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Women’s Suffrage
Beginning in the mid-19th century, several generations of woman suffrage supporters lectured, wrote, marched, lobbied, and practiced civil disobedience to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change in the Constitution – guaranteeing women the right to vote. -
National Woman Suffrage Association
In May 15 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
On October 16, 1916, Sanger — together with her sister Ethel Byrne and activist Fania Mindell — opened the country's first birth control clinic in Brownsville, Brooklyn. -
Jeanette Rankin elected to Congress
She was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican from Montana in 1916 for one term, then was elected again in 1940. Rankin remains the only woman ever elected to Congress from Montana. Missoula County, Montana, U.S. -
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. -
The Alaska Equal Rights Act signed into law
The bill was approved on Feb. 16, 1945 by the Alaskan Territorial Legislature. This legislation was initially proposed by the Alaska Native Brotherhood and Alaska Native Sisterhood, organizations composed primarily of Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people from Southeast Alaska. -
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. -
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Women’s Liberation Movement
The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism that emerged in the late 1960s and continued into the 1980s primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which effected great change (political, intellectual, cultural) throughout the world. -
FDA Approves first birth control pill
The Food and Drug Administration approved the first oral contraceptive in 1960. Within 2 years of its initial distribution, 1.2 million American women were using the birth control pill, or the "pill," as it is popularly known. -
The Feminine Mystique was written
The Feminine Mystique is a book by Betty Friedan, widely credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the United States. First published by W. W. Norton on February 19, 1963, The Feminine Mystique became a bestseller, initially selling over a million copies. -
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. -
Civil Rights Act signed into law
Despite Kennedy's assassination in November of 1963, his proposal culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law just a few hours after it was passed by Congress on July 2, 1964. The act outlawed segregation in businesses such as theaters, restaurants, and hotels. -
Title IX was passed into law
Every student deserves educational opportunity free from discrimination. That is why today the U.S. Department of Education (Department) released its Final Rule under Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance. -
Roe v. Wade Court Case
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protected a right to have an abortion. -
“Battle of the Sexes” tennis match
The term is most famously used for an internationally televised match in 1973 held at the Houston Astrodome between 55-year-old Bobby Riggs and 29-year-old Billie Jean King, which King won in three sets. The match was viewed by an estimated fifty million people in the United States and ninety million worldwide. -
Sandra Day O’Connor sworn in to US Supreme Court
When Justice Potter Stewart retired in 1981, President Reagan fulfilled that promise by nominating O'Connor, noting that she was a “person for all seasons.” The Senate unanimously confirmed her appointment on September 21, 1981, and four days later, she took her seat on the Bench.