Glossary on the Republic

Nineteenth Amendment

Voting

It gave women the vote, and it took seventy-two years to win. It started with a declaration that all men and women are created equal.

The Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920, barred denying the right to vote on account of sex. In a single sentence, it doubled the American electorate and ended the legal exclusion of women from the ballot nationwide.

Its starting gun was 1848. At Seneca Falls, New York, a women's rights convention adopted a Declaration of Sentiments, modeled on the Declaration of Independence and proclaiming that all men and women are created equal. The demand for the vote was its most controversial plank, passing only after Frederick Douglass spoke in its favor.

The road from there was brutally long. Suffragists organized, marched, lobbied, and were jailed and force-fed for decades. Many who signed on at the start, including the movement's early leaders, died before the right was won.

Victory came after 72 years. In 1920 the amendment was ratified, and that November more than 8 million American women voted. Even then, the promise was incomplete, as many Black women, and Native Americans of either sex, faced continued barriers for decades more.

Origin

Ratified 1920; barred denying the vote on account of sex; the campaign began at Seneca Falls in 1848.

Why it matters

The Nineteenth Amendment is a lesson in the patience and ferocity that real change demands. Three generations of women worked for a right most of them did not live to use, handing the fight forward until it was won. They were told it was impractical and improper. They organized for seventy-two years and proved it was neither.