Special day today in New York History! We are celebrating the 102nd anniversary of when women won the right to legally vote in our state back in 1917.
The demand for women’s suffrage began to gather strength in the 1840s. The first national suffrage organizations were established in 1869. By 1890 they merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Similar to other suffrage organizations like the National Woman’s Party (NWP), NAWSA made a national suffrage amendment its top priority. After a hard-fought series of votes in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures, the Nineteenth Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920. The Amendment states that “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
Today in history was a momentous occasion for the Empire State, however 13 other states west of the Mississippi had already granted women full voting rights by the time NY voters were considering this matter in 1917. Wyoming had granted women the right back in 1869. New Zealand was the first nation to grant women suffrage rights in 1893.
Antisuffragists feared that when a woman received the right to vote, ”political gossip would cause her to neglect the home, forget to mend our clothes and burn the biscuits.” Women suffrage also didn’t put an end to the assumptions that women couldn’t be soldiers, or firefighters, or many other things traditionally in the male realm. Women fought, and continue to fight, for the right to be considered equal citizens every day, both in America and across the world.
Please share this moment in time. Connect today. Time (4D) is up. 5D is NOW.