At the 75th anniversary of the Seneca Falls convention, Alice Paul proposes an Equal Rights Amendment to remedy inequalities not addressed in the 19th Amendment. Late 1920s Many states continue to bar women from jury duty and public office.
Widows succeed their husbands as governors of Texas and Wyoming.
Middle-class women attend college and enter labor force. Frances Perkins is appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as first female Secretary of Labor. In the New Deal years, at urging of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Democratic women's leader Molly Dewson, many women gain positions in federal social service bureaus, including Mary McLeod Bethune, director of the Negro Affairs Division of the National Youth Administration. 1936 Federal court rules birth control legal for its own sake, rather than solely for prevention of disease. Millions of women are recruited for defense industry jobs in war years and become significant parts of labor force.