Timeline of women's suffrage in the United States
[1] However, New Jersey also gave the vote to unmarried and widowed women who met the property qualifications, regardless of color.
[2] 1838: Kentucky passes the first statewide woman suffrage law allowing female heads of household in rural areas to vote in elections deciding on taxes and local boards for the new county "common school" system.
Women's suffrage was proposed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and agreed to after an impassioned argument from Frederick Douglass.
[5] 1853: On the occasion of the World's Fair in New York City, suffragists hold a meeting in the Broadway Tabernacle.
[citation needed] 1867: Kansas holds a state referendum on whether to enfranchise women and/or black men.
Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton traverse the state speaking in favor of women's suffrage.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Parker Pillsbury published the first edition of The Revolution.
In Vineland, New Jersey, 172 women cast ballots in a separate box during the presidential election.
Many early suffrage supporters, including Susan B. Anthony, remained single because, in the mid-1800s, married women could not own property in their rights and could not make legal contracts on their own behalf.
The AWSA is formed by Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and it protests the confrontational tactics of the NWSA and ties itself closely to the Republican Party while concentrating solely on securing the vote for women state by state.
[3] 1872: Susan B. Anthony registers and votes in Rochester, New York, arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives her that right.
[6] 1875: In the case of Minor v. Happersett, the Supreme Court rules that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not grant women the right to vote.
[3] 1878: A federal amendment to grant women the right to vote is introduced for the first time by Senator Aaron A. Sargent of California.
[3] 1887: Rhode Island becomes the first eastern state to vote on a women's suffrage referendum, but it does not pass.
[6] 1893: After a campaign led by Carrie Chapman Catt, Colorado men vote for women's suffrage.
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw takes over as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
[14] 1908: The first suffrage march in the United States is held in Oakland, California, on August 27, co-led by Johanna Pinther of San Francisco's Glen Park, her step-daughter-in-law Jeanette Pinther of Noe Valley, San Francisco,[15] and Lillian Harris Coffin[16] of Marin County, California.
Followed by as many as 300 women, they carried the banner[17] for the California Equal Suffrage Association[18] hand-sewn and embroidered by Johanna Pinther.
[19] 1910: Emma Smith DeVoe organizes a grassroots campaign in Washington State, where women win suffrage.
[3] 1910: Emulating the grassroots tactics of labor activists, the Women's Political Union organizes America's first large-scale suffrage parade, which is held in New York City.
[6] 1913: Alice Paul becomes the leader of the Congressional Union (CU), a militant branch of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
[3] 1913: Alice Paul organizes the Woman's Suffrage Procession, a parade in Washington, D.C., on the eve of Woodrow Wilson's inauguration.
[3] 1915: Carrie Chapman Catt replaces Anna Howard Shaw as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, partly due to the constant turmoil on the National Board caused by Shaw's lack of administrative expertise.
[6] 1916: Woodrow Wilson promises that the Democratic Party Platform will endorse women's suffrage.
[6][25][26] November 14, 1917: The "Night of Terror" occurs at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia, in which suffragist prisoners are beaten and abused.
Jeannette Rankin opens debate on it in the House, and President Wilson addresses the Senate in support of it.
[3] 1922: Fairchild v. Hughes, 258 U.S. 126 (1922),[30] is a case in which the Supreme Court held that a general citizen, in a state that already had women's suffrage, lacked standing to challenge the validity of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment.
[31][32][33] 1922: Leser v. Garnett, 258 U.S. 130 (1922),[34] is a case in which the Supreme Court held that the Nineteenth Amendment had been constitutionally established.
1952: The race restrictions of the 1790 Naturalization Law are repealed by the McCarran-Walter Act, giving first generation Japanese Americans, including women, citizenship and voting rights.
1964: The Twenty-fourth Amendment is ratified by three-fourths of the states, formally abolishing poll taxes and literacy tests which were heavily used against African-American and poor white women and men.
