The 19th Amendment: Why 100 Years Matter

Suffrage envoys from San Francisco on their way to petition Congress in 1915 are greeted by New Jersey suffragists. Photo in the National Woman's Party Records (I:159), Library of Congress (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Suffrage_envoys_from_San_Francisco_159032v.jpg)

The first glimpse of women’s suffrage comes from early America, long before suffrage was elevated to a national platform. When the New Jersey state legislature passed the state constitution in 1776, it allowed women the right to vote, so long as they held property of a certain size and value. Importantly, this right was also given to African Americans who met the same property requirements. This feels really progressive – and it was. However, it ultimately did not enfranchise many, as only unmarried women were able to hold property. In the grand scheme of women’s suffrage though, this is a big deal, especially since the constitution was amended to only include white men in 1807. (Source)

Fast forward a few decades to 1848, which many historians pinpoint as the traditional start of the women’s rights movement. In Seneca Falls, a small town in upstate New York, a group of approximately three hundred men and women met and drafted a list of rights that women should be granted, which included the right to vote. After Seneca Falls, the movement produced more regular conventions, held once a year until the American Civil War disrupted this pattern. These meetings, which were more publicized and reached more women than the Seneca Falls meeting, allowed the movement to gain national traction. (Source)

100 years ago, on August 26, 2020, three-fourths of states ratified the nineteenth amendment into law. While this is cause for celebration, it is critical to understand that the nineteenth amendment did not guarantee every woman the right to vote. Even with the passage of the fifteenth amendment 50 years earlier, it was still common for states to enact hurdles at the polls that disproportionately affected voters of color. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses were common tactics that white officials employed to ensure that minority voters were blocked from exercising the right that they should have been guaranteed by law. 

For this reason, it was not until the passage of additional legislation, such as the Snyder Act of 1924, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (with a subsequent extension in 1975), that Black, Native American, Latina, and Asian women were protected at the polls. (Source)