WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE

On Election Day in 1920, millions of American women exercised their right to vote for the first time. It took activists and reformers nearly 100 years to win that right, and the campaign was not easy: Disagreements over strategy threatened to cripple the movement more than once. Although on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, enfranchising all American women and declaring for the first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.

In 1848, a group of abolitionist activists gathered in Seneca Falls, New York to discuss the problem of women’s rights. Invited by the reformers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, the Seneca Falls Convention was the first woman’s rights convention ever held in the United States with almost 200 women in attendance. This meeting marked the beginning of the women's rights movement in America. After years of struggle, the 19th Amendment was adopted in 1920, granting American women the constitutionally protected right to vote.

Starting in 1910, some states in the West began to extend the vote to women although, the more established Southern and Eastern states continued to resist. World War I is what advanced the argument for women's rights because of all their hard work during the war. It proved that they were just as patriotic and deserving of citizenship as men.

Editorial From The Author

In my opinion, It seemed to have taken a while for women to finally recieve full equal rights as men. Nonethless, I am glad women finally got the right to vote. Many men feared that women would start to become like men, but that fear, to me, seemed like only an excuse. A woman can do anything theyset they're mind to. Their labor during the war more than enough proved that they were honorable people who loved their country, deserving the same rights as men. In present day, women and men are equal, but not entriely. A small amount of people still have "the wife must stay at home" mentality. The wage gap is also a problem, were men are making more money compared to women in some fields of work. I'm hoping one day that these issues can be comletely eradictaed.