After 1920, the Fight to Vote Continued

Luisa Capetillo, left, was a labor organizer and one of Puerto Rico's foundational feminists. Right, women on Election Day in 1936, the first year all women on the island could vote.

HISTORY

The Bittersweet Story of Puerto Rican Suffrage

Puertorriqueñas' fight for suffrage shaped by class, colonialism and racism—but even today, island residents cannot vote for president

The Long Fight for Suffrage

American women wouldn't be able to sport 'I Voted' stickers if not for Susan B. Anthony.

SMART NEWS

Why Women Bring Their 'I Voted' Stickers to Susan B. Anthony's Grave

Shortly before the "Night of Terror," suffragists (including Lucy Burns, second from left) protested the treatment of Alice Paul, who was kept in solitary confinement in a D.C. prison.

HISTORY

Radical Protests Propelled the Suffrage Movement. Here's How a New Museum Captures That History

The age-of-consent campaigns of the 1880s and 1890s represent a vital yet little-known chapter in the history of suffrage.

HISTORY

What Raising the Age of Sexual Consent Taught Women About the Vote

Susan B. Anthony (seen here in 1898) was fined $100 for casting her vote in the 1872 presidential election.

SMART NEWS

In 1872, Susan B. Anthony Was Arrested for Voting 'Unlawfully'

In the 1913 march for women's suffrage, Inez Milholland (right) led the procession on Pennsylvania Avenue, while black suffragists like the women of Delta Sigma Theta sorority were relegated to the back.

ARTS & CULTURE

What 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage Looks Like Through the Eyes of 100 Women Artists

Women vote at the polls in Cheyenne, Wyoming. In Wyoming, women were voting fifty years before the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in 1920.

HISTORY

How the American West Led the Way for Women in Politics

Queen Liliʻuokalani (above: circa 1891) became the first and only queen regnant of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1891 and shepherded the country through a period of intense growth.

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

How the 19th Amendment Complicated the Status and Role of Women in Hawai'i

Lucretia Mott’s signature Quaker bonnet—hand-sewn green silk with a stiff cotton brim—from the collection of the National Museum of American History.

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

What Made Lucretia Mott One of the Fiercest Opponents of Slavery and Sexism

The program for the National American Woman Suffrage Association procession in the capital city. This march occurred before the rift between the more moderate NAWSA and the less conciliatory National Woman's Party.

HISTORY

The Thorny Road to the 19th Amendment

In 1917 when it was highly unusual for women to protest, a suffrage procession walked the streets of Washington, D.C. towards the White House carrying purple, white and gold banners.

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

How Women Got the Vote Is a Far More Complex Story Than the History Textbooks Reveal

The humor magazine Puck—a pre-TV version of “The Daily Show”—published this illustration in 1915, five years before the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

The Long Battle for Women's Suffrage

Sojourner Truth, Randall Studio, c. 1870

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

The Bold Accomplishments of Women of Color Need to Be a Bigger Part of Suffrage History

Anna Howard Shaw in Washington, D.C. in 1914.

HISTORY

How Midwestern Suffragists Won the Vote by Attacking Immigrants

When news of Tennessee’s ratification reached Alice Paul on August 18, she sewed the thirty-sixth star onto her ratification banner and unfurled it from the balcony of Woman’s Party headquarters in Washington.

HISTORY

How Tennessee Became the Final Battleground in the Fight for Suffrage

Charlotte Woodward Pierce was just a teenager when she signed the pro-women's-rights "Declaration of Sentiments." She was the only signer of that document to live to see women get the vote.

SMART NEWS

Only One Woman Who Was at the Seneca Falls Women's Rights Convention Lived to See Women Win the Vote

What Happened Next

Part of the Crow reservation is in Montana's Big Horn County, but the at-large election system meant that the first Crow county commissioner wasn't elected until 1986.

HISTORY

To Make Native Votes Count, Janine Windy Boy Sued the Government

Patricia Roberts Harris, Vivian Malone and Zephyr Wright were among those in attendance at the March 1965 signing of the Voting Rights Act.

HISTORY

For Generations, Black Women Have Envisioned a Better, Fairer American Politics

A photo from the statue's unveiling in Central Park on Wednesday, August 26

SMART NEWS

Why the First Monument of Real Women in Central Park Matters—and Why It's Controversial

Read excerpts from women senators' testimonials below.

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

Women Senators Reflect on the 100th Anniversary of Suffrage

The League of Women Voters led registration efforts across the country.

HISTORY

What the First Women Voters Experienced When Registering for the 1920 Election

Mary McLeod Bethune, pictured in the 1920s, when her school became a co-ed institution and she became the president of the National Association of Colored Women.

HISTORY

Mary McLeod Bethune Was at the Vanguard of More Than 50 Years of Black Progress

Cate Blanchett plays conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly

HISTORY

The True Story of 'Mrs. America'

Almost 40 years ago, in 1981, women cheered during a rally for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. Today, Virginia, just across the Potomac River, could become the crucial 38th state to approve the constitutional change.

HISTORY

Why the Equal Rights Amendment Is Still Not Part of the Constitution

Kimberly Teehee photographed in 2010.

SMART NEWS

Kimberly Teehee Will Be the Cherokee Nation's First Delegate to Congress

As women entered through the “Ladies” side of a turnstile, Lenna Winslow’s “Voting Machine” concealed ballot items on which they could not vote.

INNOVATION

The Voting Machine That Displayed Different Ballots Based on Your Sex

Only 178 of the historic figures listed in K-through-12 education standards are women, according to a 2017 study.

HISTORY

What Schools Teach About Women’s History Leaves a Lot to Be Desired

The statue carved by Adelaide Johnson portrays Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony (left to right), all women who fought for suffrage.

HISTORY

The Suffragist Statue Trapped in a Broom Closet for 75 Years

Richmond, Virginia, USA, 15th October, 1992, President George H.W. Bush at the Town Hall debates

HISTORY

The History of the Town Hall Debate

Crowd outside the 1924 Republican National Convention in Cleveland listen to speeches broadcast from inside the hall via an early “public address system.”

HISTORY

Women Ruled the Floor When the GOP First Came to Cleveland

The slogan “unbought and unbossed” appeared on Chisholm’s campaign posters, one of which resides in the collections of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

'Unbought and Unbossed': When a Black Woman Ran for the White House