Suffrage Timeline
By: General Jinjur
June, 2008
Here's is the quick and dirty suffrage timeline! For a more detailed account please download our powerpoint presentation:
The Lesson of Suffrage!
1830s: Women were 2nd class citizen’s in the United states—unable to vote, speak in public, hold office, attend college, or earn a living. Married women were further controlled and could not make contracts, sue, have custodial rights over their children, or own property—most importantly they were considered the ‘property’ of their husbands.
1832: A revolutionary emerges--Elizabeth Cady Stanton, slowly starts to question traditional roles & rights of women as well as the rights of blacks.
1840: Elizabeth Cady Stanton & female abolitionists are denied participation in Anti-slavery convention simply because they are WOMEN and begin to formulate their own convention.
1848: The first Women’s Rights Convention Convenes in Seneca Falls
1851: Elizabeth Cady Stanton meets Susan B. Anthony and a close friendship and formidable political partnership is formed.
1861-65: Civil War puts the suffrage reform movement on hold.
1866: The suffrage movement and the anti-slavery movement merge to form a new group called-- the American Equal Rights Assoc. (AERA)
1868: Women’s suffrage is betrayed! The 14th Amendment –granting citizenship to slaves and blacks--is ratified at the expense of female citizenship and by full support of the leading male abolitionists who had once been their allies.
1869: Suffragists and women’s rights activists become outraged over the exclusion of women from the 14th amendment and break with the abolitionists.
1870: Two separate suffrage groups are created out of the wreckage of the AERA & the early women’s movement becomes divided—the radical NWSA run by Stanton & Anthony and the more conservative AWSA.
1870: The 15th Amendment is ratified guaranteeing suffrage or the right to vote to blacks but not women.
1870- 1890: Battling for the ballot--Women’s suffrage progress is exceedingly slow despite unyielding efforts and tireless campaigning over decades.
1872: Gone & Done it—In a radical and courageous move Susan B Anthony is arrested for voting!
1890 The two suffrage organizations, National Woman Suffrage Association, and American Woman Suffrage Association finally unite to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
1920: The 19th Amendment is Ratified & 8 million women vote!
