Ashley Winter
History 122
August 9, 2019
Prof Carney
Women and The Right to Vote
Can you imagine life for a woman different than it is now? It has never happened in my
lifetime, but there was a time when women did not have any rights. Things that we take for
granted today, such simple basic rights, like owning land, the right to work, or the right to vote.
The 19th amendment granted women the right to vote in 1920. It took decades of work and many
steps to get the law passed. Women in the 1800s sought equal rights to men including the right to
vote. Along the way, big changes happened in the suffrage movement. Countless women
founded groups to gain voting rights for women. Women fought and made selfless sacrifices for
nearly one hundred years to earn the right to vote.
Women sought equal rights in the 1800s to get the right to vote. Many women joined in
on the fight to get voting rights. Some of the women who were leaders in the fight were
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Betty Friedan, and Lucy Stone. The
passing of the 15th amendment did not include the right for women to vote. “Although the
Fifteenth Amendment opened the door to suffrage restrictions not explicitly based on race—
literacy tests, property qualifications, and poll taxes—and did not extend the right to vote to
women…”
1
Women were not taken seriously, and men did not think they needed to vote in
things considered men’s business. Some of the leaders were for the 15th amendment and others
were opposed to it. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony opposed it because it did not
include women. Lucy Stone supported the amendment and created the AWSA. The AWSA
focused on individual states, and the NWSA wanted a national women’s suffrage movement.
Due to this, there was a divide in the forces. When this happened, two groups were formed. “The
result was a split in the movement and the creation in 1869 of two hostile women’s rights
organizations—the National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Stanton, and the American
Woman Suffrage Association, with Lucy Stone as president. They would not reunite until 1890”
2
They came together to form the NAWSA; the National American Women Suffrage Association
in 1890. It was led by president Carrie Chapman Catt. There was a small victory in the Wyoming
territory in 1869 when women there were granted the right to vote. “In one place, women’s
political rights did expand during Reconstruction-not, however, in a bastion of radicalism such as
Massachusetts, but in the Wyoming territory. This had less to do with the era’s egalitarian
impulse than with the desire to attract female emigrants to an area where men outnumbered
women five to one. In 1869, Wyoming’s diminutive legislature (it consisted of fewer than twenty
men) extended the right to vote to women, and the bill was then signed by the governor, a federal
appointee. Wyoming entered the Union in 1890, becoming the first state since New Jersey in the
late eighteenth century to allow women to vote”
3
Multiple women led the fight for women’s rights. Two very important women were Susan
B. Anthony and her best friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton. They both fought for equal rights for
women. Susan believed all people were equal and fought for equal rights for all. Susan was born
on February 15th, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts. She was educated at home by her family and
learned to read and write at a young age. She became a teacher in her adulthood but was very
upset at the salary she earned as opposed to the salary of men. “Susan became a teacher in 1838.
Teaching was one of the few jobs for women at this time. Susan was a strict but skilled teacher.
In 1849 Susan moved to Rochester, New York. She quit teaching to become a reformer”
4
To get
their ideas out to the people, Anthony and Stanton started a newspaper called, The Revolution.
Their tireless efforts for women’s suffrage made drastic changes for women’s rights. In addition
to Anthony and Stanton’s newspaper, they also walked in parades and gave speeches. Despite it
being against the law for a woman to vote, Susan voted in 1872 and was arrested. Susan was a
lifelong activist for women’s rights and change. “In 1872, Anthony and 14 other women voted in
Rochester, New York. Anthony was arrested. She was found guilty of voting without the right to
do so. She was fined $100, which she refused to pay”
5
As a reformer, she worked to correct
things she believed were wrong, such as slavery, unequal pay, and women’s voting rights.
“Susan saw the end of slavery, but she never got to vote legally. She died in 1906. Women won
the right to vote in 1920”
6
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, another pioneer of women’s rights, was born November 12th,
1815 in Jonestown, New York. Born into a prominent wealthy family, she enjoyed all life had to
offer. She was an excellent student and finished top of her class in many subjects. After
graduating from school at age sixteen, she attended a seminary to further her education. It was
the closest thing to a college she could go to as there were no female colleges around at that time.
