One Small Step for Women...
In colonial America, a particular group of women voted depending on local custom and only in cases where they met the property-holding restrictions that determined eligibility. Women who met the freehold qualification because they owned or inherited land voted in some places when many men were excluded by the property restriction. In the years following the American Revolution, while property restrictions were eased and the franchise expanded to include previously ineligible men, women were gradually disenfranchised (Lewis, 2001). As states specified their laws and adopted constitutions for governing within the newly created nation, explicit suffrage qualifications that allowed only men to vote were included. Between 1807 and 1838, women were excluded completely from participating in the electoral process. Gradually, in the years after 1838, states began to ease voting requirements for women in certain types of elections (Lewis, 2001). For example, Kentucky extended voting rights in school board elections for widows in 1838, Kansas gave all women that right in 1859, and Massachusetts followed in 1879 (Lewis, 2001). A formal effort to secure the right the vote for women began with the organization of the suffrage movement at mid-century.
The movement for women’s suffrage had its origins in the abolitionist movement. In 1848, following an anti-slavery convention in London in 1849, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized a women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York where Stanton successfully pushed for endorsement of a statement supporting women’s suffrage (Lewis, 2001). The movement postponed after the Civil War, when the focus was concentrated on a development of constitutional amendments concerning slaves. While the Reconstruction amendments confronted matters of citizenship and rights, women’s rights were not included. Under the 14th Amendment, only “male” voting rights were guaranteed, which further complicated the struggle to establish the vote for women (Lewis, 2001). In the decades before and after 1900, progress toward the goal of universal suffrage was achieved slowly on a state-by-state basis. The states that allowed women to vote increased gradually in the years prior to 1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified to prohibit states from denying women the right to vote (Lewis, 2001).
There is a First for Everything...
Although women were not granted national suffrage until 1920, famous suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton ran for Congress in 1866 and lost. It was not until a half of century later when Jeanette Rankin of Montana became the first woman to win a congressional seat. She had the opportunity to serve twice from 1917 to 1919 and then again from 1941 to 1942. Rankin was the only representative to vote against the U.S entry into both World War I and WWII (Thomas and Wilcox, 2005). Rebecca Latimer Felton of Georgia was the first woman senator. She was appointed in 1922, serving for only one day. Ten years later, in 1932, Hattie W. Caraway of Arkansas earned the distinction of becoming the first woman elected to the Senate in a seat to which she was originally appointed (Thomas and Wilcox, 2005). The first women in state legislative politics broke into office earlier than their counterparts on the federal level. In 1895, Clara Cressingham, Carrie Clyde Holly, and Frances S. Klock all earned seats in the Colorado statehouse. Their election was due, in large part, to the great voter turnout by women. While in office, all three representatives made a priority of legislation related to women, children, and families (Thomas and Wilcox, 2005). Together, they introduced legislation to the statehouse that gave mothers equal rights to their children, raised the age of consent from sixteen to eighteen, and created a home for delinquent girls (Thomas and Wilcox, 2005).
Chamberlin, Hope. A Minority of Members: Women in the U.S. Congress. New York: Praeger, 1973. Print.
Chamberlin, Hope. A Minority of Members: Women in the U.S. Congress. New York: Praeger, 1973. Print.