Women's Movement Time Line (1840 - 1920)
1840
Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton are barred from attending the World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London. This prompts them to hold a Women's Convention in the US.
1848
Seneca Falls, New York is the location for the first Women's Rights Convention. Elizabeth Cady Stanton writes "The Declaration of Sentiments" creating the agenda of women's activism for decades to come.
1850
Worcester, Massachusetts is the site of the first National Women's Rights Convention. An alliance is formed Frederick Douglass, Paulina Wright Davis, Abby Kelley Foster, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucy Stone and Sojourner Truth are in attendance. A strong alliance is formed with the Abolitionist Movement.
1851
Worcester, Massachusetts is the site of the second National Women's Rights Convention. Participants included: Horace Mann, New York Tribune columnist Elizabeth Oaks Smith, and Reverend Harry Ward Beecher, one of the nation's most popular preachers.
At a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio, Sojourner Truth, a former slave, delivers her now memorable speach "Ain't I a woman?"
1852
The issue of women's property rights is presented to the Vermont Senate by Clara Howard Nichols. This is a major issue for the Suffragists.
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is published and quickly becomes a bestseller.
1853
Women delegates, Antoinette Brown and Susan B. Anthony, are not allowed to speak at The World's Temperance Convention held in New York City.
1861-1865
The Civil War. Efforts for the suffrage movement come to a halt. Women put their energies toward the war effort.
1866
The American Equal Rights Association, an organization dedicated to the goal of suffrage for all regardless of gender or race, is founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
1868
The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified. "Citizens" and "voters" are defined exclusively as male.
1869
The American Equal Rights Association is wrecked by disagreements over the Fourteenth Amendment and the question of whether to support the proposed Fifteenth Amendment which would enfranchise Black American males while avoiding the question of woman suffrage entirely.
1870
Two new organizations emerge. The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), a radical organization, is founded by Stanton and Cady. NWSA refuses to support the Fifteenth Amendment and breaks with long time civil rights allies such as Fredick Douglass over the issue. The more moderate American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA)is founded by Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe.
1878
A Woman Suffrage Amendment is proposed in the U.S. Congress. This is the exactly worded Amendment passed by Congress forty one years later in 1919.
1890
NWSA and AWSA merge and the National American Woman Suffrage Association is formed. Stanton is the first president. The Movement focuses efforts on securing suffrage at the state level.
1890-1925
A progressive era results. Women from all classes and backgrounds enter public life. Women's roles expand and result in an increasing politicization of women. Consequently the issue of woman suffrage becomes mainstream politics.
1912
Woman Suffrage is supported for the first time at the national level by a major political party -- Theodre Roosevelt's Bull Moose Party.
1916
Jeanette Rankin of Montana is the first woman elected to the House of Representatives. Woodrow Wilson states that the Democtratic Party platform will support suffrage.
1918
Representative Rankin opens debate on a suffrage amendment in the House. The amendment passes. The amendment fails to win the required two thirds majority in the Senate.
1919
The Senate finally passes the Nineteenth Amendment and the ratification process begins.
August 26,1920
Three quarters of the state legislatures ratify the Ninetenth Amendment. American Women win full voting rights.
