WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE AND ABOLITION MOVEMENT

TIMELINE

1910-1919

1894-1910
Harriet Upton Taylor of Warren, Ohio serves as treasurer of the National Women Suffrage Association; headquarters of Association move to small town of Warren.

1910
Woman's suffrage gains in popularity as a new generation of women begin to embrace the cause.

1909-1910
National Women Suffrage Association collects 404,000 signatures for woman's suffrage amendment, submits to congress.

1910
First large suffrage parade in New York City, women dress uniformly in white, march defiantly in precision carrying banners, impress audiences with their numbers, their professionalism, and their determination.
Suffrage parades become a frequent occurrence uniting working class women with those of the middle class; public opinion shifts from initial hostility to respect and support.

8 November 1910
Suffrage referendum fails in Oregon, passes in Washington.

22 February 1911
Frances Ellen Watkins dies in Philadelphia, Pennsyvania.

1912
Suffrage referendum finally passes in California by a slim 3,587 votes -- an average majority of one vote in every voting precinct in the state.

27 August 1912
Belle Coit Kelton helps organize a parade of 5000 suffragists down Broad Street and South High Street to muster support for woman's suffrage plank to be added to Ohio constitution.

12 September 1912
Suffrage plank for Ohio constitution is defeated at the polls.

1912
Suffrage referendum campaigns also lose in Michigan and wisconsin; but pass in Arizona and Kansas.

1912
Massachusetts adopts minimum wage law for women and children - the nation's first

1912
During presidential election Progressive Party makes woman's suffrage a plank in their campaign

Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson, noncommittal on woman's suffrage, defeats Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt and Republican William H. Taft, who does not favor woman's suffrage.

March 1913
To protest Wilson's lack of support, Alice Paul boldly organizes a large suffrage parade in Washington, D.C. one day before Wilson's inauguration - badly upstaging and embarrassing the new president.

Toward the end of the parade, male hecklers escalate into a mob; city police do nothing to protect suffragists from mob violence, public opinion is overwhelmingly sympathetic to women; tremendous publicity follows suffragists from thereafter.

April 1913
Alice Paul founds militant Congressional Union (later becomes National Woman's Party); considers efforts to reform state constitutions futile; focuses exclusively on passage of a federal woman's suffrage amendment -- "Susan B. Anthony Amendment."

31 July 1913
Procession of automobiles to the Capital presents a group of Senators with a petition of 200 thousand signatures raised from all over the country for passage of federal suffrage amendment.

1913
Suffrage movement splits between Alice Paul and her group's determination to obtain a federal suffrage amendment and Carrie Chapman Catt's followers who feel such a goal is premature and who find Alice Paul's militant tactics distasteful

November 1913
Suffrage plank for Ohio constitution is defeated once again at polls; in contrast, Illinois opts for woman's suffrage.

1913-1917
Alice Paul's followers spend four years fighting Congressional tactics of stone-walling woman's suffrage and bottling up the federal amendment in endless committees.

10 March 1914
Susan B. Anthony Amendment is finally introduced on floor of Congress; Senate defeats it 35 to 34.

1914
Grueling and costly suffrage campaigns are lost in South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Missouri, once again Ohio

November 1914
Alice Paul and militant Congressional Union work against Woodrow Wilson and Democrats during mid-term elections because of their inaction on introducing Susan B. Anthony Amendment.

Carrie Chapman Catt disapproves of Paul's tactics -- feels such a campaign will only drive Wilson further away from suffragists.

12 January 1915
House defeats Susan B. Anthony Amendment 204 to 174.

1915
Massive suffrage campaigns for constitutional amendments in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania are defeated; further dispiriting the movement.

December 1915
Carrie Chapman Catt is elected President of National Woman's Suffrage Association; brings excellent organizing skills; breathes new life into the organization.

6 June 1916
East Cleveland, in its city charter, gives women the right to vote in Municipal Elections.

November 1916
During presidential election: Wilson rins on slogan "Vote for Wilson, he kept us out of war"; Alice Paul continues to campaign against the Democrats and particularly Wilson with the slogan "Vote against Wilson, he kept us out of suffrage."

Carrie Chapman Catt supports Wilson hoping he will support suffrage; Woodrow Wilson is reelected, but does nothing for suffrage.

Jeannette Rankin, Republican suffrage organizer from Montana becomes first woman elected to Congress.

10 January 1917
No longer satisfied with delegations to the White House and lobbying recalcitrant Congressmen, Alice Paul's followers increase militancy of tactics: for the first time in U.S. history, the White House is picketed; suffragists stand silently while holding signs that read "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?"

6 April 1917
U.S. declares war on Germany, World War I begins; Carrie Chapman Catt decides to suspend suffrage agitation during the war lest suffragists be accused of being unpatriotic; many suffragists throw themselves into war work to demonstrate their responsible citizenship.

Alice Paul and many of her followers are Quakers and as such refuse to support the war effort or suspend agitation for suffrage; instead they change their picket banners to read "Democracy begins at home" and "Kaiser Wilson"; such signage inflames male conservatives and servicemen in uniform; suffragists are attacked by male mobs; 218 suffragists (and no members of the mobs) are arrested for "obstructing traffix."

Ninety-seven suffragists including Alice Paul are sent to jail, some are sentenced to six months imprisonment.

Women picketers engage in hunger strikes to protest their illegal imprisonment; they are brutally force-fed by prison authorities with full sanction of President Wilson; by this heavy-handed action picketers are transformed into martyrs; public opinion is outraged over their brutal treatment.

5 August 1917
Ohio Supreme Court upholds East Cleveland's suffrage charter.

27 October
20,000 woman march in favor of women's suffrage in New York City.

November 1917
The tide begins to turn; momentum for woman's suffrage builds: North Dakota, Ohio, Indiana, Rhode Island, Nebraska, Arkansas finally pass statewide woman's suffrage.

November 1917
New York finally passes woman's suffrage; suffrage carries by a mandate of 100,000 votes in New York City; as the, largest state, New York now sends largest pro-suffrage block (43 votes) to House of Representative.

Momentum builds in Congress to bring Susan B. Anthony Amendment up for another vote.

27-28 November 1917
All picketers are finally released from prison.

January 1918
Congress schedules vote on Susan B. Anthony Amendment.

10 January 1918
Jeannette Rankin introduces suffrage amendment on floor of House.

With intense drama, amendment passes House 274 to 136 (exactly the amount for 2/3 majority needed for constitutional amendment) -- four Congressmen with deciding votes are forced to leave sick beds and hospitals to vote for the amendment, one member rushes to House chambers from death bed of his wife who made him promise with her dying breath to vote in favor of suffrage.

Women in the galleries rejoice by singing the "Old Hundred" hymn.

Conservative factions in Senate (Senators from the South and the industrial Northeast) now band together to block vote on suffrage amendment for year and a half.

1 October 1918
Senate finally votes on amendment and rejects it -- just two votes short of the necessary 2/3 majority.

November 1918
Suffragists work during election to defeat the antisuffrage senators; Michigan, South Dakota, Oklahoma pass woman's suffrage onthe state level.

No states from Solid South have passed state referenda for woman's suffrage.

11 November 1918
Armistice is signed, World War I ends.

10 February 1919
Suffrage amendment up for another vote fails in Congress once again -- by one vote.

February-June 1919
Six states grant Presidential suffrage to women regardless of passage of susan B. Anthony Amendment (Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Maine, and Ohio).

Pressure mounts to reintroduce the suffrage amendment to Congress once again.

20 May 1919
House votes -- passes amendment with votes to spare (304 to 89).

3-4 June 1919
Senate debates passage of suffrage amendment with Southern Senators engaging in many obstructionist tactics.

4 June 1919
Senate finally accepts political equality for women; passes suffrage amendment 66 to 30 with two votes more than needed.

Women in the galleries do not sing this time -- they are too wearied by the long and bitter struggle and realize it will take another long struggle to achieve ratification.

5 June 1919
Ohio becomes the 6th state to adopt Presidential suffrage for women.

10 June 1919
Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan become 1st, 2nd, 3rd states respectively to ratify amendment.

16 June 1919
Ohio becomes the 5th state to ratify the 19th Amendment; New York and Kansas also ratify amendment.

Obtaining the 36 states needed for ratification of the amendment takes another 14 months.

1919
League of Women Voters evolves from National American Woman's Suffrage Association.

NEXT: TIMELINE 1920-1979