Timeline of Women's Suffrage in the United States [View all]

[MadrasT]

It is worth remembering, that after many decades of using reason and logic, the thing that finally got women the right to vote was demonstration, rebellion, and generally being a pain in the ass about it.

In this country that timeline started in 1776, with Abigail Adams plea to her husband John to "remember the ladies":

"I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.

"Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.

"Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.

"That your sex are naturally tyrannical is a truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute; but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up -- the harsh tide of master for the more tender and endearing one of friend.

"Why, then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity?

And ended thus:

1907 Harriet Stanton Blatch, Elizabeth's daughter, forms the Equality League of Self Supporting Women which becomes the Women's Political Union in 1910. She introduces the English suffragists' tactics of parades, street speakers, and pickets.

1910 Washington (state) grants woman suffrage.

1911 California grants woman suffrage. In New York City, 3,000 march for suffrage.

1912 Teddy Roosevelt's Progressive Party includes woman suffrage in their platform. Oregon, Arizona, and Kansas grant woman suffrage.

1913 Women's Suffrage parade on the eve of Wilson's inauguration is attacked by a mob. Hundreds of women are injured, no arrests are made. Alaskan Territory grants suffrage. Illinois grants municipal and presidential but not state suffrage to women.

1916 Alice Paul and others break away from the NASWA and form the National Women's Party.

1917 Beginning in January, NWP posts silent "Sentinels of Liberty" at the White House. In June, the arrests begin. Nearly 500 women are arrested, 168 women serve jail time, some are brutalized by their jailers. North Dakota, Indiana, Nebraska, and Michigan grant presidential suffrage; Arkansas grants primary suffrage. New York, South Dakota, and Oklahoma state constitutions grant suffrage.

1918 The jailed suffragists released from prison. Appellate court rules all the arrests were illegal. President Wilson declares support for suffrage. Suffrage Amendment passes US House with exactly a two-thirds vote but loses by two votes in the Senate.

1919 In January, the NWP lights and guards a "Watchfire for Freedom." It is maintained until the Suffrage Amendment passes US Senate on June 4. The battle for ratification by at least 36 states begins.

1920 The Nineteenth Amendment, called the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, is ratified by Tennessee on August 18. It becomes law on August 26.

Many (if not most) of us take the right to vote for granted. We haven't always had it.

And women didn't get the right to vote by "being nice" to men. They got it by being loud, strong, and persistent.

Link to the timeline: http://dpsinfo.com/women/history/timeline.html