1965
Voting Rights Act
African Americans and Native Americans continued to face exclusion from voting through mechanisms like poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 eliminated many of these.
Click on the dates on the timeline to learn about key events.
African Americans and Native Americans continued to face exclusion from voting through mechanisms like poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 eliminated many of these.
New Mexico is the last state to enfranchise Native Americans.
Native Americans are finally allowed to vote in all 50 states.
Chinese in the United States are granted the right to become citizens, and therefore to vote. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 had previously prevented this.
Native Americans are deemed US citizens, but states continue to decide who votes. Many states continue to disenfranchise Native Americans.
Interestingly, Native American nations, particularly the Haudenosaunee, served as inspiration and societal role models for feminists and suffragists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage. Haudenosaunee women shared equal rights to men in their society.
This illustration shows Iroquois women on a rock overlooking women marching with a banner labeled "Woman Suffrage". Text reads: "WE, THE WOMEN OF THE IROQUOIS: Own the land, the lodge, the children. Ours is the right of adoption, of life or death; Ours is right to raise up and depose chiefs; Ours the right of representation at all councils; Ours the right to make and abrogate treaties; Ours the supervision over domestic and foreign policies; Ours the trusteeship of the tribal property; Our lives are valued again as high as man's. THE INDIAN WOMEN: We whom you pity as drudges reached centuries ago the goal that you are now nearing."
Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
In 1923, the Equal Rights Amendment to eliminate discrimination on the basis of gender is introduced for the first time. It has never been ratified, and the campaign to have it ratified is ongoing.
Tennessee is the 36th State to ratify the 19th Amendment law, passing the three-fourths threshold requirement for the amendment to become law.
The 19th Amendment is adopted as part of the US Constitution!
The 19th Amendment fails in the Senate by 1 vote.
The 19th Amendment passes in the House.
The 19th Amendment passes in the Senate.
Wisconsin and Michigan are the first states to ratify the 19th Amendment.
The suffrage measure wins by a margin of 100,000 votes in New York City and breaks even in the rest of the state.
Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first American woman elected to represent her state in the U.S. House of Representatives.
By the end of 1914, women in eleven states had equal voting rights to men, all in the West. Meanwhile, in New York State, women’s suffrage was defeated by popular vote. Suffrage leaders continued to bring attention to the cause. Local leader Lucy Carlile Watson carried the Suffrage Liberty Torch through Utica.
500 individuals, 40 automobiles, and 2 bands participated in the parade with thousands of spectators according to the Utica Saturday Globe. Both men and women marched, although the paper and some spectators said the men’s presence may have hurt the cause. Lucy Carlile Watson served as the Grand Marshall.
Meanwhile, another women’s suffrage amendment is introduced to Congress. It also fails.
Suffragists organize a suffrage parade in Washington DC on the day before President Wilson's inauguration. Hostile members of the crowd swarm and insult the marching women.
The first suffrage parade in Utica was held on June 10 along Genesee Street. It was smaller than the 1914 parade, but had the participation of national leaders such as Harriet Mills, who was President of the NYS Woman’s suffrage association. Hundreds still watched according to news articles, and there was great deal of opposition. Anti-suffrage sentiments were open on Genesee street that day, but did not interfere with the event.
Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive (Bull Moose/Republican) Party becomes the first national political party to adopt a woman suffrage plank.
The New York State Women’s Suffrage Convention is held at Genesee Hall (headquarters of the New Century Club) in Utica, organized by the Political Equality club. This increased activism in the area and the political equality club grew in size and strength.
The Utica Political Equity Club is founded by Frances Roberts (Mrs. Henry Roberts), who is the club’s first president. Lucy Carlile Watson served as president the following year. Their goal was suffrage and political equality for women.
Colorado becomes the first state to adopt a state amendment enfranchising women.
Meanwhile, the New Century Club is founded in Utica, organized by Francis Goodale. Its state goal is to create a stronger voice for women in civic and community affairs. Club Motto adopted in 1896: “The union of women for accomplishing high and difficult things in the ladder that raises the climber while it makes the heights accessible.”
The NWSA and the AWSA are reunited as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) under the leadership of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Meanwhile, Wyoming is admitted to the union with a suffrage provision for white women that remains intact.
A women’s suffrage amendment is introduced into Congress. It fails in 1887. Interestingly, the wording is unchanged in 1919, when the amendment finally passes both houses.
Meanwhile, Matilda Joslyn Gage creates National Citizen and Ballot Box, and is the primary editor until 1881. This monthly journal includes regular columns about prominent women in history and female inventors.
“Declaration of Rights of Women of the United States" written by Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Josyln Gage, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton is presented at Independence square in Philadelphia.
Susan B. Anthony is arrested for attempting to vote in the presidential election. At the same time, Sojourner Truth demands a ballot and is turned away.
The 15th Amendment is ratified, guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. The full text reads as follows:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The women's rights movement splits into two factions as a result of disagreements over the Fourteenth and soon-to-be-passed Fifteenth Amendments. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Susan B. Anthony form the more radical, New York-based National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). The more conservative American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) is centered in Boston.
The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified, which extends to all citizens the protections of the Constitution against unjust state laws. This Amendment is the first to define "citizens" and "voters" as "male."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony form the American Equal Rights Association, an organization for white and black women and men dedicated to the goal of universal suffrage.
Equal Rights Convention held at Mechanics Hall, Utica with Susan B. Anthony & Elizabeth Cady Stanton among the speakers
Matilda Joslyn Gage gives her first public address at the third national women’s rights convention in Syracuse, and goes on to play a leading role in the movements for women's rights and abolition. Learn more about this amazing woman.
Former slave Sojourner Truth delivers her Ain't I a Woman?" speech before a spellbound audience at a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio.
The Seneca Falls convention (in Seneca Falls, New York on July 19-20, 1848) was the first women's rights convention in the United States).
Many sign the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, written by Elizabeth Cady Staton, and modeled after the US declaration of Independence. Suffrage is part of the Declaration of Sentiments.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal. . . . In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object."
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments, 1848
Voting Rights Act
Native Americans Enfranchised in all 50 States
Magnuson Act
Indian Citizenship Act
19th Amendment is adopted into U.S. Constitution
