American Women get the Vote

 

Key Political Event: Women granted the right to vote in the U.S.

Date: August 26, 1920

Why It’s Key: The creation and mobilization of various women’s groups often taking radical action culminated in securing women with the right to vote in the United States.

It was March 3, 1913, the day before his inauguration as United States President, and Woodrow Wilson’s train arrived in Washington, D.C. to silence. On Pennsylvania Avenue, an estimated half million people were watching a Woman Suffrage Parade, organized by suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, in an attempt to turn the nation’s attention to their cause: gaining the vote for American women through winning a federal suffrage amendment.

Up to eight thousand women marched in rows of three across, dressed in white, past hundreds of thousands of onlookers made up of both supporters and opponents of suffrage. Army troops would be called in to curb the violence which ensued when local police disregarded their obligation to ensure a peaceful march. The women were ridiculed, spat on and beaten. The public outcry against the police and their failure resulted in the firing of the police chief, but more importantly, generated even more support for the suffrage movement. In New York, several weeks later, another march drew 10,000 participants.

 

Paul’s forces, the ‘shock troops’ of the American suffrage crusade gained attention through massive demonstrations, hunger strikes, confrontations with the police, pickets and boycotts and many were jailed or committed. They would witness the passage of the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution on August 26, 1920. The seeds of their cause were planted nearly seventy years before. The egalitarian spirit of thousands of women emerged quietly and steadfastly through the decades, championing the vote for women.