Rightfully Hers Part 1

 

Record of the Month!

For the months of August through November we are featuring the first two of four pop-up exhibit panels from the National Archives exhibit Rightfully Hers: American Women and the Vote. The exhibit Rightfully Hers walks through the ratification of the 19th Amendment, how women fought and won their right to vote and the legacy of the Women’s Movement. In addition to creating and distributing the exhibit panels displayed here, the National Archives created a digital exhibit with more resources and teaching tools available through the following link: (https://museum.archives.gov/rightfully-hers).

When the Constitution became the framework of American’s government on June 21, 1788, it left voting eligibility requirements up to each state. As a result of state determined suffrage, there were wide inconsistencies on who could vote and what they could vote on. A total of 15 states had granted some form of suffrage for women by the beginning of 1920. However, millions of American women were legally barred from exercising one of the most fundamental rights to any republic on the basis of their gender.

Women’s fight for equal rights and suffrage had been raging for nearly three quarters of a century prior to the ratification of the 19th Amendment on August 18, 1920. The Women’s Movement began in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. The meeting held in Seneca Fall produced the Declaration of Sentiments, which outlined grievances and called for equal treatment of women and men under the law and for women’s suffrage. The document was signed by 68 women and 32 men.

From 1849 through 1860 the issue of women’s rights became intertwined with the Abolitionist Movement and Prohibition and spread across the country. During this period the first National Women’s Rights Convention was held in Massachusetts, with more than 1,000 participants, including Fredrick Douglas, Paulina Wright Davis, Abby Kelley Foster, William Lloyd Garrison, and Lucy Stone. Sojourner Truth, a former slave who also attended the first National Women’s Rights Convention, would go on to deliver her Ain’t I a Woman speech at another women’s rights convention held in Akron, Ohio.

Although the Women’s Movement had been growing steadily, with the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 all progress halted. It would not be until 1866 that the fight for universal suffrage among women and men of every racial and ethnic background would pick up again.   

Check back in September for the next chapter of the story of the fight for equal suffrage. If this information interests you, please feel free to call us at 740-670-5121 or email us at archives@lcounty.com.

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