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National Women’s Suffrage Movement formed
In 1869, Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association. Later that year, Lucy Stone, Julia Ward Howe, and others formed the American Woman Suffrage Association. However, not until the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1919 did women throughout the nation gain the right to vote. -
Margaret Sanger opens first birth control clinic in the United States
Sanger — together with her sister Ethel Byrne and activist Fania Mindell — opened the country's first birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn. -
19th Amendment of the United States
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. -
Jeanette Rankin elected to Congress
she was the sole member of Congress to vote against the declaration of war on Japan following the attack on Pearl Harbor. A suffragist during the Progressive Era, Rankin organized and lobbied for legislation enfranchising women in several states, including Montana, New York, and North Dakota. -
The Alaska Equal Rights Act signed into law
The Daily Alaska Empire printed that her testimony "shamed the opposition into a 'defensive whisper. '" The bill was signed by Governor Gruening into law on February 16, 1945. -
Civil Rights Movement launched
When did the American civil rights movement start? The American civil rights movement started in the mid-1950s. A major catalyst in the push for civil rights was in December 1955, when NAACP activist Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man. -
FDA Approves first birth control pill
Eventually, the FDA avoided the question of long-term safety by approving contraceptive usage of Enovid for no more than two years at a time, and on May 11, 1960, the FDA officially announced its approval of the contraceptive pill. -
Equal Pay Act was signed into law
Signed into law by President John F. Kennedy on June 10, 1963, this historic legislation recognized that women's work—and their fair and equal treatment in the workplace—is vital to our country's economic prosperity. -
Title IX was passed into law
In June 1972, President Nixon signed Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 into law. Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that has removed many barriers that once prevented people, on the basis of sex, from participating in educational opportunities and careers of their choice. -
Sandra Day O’Connor sworn in to US Supreme Court
O'Connor is sworn in by Chief Justice Warren Burger as her husband John O'Connor looks on. Reagan formally nominated O'Connor on August 19, 1981. Conservative activists such as the Reverend Jerry Falwell, Howard Phillips, and Peter Gemma also spoke out against the nomination.