 | | By the time this photo was taken, circa 1915, women in 12 states and the Alaska Territory could vote — although in some places they were limited to municipal or presidential elections. Slowly, progress began to spread to the East. In 1917, the movement achieved a major victory when New York, at the time the nation’s most populous state, passed a suffrage referendum.New York Public Library |
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“Suffragists were never single-issue people.” |
— Historian Ellen Carol DuBois |
On May 18, 1915, crowds streamed into the Polo Grounds in Manhattan to watch the New York Giants take on the Chicago Cubs. But beyond the diamond, a bigger contest was brewing. |
The state of New York was gearing up to hold a referendum, putting the question of women’s suffrage to its (all-male) electorate. Supporters of the cause organized a “suffrage day” game, luring potential voters with the offer of a piece of chocolate cake with every ticket purchased at their headquarters. They festooned the stadium with yellow banners and printed baseball-themed fliers, with exhortations like “Fans, Fair Play” and “Make a Home Run for Suffrage.” |
Everybody, The New York Times noted, “had a ‘lovely’ time.” But the festive mood would fizzle out come November: The men of New York rejected the suffrage measure, and its women would have to work another two years for the right to vote. |
Votes for women was a demand that was both radical and all-American. And the nearly century-long history of how women won that right is as colorful and kaleidoscopic as it is complicated and almost impossible to sum up. |
Those who fought for it were heroes, but not always moral paragons. The suffrage movement, like other social movements before and after, often reflected the racism, nativism and other prejudices that pervaded America as a whole. |
 | | Delegates of the City Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs of Jacksonville at a meeting in Palatka, Fla., in 1915. Eartha M. M. White, an opera singer and businesswoman who became a leading advocate for social reform in Jacksonville, is seated front center.
Eartha M. M. White Collection/University of North Florida |
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At the heart of the suffrage battle was a conundrum: Women gaining the vote required persuading men to share it with them. And there were many who dismissed the cause as ridiculous, if not downright dangerous. |
Women’s quest for political power involved Americans of every race, class and walk of life — and it did not start, or end, with the vote. As early as the 1810s, Black women preachers such as Jarena Lee were fighting for more equitable roles in their churches, and inspiring others to do the same. Latinas, Asian-Americans, Indigenous women and immigrants were all part of the multigenerational struggle for the vote. They led marches, gave speeches and organized for their right to a voice in the political system. But when victory did come with the 19th Amendment, some of them would not be included. |
Suffragists fought for their rights not only at the ballot box but also in their daily lives. Women’s struggle for the right to vote intersected with many other social movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries, from abolition to temperance to labor. It collided with wars and grappled with changing social norms. It even had to contend with a pandemic. |
“Suffragists were never single-issue people,” the historian Ellen Carol DuBois said in a phone interview. “They understood that getting the right to vote was the crucial tool for every important political change in American society — and they had a long list of changes they wanted to be a part of.” |
Today — a century after the 19th Amendment was ratified (it would be added to the constitution eight days later), in what was the single largest act of enfranchisement in the history of the United States — Kamala Harris is one of 26 women serving in the Senate and the third woman to be nominated for vice president by a major political party. Another 101 women are Representatives in the House. Women are governors of nine states, as well as the territories of Puerto Rico and Guam. Four serve as Congressional delegates for American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. There is still progress to be made. |
But all this would be unimaginable if women had not won the vote. |
To mark the anniversary of the 19th Amendment, we’re revisiting the stories of how women won the right to vote in the United States. |
 | | Ken Florey Suffrage Collection/Gado/Getty Images |
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- Black suffragists played central — but thwarted — roles in the history of women’s rights. [Read the story]
- Understanding the anti-suffragists is crucial to understanding why the battle for the right to vote took so long. [Read the story]
- Suffragists’ descendants continue their ancestors’ work today. [Read the story]
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In Her Words is edited by Francesca Donner. Our art director is Catherine Gilmore-Barnes, and our photo editor is Sandra Stevenson. |
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