When did women gain voting rights?

American women gained the right to vote nationwide in 1920 with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, formally certified on August 26, 1920. The amendment states simply that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex, and that Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The campaign for women's suffrage stretched back more than seventy years. The Seneca Falls Convention in upstate New York on July 19 and 20, 1848, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, adopted a Declaration of Sentiments demanding equal rights for women, including the vote. Susan B. Anthony was arrested in 1872 for casting a ballot in a federal election. The National Woman Suffrage Association, founded in 1869 by Stanton and Anthony, and the rival American Woman Suffrage Association, founded the same year by Lucy Stone, merged in 1890 into the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

Western territories and states moved first. Wyoming Territory granted women the vote in 1869. Utah, Colorado, and Idaho followed. By 1916, women could vote for president in 11 western states. New York approved women's suffrage in 1917.

The militant National Woman's Party led by Alice Paul picketed the White House from January 1917 onward. Many activists were arrested and force-fed during hunger strikes in jail, generating sympathy for the cause. President Woodrow Wilson finally endorsed a federal amendment in January 1918. The House passed the Nineteenth Amendment on May 21, 1919, and the Senate followed on June 4, 1919.

Ratification by three-fourths of the states began immediately. Wisconsin ratified on June 10, 1919, and Tennessee became the decisive 36th state on August 18, 1920, when 24-year-old Representative Harry Burn changed his vote after receiving a letter from his mother urging him to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified the amendment on August 26, 1920, now celebrated as Women's Equality Day. About 8 million women voted in the November 1920 presidential election.

Women of color, particularly Black women in the South, continued to face barriers from poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.