Women’s Independent Press

That in 1849, the first state constitution in California extended property rights to women?
1850 Worcester, Massachusetts, is the site of the first National Women’s Rights Convention. An alliance is formed Frederick Douglass, Paulina Wright Davis, Abby Kelley Foster, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucy Stone and Sojourner Truth are in attendance. A strong alliance is formed with the Abolitionist Movement.
1851 Worcester, Massachusetts is the site of the second National Women’s Rights Convention. Participants included: Horace Mann, New York Tribune columnist Elizabeth Oaks Smith, and Reverend Harry Ward Beecher, one of the nation’s most popular preachers.
At a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio, Sojourner Truth, a former slave, delivers her now memorable speech “Ain’t I a woman?”
1852 The issue of women’s property rights is presented to the Vermont Senate by Clara Howard Nichols. This is a major issue for the Suffragists.
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe, is published and quickly becomes a bestseller.
That in 1853 Women delegates, Antoinette Brown and Susan B. Anthony, were not allowed to speak at The World’s Temperance Convention held in New York City?
That in 1857 The Married Woman’s Property Bill passes in the U.S. Congress. Women can how sue, be sued, make contracts, inherit and bequeath property?
That during the Civil War,1861-1865, efforts for the suffrage movement come to a halt. Women put their energies toward the war effort.
That in 1866 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony form the American Equal Rights Association, an organization dedicated to the goal of suffrage for all regardless of gender or race?
That in 1868 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Parker Pillsbury publish the first edition of The Revolution? This periodical carries the motto “Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less!”
That many early suffrage supporters, including Susan B. Anthony, remained single because in the mid-1800s, married women could not own property in their own rights and could not make legal contracts on their own behalf?
That The Fourteenth Amendment is ratified. “Citizens” and “voters” are defined exclusively as male?
That in 1869 The American Equal Rights Association is wrecked by disagreements over the Fourteenth Amendment and the question of whether to support the proposed Fifteenth Amendment which would enfranchise Black American males while avoiding the question of woman suffrage entirely.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony found the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), a more radical institution, to achieve the vote through a Constitutional amendment as well as push for other woman’s rights issues. NWSA was based in New York
Lucy Stone, Henry Blackwell, Julia Ward Howe and other more conservative activists form the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) to work for woman suffrage through amending individual state constitutions. AWSA was based in Boston.
Wyoming territory is organized with a woman suffrage provision.
That in 1870 The Fifteenth Amendment give black men the right to vote? NWSA refused to work for its ratification and instead the members advocate for a Sixteenth Amendment that would dictate universal suffrage. Frederick Douglass broke with Stanton and Anthony over the position of NWSA.
The Woman’s Journal is founded and edited by Mary Livermore, Lucy Stone, and Henry Blackwell.
That in 1871 Victoria Woodhull addresses the House Judiciary Committee, arguing women’s rights to vote under the fourteenth amendment? That the Anti-Suffrage Party is founded?
That in1872 Susan B. Anthony casts her ballot for Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential election and is arrested and brought to trial in Rochester, New York. Fifteen other women are arrested for illegally voting. Sojourner Truth appears at a polling booth in Battle Creek, Michigan, demanding a ballot to vote; she is turned away?
Abigail Scott Duniway convinces Oregon lawmakers to pass laws granting a married woman’s rights such as starting and operating her own business, controlling the money she earns, and the right to protect her property if her husband leaves.
That in 1874 The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is founded by Annie Wittenmyer? With Frances Willard at its head (1876), the WCTU became important proponent in the fight for woman suffrage.
That in 1876 Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn Gage disrupt the official Centennial program at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, presenting a “Declaration of Rights for Women” to the Vice President?
That in 1878 A Woman Suffrage Amendment is proposed in the U.S. Congress? When the 19th Amendment passes forty-one years later, it is worded exactly the same as this 1878 Amendment.
That in 1887 the first vote on woman suffrage is taken in the Senate and is defeated?
That in 1888 the National Council of Women in the United States is established to promote the advancement of women in society?
That in 1890 NWSA and AWSA merge and the National American Woman Suffrage Association is formed? Stanton is the first president. The Movement focuses efforts on securing suffrage at the state level.
Wyoming is admitted to the Union with a state constitution granting woman suffrage.
The American Federation of Labor declares support for woman suffrage.
The South Dakota campaign for woman suffrage loses.
That from 1890-1925 A progressive era results. Women from all classes and backgrounds enter public life. Women’s roles expand and result in an increasing politicization of women? Consequently the issue of woman suffrage becomes mainstream politics.
That in 1892 Olympia Brown founds the Federal Suffrage Association to campaign for woman’s suffrage?
That in 1893 Colorado adopts woman suffrage?
That in 1894 there were 600,000 signatures presented to the New York State Constitutional Convention in a failed effort to bring a woman suffrage amendment to the voters?
That in 1895 Elizabeth Cady Stanton publishes The Woman’s Bible? After its publication, NAWSA moves to distance itself from Stanton because many conservative suffragists considered her to be too radical and, thus, potentially damaging to the suffrage campaign.
That in 1896 Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Frances E.W. Harper among others, found the he National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs?
Utah joins the Union with full suffrage for women.
Idaho adopts woman suffrage.
That in 1903 Mary Dreier, Rheta Childe Dorr, Leonora O’Reilly, and others form the Women’s Trade Union League of New York, an organization of middle- and working-class women dedicated to unionization for working women and to woman suffrage?
That in 1910 Washington State adopts woman suffrage?
The Women’s Political Union organizes the first suffrage parade in New York City.
That in 1911 The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) is organized? Led by Mrs. Arthur Dodge, its members included wealthy, influential women, some Catholic clergymen, distillers and brewers, urban political machines, Southern congressmen, and corporate capitalists.
The elaborate California suffrage campaign succeeds by a small margin.
That in 1912 Woman Suffrage is supported for the first time at the national level by a major political party — Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party?
Twenty thousand suffrage supporters join a New York City suffrage parade.
Oregon, Kansas, and Arizona adopt woman suffrage.
That in 1913 Alice Paul and Lucy Burns organize the Congressional Union, later known at the National Women’s Party (1916)? They borrowed strategies from the radical Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) in England.
That in 1914 Nevada and Montana adopt woman suffrage?
The National Federation of Women’s Clubs, which had over two million women members throughout the U.S., formally endorses the suffrage campaign.
That in 1915 Mabel Vernon and Sara Bard Field are involved in a transcontinental tour which gathers over a half-million signatures on petitions to Congress?
Forty thousand march in a NYC suffrage parade. Many women are dressed in white and carry placards with the names of the states they represent.
Pennsylvania, New Jersey , New York, and Massachusetts continue to reject woman suffrage.

That in 1916 Jeanette Rankin of Montana is the first woman elected to the House of Representatives? Woodrow Wilson states that the Democratic Party platform will support suffrage.
That in 1917 New York women gain suffrage?
Arkansas women are allowed to vote in primary elections?
National Woman’s Party picketers appear in front of the White House holding two banners, “Mr. President, What Will You Do For Woman Suffrage?” and “How Long Must Women Wait for Liberty?” Picketers remain stationed there permanently.
Jeannette Rankin of Montana, the first woman elected to Congress, is formally seated in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Alice Paul, leader of the National Woman’s Party, was put in solitary confinement in the mental ward of the prison as a way to “break” her will and to undermine her credibility with the public.
In June, arrests of the National Woman’s party picketers begin on charges of obstructing sidewalk traffic. Subsequent picketers are sentenced to up to six months in jail. In November, the government unconditionally releases the picketers in response to public outcry and an inability to stop National Woman’s Party picketers’ hunger strike.
That 1918 Representative Rankin opens debate on a suffrage amendment in the House? The amendment passes. The amendment fails to win the required two thirds majority in the Senate.
Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma adopt woman suffrage.
President Woodrow Wilson states his support for a federal woman suffrage amendment.
President Wilson addresses the Senate about adopting woman suffrage a the end of World War I.
That in 1919 The Senate finally passes the Nineteenth Amendment and the ratification process begins?
That on August 26, 1920 Three quarters of the state legislatures ratify the Nineteenth Amendment?
American Women win full voting rights.