Seneca Falls Historical Society

Dates: Tuesday, October 6th OR Thursday, October 8th 

Location: Your couch! See your e-mail for the Zoom link!

Link: sfhistoricalsociety.org

This week we’ll be traveling, virtually of course, to Seneca Falls, New York. Long considered to be the birthplace of the women’s rights movement in America, it’s a place of wonderful history. Our docent from the Seneca Falls Historical Society will be talking to us about the life of Grace Woodworth in Seneca Falls to give us a new perspective on the town and the people of the mid 1800s. 

For a deep dive on Grace Woodworth ahead of our talk, you can check out this 15 page article here:

Warning - some of the information will likely be repeated during the class - so only read if you are OK with the repetition! :-) 

For another look at Grace, check out this article here: 

Read on for a brief history of the fight for women's rights and the right to vote, even beyond Seneca Falls. Enjoy!

1776

When penning the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson declared that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed”. But the Constitutional Framers worried that giving too many men the right to select the government would upset the balance and rule of law. James Madison characterized the problem as one of “peculiar delicacy. Allow the right [to vote] exclusively to property [owners], and the rights of persons may be oppressed… Extend it equally to all, and the rights of property [owners]... may be overruled by a majority without property…”. Of course, this discussion centered around white men exclusively; in the 1770s, giving women or people of color the right to vote was an idea so foreign that it did not even encounter any consideration at the time. In order to evade this delicate topic, Constitutional framers left the issue of voting largely up to the states, though they gave Congress ultimate authority. For the first few decades of the United States, voting was largely restricted to white, male landowners over the age of 21. 

1848

Prominent suffragette activists and abolitionists met in Seneca Falls, New York, in what would become known as the Seneca Falls Convention to discuss access to voting. Prominent leaders like Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Staton, and Frederick Douglass met for the first time to discuss their disenfranchisement. Together, they penned the Declaration of Sentiments, the most famous line of which reads “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal”. Considered to be the start of the suffragette movement in the United States, only one woman from the convention, a 19 year old named Charlotte Woodward Pierce, lived long enough to see women gain the right to vote in 1920.

To read the Declaration of Sentiments, click here: 

1856

After North Carolina became the last state to remove property ownership as a voting requirement, all white men were granted the right to vote. 

1861-65

The Civil War rips across the United States. Women put their energies toward the war effort, bringing their suffrage movements largely to a halt. Many women formed groups devoted to caring for soldiers and supporting the war effort, channeling their leadership abilities and energies to their communities. But they did not forget their desire to vote and participate in the political process. 

1866

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed the American Equal Rights Association, devoted to advancing suffrage for all people, no matter their gender or race. 

1868

The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified, given black men the right of citizenship, but not of suffrage. This leads to a great debate among female suffragettes, as they were torn over supporting a proposed 15th amendment for the right of black men to vote, versus advancing suffrage for both black men and women. 

1869

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony found the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA). This ‘more radical’ institution advanced the idea that the vote for women would be achieved through a Constitutional amendment, as well as advance women’s rights as a whole.

Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, and Julia Ward Howe formed the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA), dedicated to the less direct approach of gaining female suffrage through amending individual state constitutions. 

1870

The Fifteenth Amendment is ratified, giving black men the right to vote. the NWSA (headed by Stanton and Anthony) avoided work on the Amendment and did not advocate for its ratification. Federick Douglass broke with the organization over their position. 

Though black men had the Constitutional right to vote, various states took steps to prevent them from exercising their rights. Throughout much of the Reconstruction South, Jim Crow laws made black men pass literacy tests, poll taxes, and white men perpetuated voter intimidation and violence against Black men at the polls. 

Founded in Tennessee in 1865, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) had extended chapters to almost every state in the U.S. by 1870. Their violence and intimidation kept many Black men from the polls.

1872

Susan B. Anthony and 15 other women were arrested in Rochester, New York for casting ballots in the presidential election. In Battle Creek, Michigan, suffragette and black activist Sojourner Truth is turned away from a polling place after she demands a ballot to vote. 

Over the next few years, women would intensify their protests for the right to vote, holding marches, rallies, and even going on hunger strikes to bring attention to their cause. 

1890

The NWSA and AWSA merge to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the first president. They focus on gaining suffrage at the state level. 

Wyoming is the first state to allow women to vote. They had enacted partial women’s suffrage in 1869 as a territory, but did not become a state until 1890. Many other western states, 18 in total, granted women the right to vote and serve on a jury as they were admitted to the Union. Many historians believe Western states were more likely to grant female suffrage in an attempt to attract more women to their territories. 

Mrs. Banks isn't wrong when she sings "our daughter's daughters will adore us... and they'll sing in grateful chorus... Well done!"

1920

The 19th Amendment is ratified and women are granted the Constitutional right to vote. 

The League of Women Voters is established 6 months before the Amendment is officially ratified. Founded by suffragists from the NAWSA to help women carry out their new responsibilities as voters.

Unfortunately, it would still be more decades for many women of color to gain the right to vote. Black women were still denied, along with Black men, access to the polls, especially across the South. Many Navtive American and Asian American women were denied citizenship by the federal government, rendering them ineligible to cast a vote.

1924

The Indian Citizenship Act is passed, giving Native Americans full citizenship, and the right to vote. However, many states enacted discriminatory policies to bar Native Americans from voting for decades, including poll taxes, ‘competency tests’, and banning people living on a reservation or enrolled in a tribe from voting.

1952

The McCarran-Walter Act passes, granting all Asian Americans the right to become citizens and exercise their right to vote. Although Asian immigrants had been coming to work in America for decades (think the Transcontinental Railroad), the federal government had been systematically denying them the right to citizenship. The Naturalization Act of 1790 only allowed ‘free white citizens of good character’ to become naturalized citizens. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 specifically excluded Chinese immigrants from becoming citizens and voting. 

1965

The Voting Rights Act passes, expanding voting rights by adding protections for voters and accommodations for voters with limited English. Though the 24th Amendment had outlawed poll taxes in 1964, the Voting Rights Act banned literacy tests and directed the Department of Justice to oversee voter registration efforts in counties where under half the Black population was registered. 

1971

The voting age is lowered from 21 to 18, under the 26th Amendment. This change was largely in response to the Vietnam War, as young men argued that if they were old enough to fight a war, they were old enough to vote. 

2000

Federal court rules that US citizens in US territories do not have the right to vote in federal elections. Though residents of places like Puerto Rico, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands pay federal taxes and serve in the military at disproportionately high rates compared to the rest of the US population, they do not have the right to vote in federal elections. Article II of the Constitution requires the president to be elected by state-chosen electors, rendering the territories unable to participate.

https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/right-to-vote/the-founders-and-the-vote/

https://www.businessinsider.com/when-women-got-the-right-to-vote-american-voting-rights-timeline-2018-10#1856-the-right-to-vote-was-extended-to-all-white-men-3

https://www.history.com/topics/reconstruction/ku-klux-klan

http://www.crusadeforthevote.org/woman-suffrage-timeline-18401920