The fight for womenâs suffrage in the United States began with the womenâs rights movement in the mid-nineteenth century. This reform effort encompassed a broad spectrum of goals before its leaders decided to focus first on securing the vote for women. Womenâs suffrage leaders, however, disagreed over strategy and tactics: whether to seek the vote at the federal or state level, whether to offer petitions or pursue litigation, and whether to persuade lawmakers individually or to take to the streets. Both the womenâs rights and suffrage movements provided political experience for many of the early women pioneers in Congress, but their internal divisions foreshadowed the persistent disagreements among women in Congress that emerged after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.
"Votes for Women" ButtonView Larger
Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives
Manufactured by the Whitehead & Hoag Company in Newark, New Jersey, this dime-sized button announces support for womenâs voting rights. The phrase âVotes for Womenâ was one of the suffrage movement's main rallying cries.
The first attempt to organize a national movement for womenâs rights occurred in Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848. Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a young mother from upstate New York, and the Quaker abolitionist Lucretia Mott, about 300 peopleâmost of whom were womenâattended the Seneca Falls Convention to outline a direction for the womenâs rights movement.2 Stantonâs call to arms, her âDeclaration of Sentiments,â echoed the Declaration of Independence: âWe hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.â In a list of resolutions, Stanton cataloged economic and educational inequities, restrictive laws on marriage and property rights, and social and cultural norms that prevented women from enjoying âall the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States.â3 Stanton also demanded for women the âsacred right to the elective franchiseââdespite objections from Mott and others who considered this provision too radical. The convention eventually approved the voting rights resolution after abolitionist Frederick Douglass spoke in support of it.4