On June 4, 1919, nearly 150 years after the Founding Fathers declared that “all Men are created equal,” Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the right to vote. The development came after decades of petitions and protests supporting voting rights for women.
The 19th Amendment states:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The House of Representatives passed the amendment on May 21, 1919, and the Senate did the same shortly thereafter. Three months later, on August 18, 1920, Tennessee ratified the amendment, becoming the 36th state to do so and securing the approval of three-fourths of the states required for the amendment to be adopted. On August 26, 1920, Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the amendment’s ratification.
The first woman to vote under the 19th Amendment ,Marguerite Cole of South St. Paul, Minnesota, quoted as describing herself as a “progressive Republican” who cast a ballot in a special election on a water bond bill the morning after the amendment was certified.
The fight over women’s participation in American government began even before the Declaration of Independence was signed. In a letter dated March 31, 1776, Abigail Adams urged her husband John Adams to “[r]emember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors.”
“Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could,” she continued. “If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”
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