Women's Civil Rights Timeline

By NateErkman
  • Congress passes the Morrill Act

    Congress passes the Morrill Act

    This act will start establishing land grant colleges in rural areas. Millions of women will earn low-cost degrees at these schools. In North Carolina, this act results in the founding of North Carolina State University.
  • The Constitutional Convention of 1868

    The Constitutional Convention of 1868

    Grants women the right to own property and businesses, to work for their own wages, to sue in courts, to make wills, and to make contracts without their husbands' consent. The National Labor Union supports equal pay for equal work.
  • Declaration of the Rights of Women

    Declaration of the Rights of Women

    Matilda Joslyn Gage writes a Declaration of the Rights of Women, distributed on July 4 to crowds attending the massive Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Many women's networks grow out of the action.
  • First Women to Graduate from UNC

    First Women to Graduate from UNC

    Sallie Walker Stockard becomes the first woman to graduate from the University of North Carolina. Women have been allowed to attend the summer teachers’ institute in Chapel Hill since 1879, but Stockard is the first female student to earn a degree from the university.
  • Passage of the Women's Suffrage Amendment

    Passage of the Women's Suffrage Amendment

    The U.S. House of Representatives passes the Women’s Suffrage Amendment, 304 to 89; the Senate passes it with just two votes to spare, 56 to 25. Gives Women the right to vote, and was ratified on August 18, 1920.
  • Creation of WAAC

    Creation of WAAC

    President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs a bill that creates the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). Women who join the corps perform a variety of noncombat tasks formerly done by male soldiers, such as driving military vehicles; rigging parachutes; and serving as translators, cooks, weather forecasters, and aircraft control tower operators.
  • Founding National Organization for Women.

    Founding National Organization for Women.

    Pauli Murray helps found the National Organization for Women.
  • 100,000 people march in support of the Equal Rights Amendment in Washington, D.C.

    100,000 people march in support of the Equal Rights Amendment in Washington, D.C.

    Some 100,000 people march in support of the Equal Rights Amendment in Washington, D.C. For the first time in history, more women than men enter college.