The 19th Amendment guarantees all American women the right to vote. Achieving this milestone required a lengthy and difficult struggle; victory took decades of agitation and protest. Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change of the Constitution. Few early supporters lived to see final victory in 1920. Beginning in the 1800s, women organized, petitioned, and picketed to win the right to vote, but it took them decades to accomplish their purpose. Between 1878, when the amendment was first introduced in Congress, and August 18, 1920, when it was ratified, champions of voting rights for women worked tirelessly, but strategies for achieving their goal varied. Some pursued a strategy of passing suffrage acts in each state—nine western states adopted woman suffrage legislation by 1912. Others challenged male-only voting laws in the courts. Militant suffragists used tactics such as parades, silent vigils, and hunger strikes. Often supporters met fierce resistance. Opponents heckled, jailed, and sometimes physically abused them. CONTENTS The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women’s Right to Vote (1920) Woman's Suffrage History Timeline Report of the Woman's Rights Convention The Women’s Rights Movement, 1848–1920 The National Woman's Party Tactics And Techniques Of The National Woman’s Party Suffrage campaign Photos: Suffrage Marches And Parades Did You Know: Women and African Americans Could Vote in NJ before the 15th and 19th Amendments? Women’s Suffrage In The Progressive Era Women's Suffrage and WWI Educator Resources -Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment From the Local to the Global: America’s Newspapers Chronicle the Struggle for Women’s Rights List of Suffrage Prisoners This Day in History: The 1913 Women's Suffrage Parade One Hundred Years Toward Suffrage Handbook of the National American Woman Suffrage Association Teacher’s Guide Primary Source Set: Women’s Suffrage Recommended Reading
