Women's Suffrage Movement

Highlights of the Women’s Suffrage Movement

• October, 1850: first National Woman's Rights Convention was held in Worcester, Massachusetts. 
   

• 1851: Sojourner Truth defends woman's rights and "Negroes' rights" at a women's convention in Akron, Ohio. 
   

• January 8, 1868: first issue of The Revolution appeared. 
   

• 1869: National Woman Suffrage Association founded primarily by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 
   

• December 10, 1869: Wyoming territory passed a law permitting women to vote. 
   

• 1872: Republican Party platform included a reference to woman suffrage. 
   

• 1872: Campaign was initiated by Susan B. Anthony to encourage women to register to vote and then vote, using the Fourteenth Amendment as justification.
   

• November 5, 1872: Susan B. Anthony and others attempted to vote; some, including Anthony, are arrested. 
   

• June 1873: Susan B. Anthony was tried for "illegally" voting. 
   

• January 10, 1878: The "Anthony Amendment" to extend the vote to women was introduced into the United States Congress. 
   

• 1887: Three volumes of a history of the woman suffrage effort were published, written primarily by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Mathilda Jocelyn Gage. 
   

• 1890: American Woman Suffrage Association and National Woman Suffrage Association merge into the National American Woman Suffrage Association. 
   

• 1893: Colorado passed a referendum giving women the vote.  
   

• January 25, 1887: The United States Senate voted on woman suffrage for the first time -- and also for the last time in 25 years. 
   

• 1896: Utah and Idaho passed woman suffrage laws. 
   

• 1910: Washington State established woman suffrage. 
   

• May 4, 1912: Women marched up Fifth Avenue in New York City, demanding the vote. 
   

• May 4, 1913: About 5,000 paraded for woman suffrage up Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. 
   

• 1913: Women in Illinois were given the vote in most elections -- the first state East of the Mississippi to pass a woman suffrage law. 
   

• 1917: Montana elected Jeannette Rankin to the United States Congress. 
   

• January 10, 1918: House of Representatives passed the Anthony Amendment but the Senate failed to pass it. 
   

• May 21, 1919: United States House of Representatives passed the Anthony Amendment again. 
   

• June 4, 1919: United States Senate approved the Anthony Amendment. 
   

• August 18, 1920: Tennessee legislature ratified the Anthony Amendment by a single vote, giving the Amendment the necessary states for ratification. 
   

• August 24, 1920: Tennessee governor signed the Anthony Amendment. 
   

• August 26, 1920: United States Secretary of State signed the Anthony Amendment into law. 
   

• 1923: Equal Rights Amendment introduced into the United States Congress.