

Main article: History of Woman Suffrage

In 1876, Anthony, Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage started working on the History of Woman Suffrage. It became a six-volume book over 41 years. The last two volumes were published in 1920 by Ida Husted Harper, who also helped with the fourth volume. Written by leaders of one part of the movement, it does not show a balanced view of their rivals. Because it was the main source for many years, historians had to find other sources for a more balanced view.

Introduction of the women's suffrage amendment

In 1878, Senator Aaron A. Sargent, a friend of Susan B. Anthony, introduced a women's suffrage amendment into Congress. More than forty years later it became the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution with no changes. It is the same as the Fifteenth Amendment except it stops voting discrimination based on sex instead of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude".

Early female candidates for national office

Elizabeth Cady Stanton said she was a candidate for the U.S. Congress in 1866, the first woman to do so. In 1872, Victoria Woodhull started her own party and said she was its candidate for President of the U.S., although she was too young.

In 1884, Belva Ann Lockwood, the first woman lawyer to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court, became the first woman to run a serious campaign for president. She was nominated by a California group called the Equal Rights Party. Lockwood talked about women voting and other changes during her campaign across the country. She paid for her campaign by charging for speeches. Neither the AWSA nor the NWSA, which had already supported the Republican candidate, backed Lockwood.

Many women were elected or appointed to offices before the Nineteenth Amendment. Some states had laws that did not specify gender for holding office. Women used this to run for office as a way to help gain voting rights. Fighting for the right to hold office and the right to vote happened separately and were seen as different rights by many people.

Initial successes and failures

Women were allowed to vote in Wyoming Territory in 1869 and in Utah in 1870. Utah became the first place where women legally voted after the suffrage movement began because it held two elections before Wyoming. In 1887, Kansas women could vote in city elections and hold certain offices. The Populist Party supported women voting, helping women gain voting rights in Colorado in 1893 and Idaho in 1896. In some places, women could vote for school boards. A 2018 study found that states with strong suffrage movements and competitive politics were more likely to give women voting rights, which is why Western states were quicker to adopt women voting than Eastern states.

The Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the largest women's group, started campaigning for voting rights in the late 1870s. Frances Willard, its leader, told members to vote to protect families from alcohol and other harmful activities. In 1886, the WCTU sent 200,000 signatures to Congress supporting a national amendment for women voting. In 1885, the Grange, a farmers' group, officially supported women voting. In 1890, the American Federation of Labor supported women voting and collected 270,000 names on petitions for that cause.

A proposed 16th amendment to give women the vote was introduced in 1869 and defeated by the Senate in 1887. Between 1870 and 1890, amendments for women voting were defeated in eight states.

1890–1919

Merger of rival suffrage organizations

The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was once the larger group fighting for women's voting rights, but it grew weaker in the 1880s. The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), led by Stanton and Anthony, became more well-known and shaped the movement's direction. They sometimes used bold actions, like interrupting official events to share their ideas. Over time, the NWSA worked more closely with the AWSA, focusing on gaining respect rather than dramatic protests.

In 1890, the two groups merged into the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Anthony became its practical leader, though others held official titles. This merger brought together different approaches but kept the goal of winning the right to vote for women.

National American Woman Suffrage Association

Even after merging, the NAWSA didn’t always follow Anthony’s lead. They decided to hold meetings in different places instead of always in Washington, which Anthony worried would shift focus away from a national voting rights change. The group faced challenges, especially after Stanton published a book that many found upsetting.

Under new leadership, the NAWSA began organizing better, setting clear yearly goals for each state. They also worked with women’s clubs, which were growing in number and influence. These clubs, made up mostly of middle-class women, began supporting voting rights. By 1914, a large national group of these clubs had joined the cause.

Opposition to women's suffrage

Some people and groups did not support women’s voting rights. Business owners worried that women voters might change laws, like those about alcohol or child labor. Political groups also resisted, fearing losing control. Even some women’s groups opposed it, believing politics would take away their influence in other areas. These disagreements made the path to voting rights longer and harder.

Turn of the tide

By the early 1900s, more states allowed women to vote, and Congress began to pay attention. The Progressive Era, a time of many reforms, also helped, as many reformers saw voting rights for women as part of their goals. By 1916, both major political parties had started to support women’s voting rights, though slowly.

A key moment came in 1917 when women in New York won the right to vote. In 1918, President Wilson spoke in support of a national amendment. By the end of 1919, enough states had agreed, and in 1920, Tennessee became the final state needed to make it law. This change meant that in the 1920 election, women could vote in every state for the first time.

Nineteenth Amendment

The Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920, granted women the right to vote across the United States. This followed years of hard work by many groups and leaders. The change came after World War I, where women took on many new roles, helping to build support for their right to vote. The amendment passed after many votes in Congress and by state legislatures, with Tennessee being the last needed state to approve it.

Effects of the Nineteenth Amendment

In the United States

After women gained the right to vote, politicians began focusing more on issues important to women, such as helping children, supporting public schools, promoting peace, and opposing alcohol. Women did care about these topics, but they voted similarly to men on most other issues.

The group working for women's voting rights changed its name to the League of Women Voters. Another group, led by Alice Paul, started pushing for equal rights and a new law called the Equal Rights Amendment. This idea would become important much later.

It took some time for many women to start voting regularly. In 1928, a big election showed that women’s votes mattered, especially in big cities and among those who wanted laws against alcohol. Some women, especially Catholic women, began voting in large numbers for the first time that year.

Even after the law changed, not all women could vote right away. Many laws still made it hard for women to prove they could vote. For example, some women lost their right to vote when they got married. Also, women from certain backgrounds, like those who were not white or from other countries, often could not vote until later laws changed things.

Native American women

Native American women and men were allowed to vote in 1924, but some states still made it hard for them to vote until the 1950s. It wasn’t until 1965 that Native American women were finally guaranteed the right to vote everywhere in the United States.

In U.S. territories

When the right for women to vote was added to the U.S. Constitution, it did not automatically apply to women living in places like Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. In Puerto Rico, women finally won the right to vote in 1936 after many years of trying. In the Virgin Islands, women won the right to vote in 1935 after a court decision.

Changes in the voting population

It wasn’t until 1980 that women started voting as much as men. Since then, women have often voted more than men, and their voting choices have sometimes changed the results of elections.

Changes in representation and government programs

After women could vote, more and more women began working in government. Today, women serve in Congress and have taken on important roles, like being vice president. Women in government have helped bring attention to issues that matter to families and children.

Notable legislation

One of the first laws passed after women gained the right to vote was to help improve care for mothers and babies. Later, a law called Title IX was created to make sure girls and women have equal chances in schools that receive government money.

Socio-economic effects

Studies show that when women can vote, they often support policies that help protect people and support fairness. Allowing women to vote also helped improve education and jobs, especially for people from poorer backgrounds.

Anti-suffragism after the nineteenth amendment

Modern era

In the 2020s, some American political leaders began to question the right for women to vote. This idea was linked to certain religious groups. In August 2025, a high-ranking government official shared a video online where a pastor talked about removing the right for women to vote. The official later said they still support women voting.

Some other political leaders have also spoken in support of changing voting rules so that only one person per household could vote, with the husband having the final decision. These ideas have drawn attention and criticism from many people who believe all adults should have the right to vote equally.