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19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women’s Right to Vote (1920)
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General SummaryThe 19th amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took decades of agitation and protest. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change of the Constitution. Few early supporters lived to see final victory in 1920.Beginning in the 1800s, women organized, petitioned, and picketed to win the right to vote, but it took them decades to accomplish their purpose. Between 1878, when the amendment was first introduced in Congress, and August 18, 1920, when it was ratified, champions of voting rights for women worked tirelessly, but strategies for achieving their goal varied. Some pursued a strategy of passing suffrage acts in each state nine western states adopted woman suffrage legislation by 1912. Others challenged male-only voting laws in the courts. Militant suffragists used tactics such as parades, silent vigils, and hunger strikes. Often supporters met fierce resistance. Opponents heckled, jailed, and sometimes physically abused them.By 1916, almost all of the major suffrage organizations were united behind the goal of a constitutional amendment. When New York adopted woman suffrage in 1917 and President Wilson changed his position to support an amendment in 1918, the political balance began to shift.On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the amendment, and 2 weeks later, the Senate followed. When Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on August 18, 1920, the amendment passed its final hurdle of obtaining the agreement of three-fourths of the states. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the ratification on August 26, 1920, changing the face of the American electorate forever.For more information, visit the National Archives Digital Classroom Teaching With Documents Lesson Plan: Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment.
Biographical SummaryNational History Day, National Archives and Records Administration, and USA Freedom Corps developed the 100 Milestone Documents of U.S. History project as presented at http://www.OurDocuments.gov. This replication of the documents of that site grants users full-search access to this essential collection.
19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women’s Right to Vote (1920)
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Sixty-sixth Congress of the United States of America; At the First Session,
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday, the nineteenth day of May, one thousand nine hundred and nineteen.
JOINT RESOLUTION
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution extending the right of suffrage to women.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled(two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislature of three-fourths of the several States.
"ARTICLE .
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."
[endorsements]
Chicago: 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women’s Right to Vote (1920) in Joint Resolution of Congress Proposing a Constitutional Amendment Extending the Right of Suffrage to Women, May 19, 1919; Ratified Amendments, 1795-1992; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives. Original Sources, accessed December 4, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=I1SDGLS5FCA8ZR3.
MLA: . 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women’s Right to Vote (1920), in Joint Resolution of Congress Proposing a Constitutional Amendment Extending the Right of Suffrage to Women, May 19, 1919; Ratified Amendments, 1795-1992; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives., Original Sources. 4 Dec. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=I1SDGLS5FCA8ZR3.
Harvard: , 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women’s Right to Vote (1920). cited in , Joint Resolution of Congress Proposing a Constitutional Amendment Extending the Right of Suffrage to Women, May 19, 1919; Ratified Amendments, 1795-1992; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives.. Original Sources, retrieved 4 December 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=I1SDGLS5FCA8ZR3.
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