Category: Timelines

The following link maps the earliest country (New Zealand, 1893) and the latest country (Saudi Arabia, 2011) to give women the right to vote.

Women’s Suffrage Mapped: The Year Women Got The Vote By Country

While the map by Katie Anastas shows that, “Starting in 1869, legislation was introduced in one or more states nearly every year. The timeline and maps below record the defeats as well as victories, demonstrating the persistence and ingenuity of suffrage activists. 

Link here.

 

1815

Elizabeth Cady Stanton is born in Johnstown, NY, the middle child of 11 children (1 boy and 10 girls). Her father, Daniel Cady, is a respected state judge. Her mother is Margaret Livingston Cady.

1826

Elizabeth learns about law from her father, including how women are treated differently with few rights. In 1826, Elizabeth’s brother dies. Her father is devastated and tells her, “I wish you were a boy.”

1831

Elizabeth tries to make her father proud and be like a boy. She finishes school with the highest grades and wants to go to college like boys do. College is not open to women. Instead, she attends the all women’s Troy Seminary.

1839

Elizabeth meets Henry Stanton, an abolitionist lawyer. She falls in love but her father forbids her from marrying.

1840

Elizabeth and Henry elope. They travel to London for their honeymoon where Henry  attends the World Anti-Slavery Convention. Elizabeth also goes but the men keep the women in a separate space in the back of the room. Elizabeth is upset and meets a like-minded activist, Lucretia Mott. Lucretia, a popular Quaker speaker, introduces Elizabeth to ideas of equality for all.

1841-1847

Elizabeth lives in Boston where she and Henry are involved in the abolition movement. Henry travels and tries to enter politics. Elizabeth gathers ideas on women’s rights. They start family (and eventually have 7 children.

1847

Elizabeth and Henry move to Seneca Falls. Elizabeth’s father buys the house in her name, and the next year a change in New York State law allows her as a married woman to own her own property. Her father gives her $300 to fix the house and she takes up the challenge.

1848

Elizabeth is tired of homemaking and feeling unequal. She again meets Lucretia Mott who is visiting her sister and they decide to do something instead of just talk.

July 19 and 20, the first Women’s Rights Convention is held in the Wesleyan Chapel in Secena Falls. Over 300 people travel to attend the convention, including Frederick Douglass. 100 people sign The Declaration of Sentiments, which Elizabeth models after the Declaration of Independence. She calls for equality of women and men and the right to vote.

Elizabeth calls her home the “Center of the Rebellion.” She can not travel because of her growing family but she opens her door to leading thinkers and starts writing more.

1849

The first newspaper for women, The Lily, starts in 1849 (til 1853) edited by Amelia Bloomer. Elizabeth writes for The Lily under the pseudonym, “Sunflower” which became her symbol. She wrote about education and being a mother and then about laws that were unfair to women.

1851

Elizabeth’s friend, Amelia Bloomer, introduces her to Susan B. Anthony. Elizabeth said, “I liked her immediately and why I did not invite her home to dinner with me I do not know.”  “A Friendship Through History” begins.

1853 – 1854

Elizabeth writes speeches while Susan helps watch Elizabeth’s children. Then Susan goes out campaigning. She circulates petitions for women’s property rights and suffrage. She speaks at the National Women’s Rights convention in 1854 and urges more petitions.

1861-1865

During the Civil War, the women’s rights movement slows down. Elizabeth and Susan found the Women’s Loyal National League in 1863 and collect over 400,000 petition signatures to urge President Abraham Lincoln and Congress to end slavery. They believe that women will get equal rights after the war along with enslaved people.  New York City becomes their home base (and they love going to Central Park!).

1866

Elizabeth and Susan found the American Equal Rights Association that works to “secure Equal Rights to all American citizens, especially the right of suffrage, irrespective of race, color, or sex.”

Elizabeth is the first woman to run for Congress in what was then the Eighth Congressional District. She runs as an independent and receives 24 votes of the 12,000 cast by male voters.

1867

Elizabeth and Susan travel to Kansas to talk about women’s suffrage. They cross the state for three months to try to get votes for Kansas to pass the law but it fails. Susan will continue her travels out West.

1868

Elizabeth and Susan start the newspaper, The Revolution. The masthead of the newspaper proudly displays their motto, “Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” They publish the paper til 1870.

The 14^th Amendment passes that all MEN born in the United States have the right to vote. Elizabeth and Susan are disappointed.

1869

Elizabeth and Susan split from other women’s rights proponents over the passage of the 15^th amendment, which gives the vote to men regardless of race. Though Susan thinks Elizabeth is too stubborn in her views, they keep working together. They form the National Woman Suffrage Association and focus their efforts on a federal woman’s suffrage amendment.

1870

Elizabeth and Susan work on the language of the 19^th amendment. It will be passed 50 years later!

1881-1885

Elizabeth, Susan and Matilda Joslyn Gage write the History of Woman Suffrage.

1888

Elizabeth and Susan sponsor the International Council of Women meeting with people from 8 countries attending. President Grover Cleveland invites the group to the White House.

1890

The two side of the women’s suffrage movement come back together after the 1869 split. They form the National American Suffrage Association. Elizabeth is the first president. The next year she gives her last speech to the Senate Committee on Women’s Suffrage.

1895

Elizabeth celebrates her 80^th birthday at the Met Opera House. All of her friends and family are there. November 12^th is named Stanton Day in New York City. Elizabeth writes The Women’s Bible which challenges why women should be subservient to men. Two years later she publishes her autobiography.

1902

Elizabeth dies at the age of 86. She is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York.

1920

The 19^th Amendment passes. It is known as the Susan B. Anthony amendment. Elizabeth’s daughter, Harriot Stanton Blantch, and granddaughter, Nora, are there to see the Amendment finally passed.