In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, civil rights and voting rights came under constant attack in large sections of the country as state policies and court decisions effectively nullified the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
As the system of segregation known as Jim Crow crystallized in the South, African Americans saw protections for their civil and political rights disappear, and few Members of Congress or suffrage advocates were willing to fight for any additional federal safeguards.
Their voices, however, could only be heard outside of Congress. In the House and Senate, those voices had fallen silent: from to no African-American legislator served in Congress. The promise of the Reconstruction Era—that American democracy could be more just and more representative—was undermined by an organized political movement working to restrict voting rights and exclude millions of Americans from the political process.
Women had won complete voting rights in Wyoming in , but almost 25 years had elapsed without another victory. Some scholars suggest that the West proved to be more progressive in extending the vote to women, in part, in order to attract women westward and to boost the population. Others suggest that women played nontraditional roles on the hardscrabble frontier and were accorded a more equal status by men.
Still others find that political expediency by territorial officials played a role. All agree, though, that western women organized themselves effectively to win the vote. Women won the right to vote the next year in Montana, thanks in part to the efforts of another future Congresswoman, Jeannette Rankin.
Despite this momentum, some reformers pushed to quicken the pace of change. By Sascha Cohen. Get our History Newsletter. Put today's news in context and see highlights from the archives. Please enter a valid email address. Please attempt to sign up again. Sign Up Now. An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. Please try again later.
Check here if you would like to receive subscription offers and other promotions via email from TIME group companies. You can unsubscribe at any time. While there, 68 women and 32 men— out of some attendees, signed the Declaration of Sentiments, also known as the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments. Charlotte Woodward, alone among all signers, was the only one still alive in when the Nineteenth Amendment passed.
Woodward was not well enough to vote herself. Second-wave feminism is a period of feminist activity and thought that first began in the early s in the United States, and eventually spread throughout the Western world and beyond. In the United States the movement lasted through the early s.
Whereas first-wave feminism focused mainly on suffrage and overturning legal obstacles to gender equality e. No lady would ever want to perspire! These and other issues that were once considered scandalous and unthinkable are now almost universally accepted in this country. Much of the discussion has moved beyond the issue of equal rights and into territory that is controversial, even among feminists.
To name a few:. Whatever choices we make for our own lives, most of us envision a world for our daughters, nieces and granddaughters where all girls and women will have the opportunity to develop their unique skills and talents and pursue their dreams. Not only have women won the right to vote; we are being elected to public office at all levels of government.
Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress, in By , three generations later, women were still less than three percent of our congressional representatives.
In the world of work, large numbers of women have entered the professions, the trades, and businesses of every kind. We have opened the ranks of the clergy, the military, the newsroom. The remaining injustices are being tackled daily in the courts and conference rooms, the homes and organizations, workplaces and playing fields of America. Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end. Share your email to receive NWHA news and updates:. Support the work of NWHA by making a tax deductible donation today!
In the history of western civilization, no similar public meeting had ever been called. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, of course. And Susan B. Matilda Joslyn Gage. Lucy Stone. Esther Morris, the first woman to hold a judicial position, who led the first successful state campaign for woman suffrage, in Wyoming in Abigail Scott Duniway, the leader of the successful fight in Oregon and Washington in the early s.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church Terrell, organizers of thousands of African-American women who worked for suffrage for all women. Anna Howard Shaw and Carrie Chapman Catt, leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in the early years of the 20th century, who brought the campaign to its final success.
I applaud the bravery and resilience of those who helped all of us — you and me — to be here today. Whether or not women can terminate pregnancies is still controversial twenty-five years after the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v.
Are these desirable? Women in leadership roles in religious worship. Controversial for some, natural for others. Affirmative action. Is help in making up for past discrimination appropriate? Do qualified women now face a level playing field? The mommy track. Is it degrading, even dangerous, to women, or is it simply a free speech issue?
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