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First Women’s Rights Convention Held
About 300 activists gather in Seneca Falls, N.Y., to strategize on how to achieve womens suffrage nationwide. Participants, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, sign the Declaration of Sen-timents and Resolutions, modeled on the Declaration of Independence, which calls for equal treatment of women and men law and voting rights for women. -
National Labor Union Backs Equal Pay for Equal Work
The National Labor Union, one of the nation’s first organized labor advocacy groups, pushes for equal pay for equal work, the concept that a woman must be paid the same as a man for doing the job. -
Racial Equality Issue Splits Two Suffrage Associations
Disagreements over the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments and the relationship between women’s suffrage and the movement for racial equality divide the women’s rights movement between two organizations. -
Territory of Wyoming Gives Women the Right to Vote
The Territory of Wyoming passes the first law in the nation giving women over age 21 the right to vote. -
First Woman Nominated for President
Nominated by the Equal Rights Party, Victoria Chaflin Woodhull is the first woman to run for president of the United States. -
Susan B. Anthony Arrested for Attempting to Vote
Susan B. Anthony casts her first vote to test whether the 14th Amendment would be interpreted broadly to guarantee women the right to vote. -
Congress Requires Federal Equal Pay for Equal Work
A federal law that grants female federal employees equal pay for equal work is enacted. This right was not extended to the majority of female employees who work for private companies or state and local governments until the adoption of the Equal Pay Act in 1963. -
Supreme Court Denies Voting Right to Women
The Supreme Court decides in Minor v. Happersett that a Missouri law limiting the right to vote to male citizens is constitutional. The Court rejects the claim by Virginia Minor that the state law deprives her of one of the “privileges or immunities” of citizenship in violation of the 14th Amend- ment. While women are “persons” under the 14th Amendment, the Court says, they are a special category of “nonvoting” citizens. -
The 19th Amendment Is Ratified
Seventy-two years after the Seneca Falls Convention, the 19th Amendment, which gives women the right to vote, is ratified. it states: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be de- nied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” -
League of Women Voters Created
After ratification of the 19th Amendment, the League of Women Voters is founded to educate women about their right to vote and encourage them to exercise it. -
First Equal Rights Amendment Introduced
Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party succeed in having a constitutional amend- ment introduced in Congress that says: “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.” -
Eleanor Roosevelt Leads Commission on the Status of Women
President John F. Kennedy establishes the Pres- ident’s Commission on the Status of Women and appoints Eleanor Roosevelt as chairwom- an. -
Civil Rights Protections Extended to Women
President Lyndon B. Johnson issues Executive Order 11375, which expands affirmative action policies of 1965 to cover discrimination based on sex. -
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Signed Into Law
The federal law expands workers’ right to sue for pay discrimination and relaxes the statute of limitations on such suits.
