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Thursday 11 July 2019

Women's suffrage

Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections and to be elected to an office.

Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst, prominent members of the UK's WSPU

The Women's Rights Convention, the first women's rights and feminist convention was held over two days in July in Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848.

On December 10, 1869, the governor of the Wyoming Territory signed legislation giving women the right to vote in addition to the ability to hold office and be on juries. When Wyoming became a state in 1890, Congress asked they revoke women's right to vote but they refused.

Susan B. Anthony, the American women's rights leader who was raised by her strict Quaker father, founded the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869, along with Elizabeth Stanton. Anthony's Quaker background, where unlike most other denominations at a Quaker service both men and women are allowed to speak, was influential on her beliefs.

Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton

Anthony was arrested by a U.S. Deputy Marshal in November 1872 for voting illegally in the Presidential Election. She remarked in court regarding her campaign for Women's Suffrage, "…and I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old Revolutionary maxim, 'Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.'"

In 1891 women throughout Victoria, Australia, went door to door, gathering signatures for a women’s suffrage petition, which became known as the ‘Monster Petition'. The petition was approximately 260 metres long and contained nearly 30,000 signatures, including that of Jane Munro, the Premier’s wife.

In 1893 the women of New Zealand were given the vote making the their country the first in the world to grant women's suffrage.

When South Australia agreed to give women the vote in 1895, the bill was amended by the opposition to also give women the right to run for parliament. They thought this was too preposterous to pass, but it did and it was the first place in the world to do so.

Carrie Chapman Catt served as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association from 1900-1904 and 1915-1920. She had a special clause in her 1890 wedding prenuptials, which guaranteed her four months of free time every year, so she could campaign to get women the vote in the US.

The first European country to introduce women's suffrage was the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1906.  The Eduskunta (the Finnish Parliament), had no fewer than 19 women MPs elected in 1907, out of a total of 200.

13 of 19 Finnish female members of parliament in 1907. By Ministry for Foreign Affairs for Finland

British political activist Emmeline Pankhurst founded in 1903 an all-female activist organization called the Women's Social and Political Union that called for women's voting rights. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, the activists were frequently arrested on counts of property damage due to their protests. Pankhurst was widely criticised for her militant tactics, but her work is recognised as a crucial element in achieving women's suffrage in the United Kingdom.

On February 6, 1918, the Representation of the People Act was given royal assent, giving votes to women in the UK. Actually it gave votes only to women over 30, who were householders, the wives of householders, occupiers of property with an annual rent of £5 and graduates of British universities. It took another 10 years before women over 21 could vote, giving them parity with men.

The U.S. Congress approved the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guaranteed suffrage to women in 1919, and sent it to the U.S. states for ratification. The amendment could not become law without the ratification of a minimum thirty-six of the forty-eight states. By the summer of 1920, thirty-five of the forty-eight states had ratified the amendment, with a further four states called upon to hold legislative voting sessions on the issue. Three of the states refused to call special sessions, but Tennessee agreed to do so.

The Tennessee senator, Harry Burn opposed the amendment until his mother mailed him a letter  telling him to "be a good boy" and vote for ratification. He broke the deadlock the next day and the 19th was ratified.



The first woman to cast a ballot in Chicago after women's suffrage was passed did so using her feet—her father had burnt her arms off.

The last country in Europe to give votes to women was Liechtenstein in 1984.

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