How Women Got the Vote

With wall-to-wall primetime political oratory scheduled for the next two weeks, we gave the floor to Cicero yesterday, and Rome's most famous orator gave us his advice.

Today, it's hats off to the American women who made speeches and demanded to be heard decades ago--because, as more than a few of this week's primetime political speakers have pointed out, this month marks the 88th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave American women the right to vote.

How did the suffragists persuade a nation to change its laws? What happened in the years before the 19th Amendment's approval to change what most men (and women) of the time believed about who should vote? We'll tell you.

1. The Suffragists Got Organized

In 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott lit a fire under 300 freethinkers at a meeting in Seneca Falls, New York, with passionate speeches in favor of women's rights. Before long, similar conventions were being held around the country. Female abolitionists, women educators, and bottle-smashing veterans of the Christian temperance movement eagerly joined the movement.

Two major factions of the suffragist cause emerged. Stanton and Susan B. Anthony's group wanted to free women from all restrictions, including social ones such as restrictions on divorce. This was too much for Lucy Stone, who worried her group would lose valuable support if it challenged notions of genteel behavior. For years, the two egged each other on. In 1890, they merged into one formidable group: the National American Women Suffrage Association.

2. The Suffragists Had a Plan

The women had to choose between two paths. They could focus on persuading the states to allow women to vote, or they could set their sights on amending the U.S. Constitution so women across the nation would have the same rights.

By 1860, the suffragists had a strategy. Kentucky and a few other states had granted women partial voting rights in school elections, so women tried to gain the vote little by little, through state law. But after a constitutional amendment gave black men the vote in 1870, women asked, why not a federal law, and why not now?

The country wasn't ready. In 1878, a California senator introduced the amendment that would be ratified in 1920. It was soundly defeated, with only 40 of 76 senators even bothering to vote. Passing a federal amendment required a daunting two-thirds majority. Both houses of Congress had to be filled with men who supported the cause.

3. The Suffragists Were Publicity Hounds

The campaign for suffrage began with the humble petition. Between 1868 and 1920, volunteers solicited millions of signatures seeking pro-suffrage amendments. But petitioning had drawbacks: it was only mildly effective, and it was glacially slow. To attract widespread sympathy for their cause, suffragists needed media attention.

In 1908, the movement switched tactics. American suffragists took cues from their more militant British sisters and brought their speeches into the streets. Conservative newspapermen reeled at the spectacle of women on soapboxes, but the aggressive open-air meetings gave the movement new vitality and recognition. "Votes for Women" was the rallying cry on every corner.

Marches also got the message across. In 1915, more than 30,000 pro-suffrage women and men paraded up Fifth Avenue while a quarter-million New Yorkers turned out to watch. Elaborate theatrical pageants were the icing on the cake. In 1913, the steps of the U.S. Treasury served as backdrop for a flamboyant procession of women dressed as "Justice," "Charity," and "Liberty." News about the pro-suffrage cause slowly moved from the back pages of the paper to the front.

4. The Suffragists Won the West

As the country expanded westward, so did the suffrage movement. The frontier proved fertile ground for women in search of votes. Susan B. Anthony and others traveled across the Plains, Rockies, and Pacific Coast, drumming up support in the most desolate of tumbleweed towns.

Out west, other motives prevailed for granting women the vote. Woman-starved Wyoming, where men outnumbered women 6 to 1, became the first state to grant women full voting rights in 1890. In Utah, Mormon men supported enfranchising their multiple wives in hopes their votes would help defend the faith. Colorado and Idaho, full of lonesome silver miners, followed suit.

5. The Suffragists Convinced the President

By 1918, the movement had won the right to vote in 15 states. World War I had brought women new independence, as they poured into factories and hospitals. Now that women were armed with electoral power as well as economic clout, national party leaders began to pay attention. President Woodrow Wilson encouraged fellow Democrats to vote for a federal amendment, as "an act of right and justice," that would allow all American women to vote.

Though the House of Representatives passed the suffrage amendment in January 1918, the bill stalled in the Senate. Furious suffragists burned Wilson's speeches outside the White House. That fall, Wilson made an unprecedented appearance before Congress, saying the success of the amendment was vital to winning the war.

Wilson's words and the suffragists' hard work helped turn the corner. The amendment passed Congress in June 1919. It took more than a year for the required 36 states to ratify it, but the 19th Amendment became part of the Constitution in August 1920. After a 70-year struggle, American women had won the right to vote.