The American Woman Suffrage Movement: 1830s-1920s

It took women more than 72 years of arduous struggle to win the vote (called woman suffrage) – from the Seneca Falls Convention on women’s rights, held in 1848, to the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920. Victory was never assured until the final moment, when Tennessee became the last state to ratify the amendment – by a single vote! In the intervening years, the drive for women’s voting rights encompassed the lives of several generations of women.

I. Introduction to the Movement
II. The Abolition Movement and Woman Suffrage
III. The Seneca Falls Convention and the Early Suffrage Movement
IV. Post-Civil War and the Emergence of Two Movements
V. 1869-1890: A Movement Divided
VI. The Movement Reunites
VII. African American Women and Suffrage
VIII. A New Century: A Mass Movement
IX. Women and the Trade Union Movement
X. The National American Woman Suffrage Association Reinvigorated
XI. Men Support the Woman Suffrage Movement
XII. The National American Woman Suffrage Association under Carrie Chapman Catt
XIII. The Militant Women’s Movement
XIV. WWI and Winning the Vote
XV. Aftermath
XVI. List of Woman Suffrage Leaders
XVII. Suffrage Political Cartoons
XVIII. Did You Know? Facts About Woman Suffrage
XIX. Other Resources