page_title: Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
section_title: Early woman suffrage efforts (1776-1865)
hierarchical_section_title: Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution / Background / Early woman suffrage efforts (1776-1865)
caption_attribution_description: Women's Rights Convention #WomensMarch #WomensMarch2018 #SenecaFalls #NY
context_page_description: The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex. Initially introduced to Congress in 1878, several attempts to pass a women's suffrage amendment failed until passing the House of Representatives on May 21, 1919, followed by the Senate on June 4, 1919. It was then submitted to the states for ratification. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee was the last of the necessary 36 ratifying states to secure adoption. The Nineteenth Amendment's adoption was certified on August 26, 1920: the culmination of a decades-long movement for women's suffrage at both state and national levels.
  Prior to 1776, women had the right to vote in several of the colonies in what would become the United States, but by 1807 every state constitution denied even limited suffrage. Organizations supporting women's rights became more active in the mid-nineteenth century and, in 1848, the Seneca Falls convention adopted the Declaration of Sentiments, which called for equality between the sexes and included a resolution urging women to secure the vote.
context_section_description: The United States Constitution, adopted in 1789, left the boundaries of suffrage undefined. The only directly elected body created under the original Constitution was the U.S. House of Representatives, for which voter qualifications were explicitly delegated to the individual states. While women had the right to vote in several of the pre-revolutionary colonies in what would become the United States, after 1776, with the exception of New Jersey, all states adopted constitutions that denied voting rights to women. New Jersey's constitution initially granted suffrage to property-holding residents, including single and married women, but the state rescinded women's voting rights in 1807 and did not restore them until New Jersey ratified the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920.
  While scattered movements and organizations dedicated to women's rights existed previously, the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention in New York is traditionally held as the start of the American women's rights movement. Attended by nearly 300 women and men, the convention was designed to "discuss the social, civil, and religious rights of women", and culminated in the adoption of the Declaration of Sentiments. Signed by 68 women and 32 men, the ninth of the document's twelve resolved clauses reads, "Resolved, That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise." Conveners Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton became key early leaders in the U.S. women's suffrage movement, often referred to at the time as the "woman suffrage movement". Mott's support of women's suffrage stemmed from as summer spent with the Seneca Nation, one of the six tribes in the Iroquois Confederacy, where women had significant political power, including the right to choose and remove chiefs and veto acts of war.
  Activism addressing federal women's suffrage was minimal during the Civil War. In 1865, at the conclusion of the war, a "Petition for Universal Suffrage", signed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, among others, called for a national constitutional amendment to "prohibit the several states from disenfranchising any of their citizens on the ground of sex". The campaign was the first national petition drive to feature woman suffrage among its demands. While suffrage bills were introduced into many state legislatures during this period, they were generally disregarded and few came to a vote.
caption: Text of the small ad that attracted a diverse meeting of women and men at the first Women's Rights Convention, held in Seneca Falls, New York, during July 1848
exif: {"Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "SLT-A65V", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 7.1 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2018:01:20 22:23:31", "Image ExifOffset": "222", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[42, 136583/2500, 0]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[76, 30006/625, 0]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "708/5", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[15, 17, 53]", "GPS GPSStatus": "A", "GPS GPSMeasureMode": "3", "GPS GPSDOP": "17873/10000", "GPS GPSSpeedRef": "K", "GPS GPSSpeed": "2/5", "GPS GPSTrackRef": "T", "GPS GPSTrack": "6773/50", "GPS GPSMapDatum": "WGS-84", "GPS GPSDate": "2018:01:20", "GPS GPSDifferential": "0", "Image GPSInfo": "810", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1250", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10421", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2018:01:20 11:17:52", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2018:01:20 11:17:52", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1040241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "361471/100000", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "9757/1280", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "463/128", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Daylight", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "18", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "83662979/32768", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "83662979/32768", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "27", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[18, 250, 7/2, 63/10]", "EXIF LensModel": "DT 18-250mm F3.5-6.3"}