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The first woman's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York. There, 68 women and 32 men sign a Declaration of Sentiments, which modeled on the Declaration of Independence, outlines grievances and sets the agenda for the women's rights movement. A set of 12 resolutions is adopted calling for equal treatment of women and men under the law and voting rights for women. -
At a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio, Sojourner Truth, a former slave, delivers her now memorable speech, “Ain't I a woman?” -
The Civil War begins in the United States and women’s rights advocacy grinds to a halt until the war ends in 1865. -
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside” and that right may not be “denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States.” -
The Supreme Court rules in Minor v. Happersett that the 14th Amendment does not guarantee women the right to vote. Citizenship does not give women voting rights, and women’s political rights are under individual states’ jurisdictions, the Court determines. -
California Senator A.A. Sargeant introduces the Woman Suffrage Amendment into Congress. It includes the language that would eventually become the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. -
The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) is organized. -
women’s suffrage and called participants to “march in a spirit of protest against the present political organization of society, from which women are excluded.” -
Jeannette Rankin of Montana is the first woman elected to the House of Representatives. Woodrow Wilson states that the Democratic Party platform will support suffrage.
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.In January, after much bad press about the treatment of Alice Paul and the other imprisoned women, and the country still at war in World War I, President Wilson announces that women's suffrage is urgently needed as a "war measure." World War I ends in November. -
The Woman Suffrage Amendment, originally written by Susan B. Anthony and introduced in Congress in 1878, is passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate. It is then sent to the states for ratification. Wisconsin and Illinois are the first states to ratify. -
With it's work completed, the National American Woman Suffrage Association disbands.