Essay On The 19th Amendment

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex"--Nineteenth Amendment, U.S. Constitution. Until the 1910s, most states did not give women the right to vote. The amendment was the culmination of the women 's suffrage movement in the United States, which fought at both state and national levels to achieve the vote. On August 18, 1920, it appeared that Tennessee had ratified the amendment, the result of a change of vote by 24 year-old legislator Harry Burn at the insistence of his elderly mother, but those against the amendment managed to delay official ratification (www.archives.gov). Tennessee played a key role in the passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote in 1920. By that summer, 35 of the 36 states necessary had ratified the amendment (www.sos.tn.gov). Eight states had rejected the amendment, and five had not voted. Suffragists saw Tennessee as their last, best hope for ratification before the 1920 presidential election (www.sos.tn.gov). Governor Albert H. Roberts called a special session of the General Assembly on August 9 to consider the issue

Ann Dallas Dudley of Nashville, Abby Crawford Milton of Chattanooga, and Sue Shelton White of Jackson were prominent among those who fought to gain popular and legislative support for women’s suffrage, and among the national suffrage leaders in Nashville that summer was Carrie Chapman Catt, president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (www.sos.tn.gov). The demand for the vote was the most controversial of the twelve resolutions adopted at the first women 's rights convention in the United States and the only one that did not win unanimous approval. Suffrage seemed like such an outlandish idea at the time that it made feminists easy targets for ridicule