The Women’s Suffrage Movement

1. The Women’s Suffrage Movement A Progressive Era Reform

2. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

3. Where it began • Suffrage movement began in 1848 • First women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York. • It took 50 years to convince the public that women should vote. • Led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton • Suffragists circulated petitions and lobbied Congress to pass amendment for women to vote.

4. A mass movement • Mass movement for women’s suffrage began at the turn of the century (1880-1900) • Women chose to unify because they wanted to have a hand in government legislation • A say in how Americans should live, a voice…. A VOTE

5. Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin speaks from the NAWSA headquarters, 1917

6. Women organize to vote • 20th century (1900s) leadership of the suffrage movement passed to two organizations. • National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), • Led by Carrie Chapman Catt:: Moderate organization • NAWSA campaigned for women’s suffrage one state at a time (starting with Western states) • Lobbied President Wilson and Congress to pass a woman suffrage Constitutional Amendment at the same time. • In the 1910s, NAWSA’s membership numbered in the millions.

7. * Second group:National Woman’s Party (NWP) -Led by Alice Paul, militant organization. -The NWP chose more radical actions, including picketing the White House and voluntary starvation

8. The 19th amendment! • In 1920, due to both NAWSA and the NWP • 19th Amendment was passed • Gave women the right to vote nationally • Victory considered the most significant achievement of women in the Progressive Era. • Single largest extension of democratic voting rights in our nation’s history, • Was achieved peacefully, through democratic processes.