Congress Grants Vote: Women Win Suffrage
The U.S. Senate approved the 19th Amendment on June 4, 1919, by a vote of 56 to 25, and the House had passed it on May 21 by 304 to 89. The amendment, declaring that "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," then went to the states for ratification. The campaign had lasted 72 years, from the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention through decades of marches, hunger strikes, and imprisonment. Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify on August 18, 1920, by a single vote cast by 24-year-old legislator Harry Burn, whose mother had written to him: "Be a good boy and vote for ratification." Approximately 8 million women voted in the November 1920 presidential election.
June 4, 1919
107 years ago
Key Figures & Places
Congress of the United States
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suffrage
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Women's rights
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women
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19th Amendment to the United States Constitution
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Women's rights
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United States Congress
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Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
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Women's suffrage in the United States
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U.S. state
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Louisiana
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Louisiana Territory
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Missouri Territory
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Women's suffrage
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History of the United States
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