Votes for Women
From the founding of the United States until the late 19th century, women were almost entirely excluded from voting or participating in the country’s politics. Women’s suffrage groups gained steam during the 1800s, working separately and together to gather support for a federal amendment that would enshrine in the country’s constitution women’s right to vote and for similar amendments to the constitutions of individual states.
The first constitutional amendment for women’s suffrage was proposed in Congress in 1878 and was reintroduced in every Congress thereafter. Meanwhile, individual states began amending their own constitutions. By 1918, 15 states allowed women to vote. After a federal vote passed in the House and failed in the Senate, the National Women’s Party banded together to oust senators who had voted against the measure. The Nineteenth Amendment, allowing women to vote all across the United States, was finally ratified on August 18, 1920.