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Abigail Adams questions her husband on equality...
Abigail Adams writes to her husband, John, who is attending the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, asking that he and the other men--who were at work on the Declaration of Independence--"Remember the Ladies." John responds with humor. The Declaration's wording specifies that "all men are created equal." -
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The Cult of Domesticity
A variety of printed materials published during this time period--advice manuals, poetry and literature, sermons, medical texts--show that Americans, had very sterotypical views about women's and men's roles in society. Historians refer to this as "The Cult of Domesticity." -
Emma Hart Willard founds the first all girls school in New York
Emma Hart Willard founds the Troy Female Seminary in New York--the first endowed school for girls. -
Oberlin College opens its doors to female students!
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Sarah Grimke speaks up and is told to be quiet!
Sarah Grimske starts to speak publically about women's rights but then is later silenced by her male counterparts because she was viewed as a liability. -
Mary Lyon
Mary Lyon founds Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, eventually the first four-year college exclusively for women in the United States. -
First Women's Rights Convention
The first women's rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, NY. Participants sign a "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions" that outlines the main issues and goals for the emerging women's movement. Thereafter, women's rights meetings are held on a regular basis. -
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Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman leads many slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad. -
Elizibeth Cady Staton and Susan B. Anthony Found A.E.R.A.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony form the American Equal Rights Association, an organization for white and black women and men dedicated to the goal of universal suffrage. -
14th Amendment Changed for men only, not women...
The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified, which extends to all citizens the protections of the Constitution against unjust state laws. This Amendment was the first to define "citizens" and "voters" as "male." -
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Women head to court to secure the vote& right to practice law.
Several women--including Virginia Louisa Minor, Victoria Woodhull, and Myra Bradwell--attempt to use the Fourteenth Amendment in the courts to secure the vote (Minor and Woodhull) or the right to practice law (Bradwell). They all are unsuccessful. -
Susan B. Anthony is arrested
Susan B. Anthony is arrested and brought to trial in Rochester, New York, for attempting to vote for Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential election. At the same time, Sojourner Truth appears at a polling booth in Battle Creek, Michigan, demanding a ballot; she is turned away. -
Hull House Created
Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr found Hull House, a settlement house project in Chicago's 19th Ward. Within one year, there are more than a hundred settlement houses--largely operated by women--throughout the United States. The settlement house movement and the Progressive campaign of which it was a part propelled thousands of college-educated white women and a number of women of color into lifetime careers in social work. It also made women an important voice to be reckoned with in American p -
The Women's Bible is Published
Elizabeth Cady Stanton publishes The Woman's Bible. After its publication, NAWSA moves to distance itself from this venerable suffrage pioneer because many conservative suffragists considered her to be too radical and, thus, potentially damaging to the suffrage campaign. From this time, Stanton--who had resigned as NAWSA president in 1892--was no longer invited to sit on the stage at NAWSA conventions. -
National Association of Colored Women forms.
Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Margaret Murray Washington, Fanny Jackson Coppin, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Charlotte Forten Grimké, and former slave Harriet Tubman meet in Washington, D.C. to form the National Association of Colored Women (NACW). -
National Association Opposed to Woman Sufferage is organized. BOO!!!
The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) is organized. Led by Mrs. Arthur Dodge, its members included wealthy, influential women and some Catholic clergymen--including Cardinal Gibbons who, in 1916, sent an address to NAOWS's convention in Washington, D.C. In addition to the distillers and brewers, who worked largely behind the scenes, the "antis" also drew support from urban political machines, Southern congressmen, and corporate capitalists--like railroad magnates. BOOO!!! -
Roosevelt and his party support women's sufferage.
Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive (Bull Moose/Republican) Party becomes the first national political party to adopt a woman suffrage plank. -
The women really rally!
Alice Paul and Lucy Burns organize the Congressional Union, later known as the National Women's Party (1916). Borrowing the tactics of the radical, militant Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in England, members of the Woman's Party participate in hunger strikes, picket the White House, and engage in other forms of civil disobedience to publicize the suffrage cause. -
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World War II
World War II takes place but still has little impact on the movement. -
VICTORY AT LAST!!!
League of women voters websiteThe Nineteenth Amendment is ratified. Its victory accomplished, NAWSA ceases to exist, but its organization becomes the nucleus of the League of Women Voters. Check out the League of Women Voters website here, get involved.
