This text is a part of In Session: The Teen Vogue Lesson Plan.
When did ladies get the proper to vote? The nineteenth Modification, handed in 1924, technically assured ladies’s suffrage in the US after years of labor from activists. Nevertheless, many ladies of shade had been excluded when the nineteenth Modification was signed into regulation, and the battle for true equality on the polls has been rather more complicated and fraught than some historical past books may make it appear. Voter entry stays an necessary subject right this moment, with activists combating for a fairer election system that makes participation accessible for all individuals. Forward, Teen Vogue shares some highlights from the decades-long battle to safe the proper to vote for all ladies.
1848: The primary conference for girls’s rights
What began out as an concept over tea to carry a two-day assembly to debate ladies’s rights was a conference attended by lots of in Seneca Falls, New York. In whole, 300 individuals attended the conference the place 68 ladies and 32 males signed a “Declaration of Sentiments,” making the primary formal demand within the U.S. for girls to have the proper to vote. Nevertheless, this conference didn’t deal with the racism and oppression particularly confronted by Black ladies.
1850: The primary Nationwide Girl’s Rights Conference
Two years after the Seneca Falls Conference, greater than 1,000 individuals — together with abolitionists Lucy Stone, Lucretia Mott, and Abby Kelley — attended a nationwide convention in Worcester, Massachusetts to strategize methods to strengthen ladies’s rights. These annual conferences continued virtually yearly via 1860.
1866: Suffragists ship petition to Congress
Suffragists garnered 10,000 signatures on a petition they ready to ship to Congress, requesting an modification prohibiting disenfranchisement on the idea of intercourse. “We name your consideration to the truth that we signify fifteen million individuals—one half the complete inhabitants of the nation — clever, virtuous, native-born Americans; and but stand outdoors the pale of political recognition,” the petition learn.
1869: The suffragists cut up
Three years later, suffragists cut up into two separate organizations: the Nationwide Girl Suffrage Affiliation and the American Girl Suffrage Affiliation. The previous targeted on attaining voting rights via a constitutional modification whereas the latter approached voting rights state-by-state. Splits had been additionally fueled by disagreements concerning voting rights for minorities. The American Girl Suffrage Affiliation endorsed the Fifteenth Modification — which prohibited voter denial due to race. Members included Black women and men.