Yay Women!

The 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified August 18, 1920. Women in the United States have officially celebrated the right to vote for only 90 years!  It doesn't seem like that long since our country is 234 years old. (Their were a few exceptions - like women in New Jersey could vote but only if they were unmarried or widowed. Married women owned no property in their own right - everything belonged to the husband. But that was later retracted in 1807 and limited to only white men). The Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 set forth an ideal of what women were talking about and fighting for in the Declaration of Sentiments. There is tons and tons of info and I could end up writing an essay here but you can check out the Women's Suffrage wiki article here.

I thought I would post a few photos from around the world of the Women's Suffrage movement, the right of women to vote and run for office. Women's suffrage was granted at different times throughout various countries. The United Nations granted universal suffrage in 1979, which allows all women in all countries to celebrate this freedom.  A timeline of the recognition of women's rights is here.

Whenever you have a chance to vote, take the opportunity. These women took it very seriously AND suffered a lot of opposition. Many were arrested and jailed in the U.S. as the popularity of the movement increased. President Woodrow Wilson was opposed to the ratification but Congress told him to bite it and passed what became the ratified 19th amendment.

Even Mark Twain seemed to become softened over time by the idea of women being elected to office...

Women, go your ways! Seek not to beguile us of our imperial privileges. Content yourself with your little feminine trifles -- your babies, your benevolent societies and your knitting--and let your natural bosses do the voting. Stand back -- you will be wanting to go to war next. We will let you teach school as much as you want to, and we will pay you half wages for it, too, but beware! we don't want you to crowd us too much.

- Letter to St. Louis Missouri Democrat, March 1867

I know that since the women started out on their crusade they have scored in every project they undertook against unjust laws. I would like to see them help make the laws and those who are to enforce them. I would like to see the whiplash in women's hands.

- quoted in The New York Times, January 21, 1901

Before mothers can be rightly held responsible for the vices and crimes, for the general demoralization of society, they must possess all possible rights and powers to control the conditions and circumstances of their own and their children's lives. -Susan B. Anthony (1901)

Woman should have justice as well as praise, and if she is to dispense with either, she can better afford to part with the latter than the former. - Frederick Douglass