The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the United States and its states from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex, in effect recognizing the right of women to a vote. The amendment was the culmination of a decades-long movement for women's suffrage in the United States, at both the state and national levels, and was part of the worldwide movement towards women's suffrage and part of the wider women's rights movement. The first women's suffrage amendment was introduced in Congress in 1878. However, a suffrage amendment did not pass the House of Representatives until May 21, 1919, which was quickly followed by the Senate, on June 4, 1919. It was then submitted to the states for ratification, achieving the requisite 36 ratifications to secure adoption, and thereby go into effect, on August 18, 1920. The Nineteenth Amendment's adoption was certified on August 26, 1920.
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums. In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to vote is called active suffrage, as distinct from passive suffrage, which is the right to stand for election. The combination of active and passive suffrage is sometimes called full suffrage.
Johanna Mary Sheehy Skeffington was a suffragette and Irish nationalist. Along with her husband Francis Sheehy Skeffington, Margaret Cousins and James Cousins, she founded the Irish Women's Franchise League in 1908 with the aim of obtaining women's voting rights. She was later a founding member of the Irish Women Workers' Union. Her son Owen Sheehy-Skeffington became a politician and Irish senator.
Charlotte Despard was an Anglo-Irish suffragist, socialist, pacifist, Sinn Féin activist, and novelist. She was a founding member of the Women's Freedom League, Women's Peace Crusade, and the Irish Women's Franchise League, and an activist in a wide range of political organizations over the course of her life, including among others the Women's Social and Political Union, Humanitarian League, Labour Party, Cumann na mBan, and the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Kathleen Florence Lynn was an Irish Sinn Féin politician, activist and medical doctor.
Anne Dallas Dudley was an American activist in the women's suffrage movement. She was a national and state leader in the fight for women's suffrage who worked to secure the ratification of the 19th Amendment in Tennessee. After founding the Nashville Equal Suffrage League and serving as its president, she moved up through the ranks of the movement, serving as President of the Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association and then as Third Vice President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, where she helped lead efforts to get the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution ratified, giving women the right to vote nationwide. She is especially noted for her successful efforts to get the Nineteenth Amendment ratified in her home state of Tennessee, the final state necessary to bring the amendment into force.
Feminism in Ireland has played a major role in shaping the legal and social position of women in present-day Ireland. The role of women has been influenced by numerous legal changes in the second part of the 20th century, especially in the 1970s.
Jane Wyse Power was an Irish activist, feminist, politician and businesswoman. She was a founder member of Sinn Féin and also of Inghinidhe na hÉireann. She rose in the ranks to become one of the most important women of the revolution. As President of Cumann na mBan, she left the radicalised party and formed a new organisation called Cumann na Saoirse, holding several senior posts in the Dáil during the Free State.
Women's suffrage in Canada occurred at different times in different jurisdictions to different demographics of women. Women's right to vote began in the three prairie provinces. In 1916, suffrage was earned by women in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The federal government granted limited war-time suffrage to some women in 1917 and followed with full suffrage in 1918, at least, granting it on same basis as men, that is, certain races and status were excluded from voting in federal elections prior to 1960.
Anna Maria Haslam was a suffragist and a major figure in the 19th and early 20th century women's movement in Ireland.
The Irish Women's Franchise League was an organisation for women's suffrage which was set up in Dublin in November 1908. Its founder members included Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Margaret Cousins, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and James H. Cousins. Thomas MacDonagh was a member.
This timeline highlights milestones in women's suffrage in the United States, particularly the right of women to vote in elections at federal and state levels.
Isabella Maria Susan Tod was a Scottish-born campaigner for women’s civil and political equality, active in the north of Ireland. She lobbied for women’s rights to education and to property, for the dignified treatment of sex workers and, as an Irish unionist, for female suffrage. In 1887, her North of Ireland Suffrage Society helped secure the municipal vote for women in Belfast.
Lady Margaret Dockrell was an Irish suffragist, philanthropist, and councillor.
Edith Young , was an Irish suffragist organiser and activist.
This is a timeline of women's suffrage in Texas. Women's suffrage was brought up in Texas at the first state constitutional convention, which began in 1868. However, there was a lack of support for the proposal at the time to enfranchise women. Women continued to fight for the right to vote in the state. In 1918, women gained the right to vote in Texas primary elections. The Texas legislature ratified the 19th amendment on June 28, 1919, becoming the ninth state and the first Southern state to ratify the amendment. While white women had secured the vote, Black women still struggled to vote in Texas. In 1944, white primaries were declared unconstitutional. Poll taxes were outlawed in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, fully enfranchising Black women voters.
This is a timeline of women's suffrage in Florida. Ella C. Chamberlain began women's suffrage efforts in Florida starting in 1892. However, after Chamberlain leaves the state in 1897, suffrage work largely ceases until the next century. More women's suffrage groups are organized, with the first in the twentieth century being the Equal Franchise League in Jacksonville, Florida in 1912. Additional groups are created around Florida, including a Men's Equal Suffrage League of Florida. Suffragists lobby the Florida Legislature for equal suffrage, hold conventions, and educate voters. Several cities in Florida pass laws allowing women to vote in municipal elections, with Fellsmere being the first in 1915. Zena Dreier becomes the first woman to legally cast a vote in the South on June 19, 1915. On May 26, 1919, women in Orlando vote for the first time. After the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, Helen Hunt West becomes the first woman in Florida to register to vote under equal franchise rules on September 7, 1920. Florida does not ratify the Nineteenth Amendment until May 13, 1969.
The movement for women's suffrage in Arizona began in the late 1800s. After women's suffrage was narrowly voted down at the 1891 Arizona Constitutional Convention, prominent suffragettes such as Josephine Brawley Hughes and Laura M. Johns formed the Arizona Suffrage Association and began touring the state campaigning for women's right to vote. Momentum built throughout the decade, and after a strenuous campaign in 1903, a woman's suffrage bill passed both houses of the legislature but was ultimately vetoed by Governor Alexander Oswald Brodie.