Study Guide: Women's Suffrage

An excerpt from our study guide compiled by Caitlin Crisp for "¡Viva la Revolucion!", our Day of the Dead celebration ...

 

The women’s suffrage movement, or Suffragists as they were known in the United States, dates back to before the Civil War. These women argued that they were equal to men and thus, like men, deserved the right to vote.  Many women were beginning to resist the notion that they were they were only a true woman if they were pious, submissive and concerned only with the home. This was especially true in the 1820s and 1830s when all white men were given the opportunity to vote regardless of class. The women’s suffrage movement really took shape in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York where Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others drafted the Declaration of Sentiments. However, the movement lost steam as the Civil War broke out. 

After the Civil War many Suffragists, among them Susan B.  Anthony, believed that it was the time to fight for universal suffrage while the 15th amendment, which guarantees black men the right to vote, was being debated. In 1890, the Suffragists changed their tactics. They decided that they would no longer argue that they deserved the right to vote because they were equal to men but rather, they deserved the right to vote because they were different from men. This tactic did not work any better than the previous tactic and American women remained without a vote. It was not until after World War I, where women proved by working alongside men that they were equally as patriotic and deserving of a vote as men. 

Finally on August 26th 1920, the 19th amendment was ratified, giving women the right to vote.