An Abridged History of the Women’s Suffrage Movement

The movement was largely led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as well as numerous other champions of women’s rights who worked across the country. As the movement continued to gather momentum, it passed from the leadership of these two individuals to bigger organizations created for the purpose. One of these organizations was the National American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Carrie Chapman Catt, and they aimed to enfranchise women and “lobbied President Wilson and Congress to pass a woman suffrage Constitutional Amendment. In the 1910s, NAWSA’s membership numbered in the millions.”

The second of the two organizations that propelled the movement was the National Woman’s Party, which was much more radical than the NAWSA and was led by Alice Paul. To work toward what its goal, it organized picketing and protesting efforts outside the White House during the Wilson administration.

In response to the efforts of these two groups, The 19th Amendment was ratified. This amendment deemed that citizens of the United States could not be denied to vote on account of their sex.  Essentially, it granted women the right to vote. The hundred year anniversary of this event is coming up, as it was originally passed by Congress on June 4, 1919.

The act overruled the conclusion made by Minor V. Happersett in 1874 which discerned that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibited women from voting.  It made this decision countrywide, as there were already some states which allowed women the right to vote, while simultaneously there were some that vigilantly prohibited it.

Although this amendment signified major progress, it by no means implies that the strife toward equality is over, or that the momentum of the women’s rights movement has come to a pinnacle. There is still so much more work to do, in terms of reproductive rights, the wage gap, and other areas of injustice.