Women’s Suffrage and the 19 th Amendment

1. Women’s Suffrage and the 19th Amendment

2. “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” –Laurel Thatcher-Ulrich • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYQhRCs9IHM&feature=share

3. Suffrage: the right to vote Suffragist: a person advocating or fighting for the right to vote 15th Amendment: passed in 1870 and gave all men the right to vote regardless of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude”

4. The battle for women’s suffrage began at the Seneca Falls Convention in New York in 1848. • Leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton pushed for women’s suffrage but their idea was seen as outlandish. • At this time, the thought of women’s rights challenged traditional viewpoints that women should be subordinate (inferior to) men.

5. Lide Meriwether founded Tennessee’s first women’s suffrage organization in Memphis in 1889. • The second was in Maryville in 1893 • The third was in Nashville in 1894 • By 1897, Tennessee had 10 women’s suffrage organizations • After 1900, activity for women’s suffrage stopped for several years as women focused on temperance, which was receiving widespread public support

6. In 1919, suffrage movements TESA (Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association) and TESA Inc. lobbied the general assembly of Tennessee for women’s right to vote in municipal (local) and presidential elections. • Despite previous rejections, both the House of Reps and the Senate of Tennessee passed the bill, granting Tennessee women partial suffrage. • Two months later, Congress (national) passed the 19th Amendment to grant women suffrage and by the Spring of 1920, 35 states had ratified it.

7. Three-fourths of the states had to ratify the amendment. There were 48 states at the time, so only one more was needed. • 1920 was an election year: if one more state ratified, women might be able to vote in the presidential election that fall! • People looked to Delaware to be the 36th, but it unexpectedly rejected the amendment. • Now everyone’s eyes were on Tennessee

8. There was still strong opposition in Tennessee and suffragists had to convince Governor Albert Roberts to call a special legislative meeting. • However, Governor Roberts was against women’s suffrage and feared sudden support of it would cost him his reelection. • Governor Roberts decided to call the legislative meeting. Thousands of suffragists and anti-suffragists flooded to Nashville in August 1920. Anne Dallas Dudley was one of the suffragists there.

9. Anne Dallas Dudley was a leader in TESA and the vice president of the National Americans Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). • Dudley led the women’s suffrage campaign in Nashville that August along with Catherine Kenny and Abby Milton.

10. Governor Roberts’ special session met on August 9, 1920. The Senate was pro-suffrage and ratified the amendment in only four days • The House delayed until August 18th and then voted to table (delay) the amendment. The vote to table ended in a tie, which meant they could not table. • Voting began. Harry Burn had previously listed as undecided, but was leaning toward voting nay. However, his widowed mother wrote him a note asking him to vote aye, so he did.

11. Harry’s vote was the vote that broke the tie. • The final tally was 50-49 in favor of the amendment, making Tennessee the 36th state to ratify the amendment, the “perfect 36.” • On August 26, 1920, women’s right to vote was ratified as the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.