They fought for more than 70 years. We can take the time to register and vote.
As someone who writes about women’s history, including in No Place for a Woman: The Struggle for Suffrage in the Wild West, I wish every woman heading to the polls could know the stories of those who fought to make that moment possible.
The amendment that became the 19th Amendment was first introduced in Congress in 1878. It took 41 years to win congressional approval and another year to secure ratification in August 1920. Mississippi did not formally ratify it until 1984, long after it had become the law of the land.
The road was anything but straight. In New Jersey, some unmarried women who met property requirements could vote in the early republic—only to have that right taken away in 1807. Wyoming Territory granted women suffrage in 1869, then refused to surrender it when seeking statehood. Wyoming entered the Union in 1890 with women’s voting rights intact.
And in 1872, Susan B. Anthony cast a presidential ballot in defiance of restrictions on women’s voting and was arrested. She would never live to see the 19th Amendment ratified.
Those women fought for generations they would never meet. They fought for us. When we choose not to vote, we leave unused the right they worked so hard to secure.
Women, and everyone eligible to vote, please register, check your registration, and make a plan to cast your ballot.
Honor their struggle. Use your voice. Vote.
