Votes for Women: The 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment
On August 18, 1920 Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th amendment to the constitution, securing women’s right to vote. One week later, on August 26th, Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby signed the official proclamation certifying the adoption of the suffrage amendment. Although the 19th amendment granted the right to vote to all women, many Black women and women of color would remain disenfranchised for decades to come.
AP bulletin, August 26, 1920, reporting the ratification of the 19th amendment to the constitution, granting women the right to vote. (AP Corporate Archives/Washington D.C. News Dispatches, Library of Congress)
In this Aug. 19, 1920 photo made available by the Library of Congress, Alice Paul, chair of the National Woman's Party, unfurls a banner after the ratification of the 19th Ammendment, from a balcony at the NWP's headquarters in Washington. (The Crowley Company/Library of Congress via AP)
“Organized work for women suffrage began in the United States with the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y. in 1848, which was called by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, early leaders of Massachusetts and New York, in response to the indignation aroused by the refusal to permit women to take part in the anti-slavery convention of 1840. From the date of that convention the suffrage movement in the United States began the fight that lasted seventy years and ended with victory. Another convention followed in 1852 at Syracuse, N.Y., at which delegates from Canada were present and it was there that Susan B. Anthony assumed leadership of the cause to which she devoted her life.”
This wood engraving shows a session of the National Woman's Suffrage Association during a politicial convention in Chicago, Ill., in 1880. (AP Photo)
Suffragists led by "General" Rosalie Jones march from New York on their way to the Woman Suffrage Procession in Washington D.C., on the eve of Woodrow Wilson's inaugural in March 1913. (AP Photo)
In this photo provided by the Library of Congress, attorney Inez Milholland Boissevain rides astride a white horse at the National American Woman Suffrage Association parade, March 3, 1913, Washington, D.C. (Library of Congress via AP)
A car load of New York suffragettes pass through Plattsburgh, N.Y., during a tour of 20 counties in the state in this undated photo. Portia Willis Berg holds the large banner at right. Harriet May Mills, president of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association, is seated in rear holding a pennant. (AP Photo)
This is an undated sketch drawing of suffragette Susan B. Anthony. Anthony, who was active in the anti-slavery movements, became a leader in women's rights in 1854 and co-founded the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. She was born in Adams, Ma., in 1820 and died in 1906. (AP Photo)
Born Isabella Baumfree to a family of slaves in Ulster County, New York, the sixty-seven year old abolitionist, Sojourner Truth, pauses from her knitting and looks at the camera in this 1864 photograph. She was not only an antislavery activist and colleague of Frederick Douglass but also a memoirist and committed feminist. Truth sold multiple copies of this image to support her work in these areas. (AP/Photo)
“The amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on Aug. 18, 1920, but many women of color were prevented from casting ballots for decades afterward because of poll taxes, literacy tests, overt racism, intimidation, and laws that prevented the grandchildren of slaves from voting. Much of that didn’t change until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.”
Julia Ward Howe, shown in this undated photo, was the composer and publisher of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." She became a leader in the woman's suffrage movement in 1868. She also participated in movements to promote international peace. (AP Photo)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton in an undated photo. Mrs. Stanton helped organize the world’s first women’s rights convention which met in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. She became first President of National Women’s Suffrage Association and held that office from 1869-1890. (AP Photo)
Dr. Anna Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt, founder of the League of Women Voters, lead an estimated 20,000 supporters in a women's suffrage march on New York's Fifth Ave. in 1915 . (AP Photo)
A line of women rally for women's suffrage and advertise a free rally discussing women's right to vote in New York, in Sept. 1916. (AP Photo)
To call attention to the struggle for votes for women, these suffragettes are taking off from Midland Beach, in Staten Island, New York, on December 2, 1916, to distribute literature to the people of the island. The women in the plane are identified as Mrs. John Blair, chairman of the publicity committee of Woman's Suffrage in New York, and Mrs. Richberg Hornsby of Chicago. (AP Photo)
Alice Paul of Moorestown, N.J., Chairman of the World Women's Party for equal rights. 1915 photo. (AP Photo)
Miss Alice Paul, in background holding rolled-up banner, was among the suffragettes marching from the Women's Party Headquaters to the White House in the spring of 1917. The women were marching to further their cause for voting rights. (AP Photo)
New York suffragists fighting for women's right to vote hold a picket demonstration outside the White House in Washington, D.C., in Feb. 1917. (AP Photo)
U.S. President Harry Truman, far left, poses with, left to right, Mary McLeod Bethune, retiring founder-president of the National Council of Negro Women, Madame Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Ambassador of India to the United States, and Dr. Ralph Bunche, United Nations Director of Trusteeship, in Washington D.C., on Nov. 15, 1949. They were presented with citations for outstanding citizenship. Bethune (1875-1955) was a celebrated advocate for suffrage and civil rights. (AP Photo/Harvey Georges)
Miss Jeannette Rankin, 87, right, the first woman to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, called in Atlanta Thursday, Jan. 5, 1967 for a march on Washington on January 15 by American women outraged by the ruthless slaughter in Vietnam. At left is Mrs. Coretta King Jr. She said the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which her husband heads, is supporting the effort which will be called The Jeannette Rankin Brigade. While in Congress, Rankin introduced legislation that eventually became the 19th amendment. (AP Photo/RY)
Celebrating ratification of the women's suffrage amendment, Alice Paul, seated second from left, sews the 36th star on a banner, in August of 1920. The banner flew in front of headquarters of the Women's Party in Washington of which Miss Paul was national chairperson. The 36th star represented Tennessee, whose ratification completed the number of states needed to put the amendment in the Constitution. (AP Photo)
Former Governor of New York Alfred E. Smith, welcomes Carrie Chapman Catt, women's suffrage leader, on her triumphal return from Tennessee, last state to ratify the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, in New York, Aug. 27, 1920. Miss Catt carries a bouquet of blue and yellow flowers, colors of the National American Woman's Suffrage Association. (AP Photo)
First lady Michelle Obama applauds during the unveiling of the bust of Sojourner Truth in the Emancipation Hall of the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, April 28, 2009, in Washington. Obama said she hopes Truth, the first black woman to be honored with a bust at the Capitol, would be proud to see a descendent of slaves as America's first black first lady. Truth (1797-1883) was a women’s rights activist and abolitionist. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)