“Votes for Women”
- Movement Slogan

1895-1929

From 1895 to 1929, women’s activism focused on obtaining voting rights, improving working conditions, and fighting racism. African American and working-class people sought the vote as a means to seek social justice and protections. Women upended ideas about propriety by marching in the streets and harnessing modern forms of public spectacle. National organizations and local groups worked with legislators to get suffrage referendums on state ballots and introduce a constitutional amendment in Congress. Ultimately, success came with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, granting the vote to women. Although it marked a dramatic shift in American democracy, the suffrage victory came with limitations. Jim Crow laws and mob violence prevented African Americans from voting in much of the country, while Native and Asian Americans would wait decades to be citizens. Women who married foreigners lost their US citizenship. Efforts encouraged women to register and pressed for a wider definition of citizenship through jury service, education, and employment, along with an Equal Rights Amendment.

The growing popularity of marches and parades coincided with the development of film and the popularity of newsreels. Suffrage and anti-lynching activists exploited this new medium to broadcast their message.

12,000 Women March, 1917. Dawson City Museum, Library and Archives Canada, The Library of Congress, and Bill Morrison’s film “Dawson City: Frozen Time,” Hypnotic Pictures / Picture Palace Pictures

NAACP Silent March, 1917. Dawson City Museum, Library and Archives Canada, The Library of Congress, and Bill Morrison’s film “Dawson City: Frozen Time,” Hypnotic Pictures / Picture Palace Pictures

Woman Wins the Right to Vote, 1920. F.I.L.M Archive

“Women of all ages, from the nearly feeble to the vigorously youthful,
walked side by side — all seemingly fired by enthusiasm for their cause.”
— The New York Times, 1917

Many Methods, One Goal

By 1900, urbanization, immigration, Jim Crow laws, and women in the industrial labor force made suffrage ever more urgent. Voting was the key to addressing societal issues. Although several Western states gave women the vote starting in 1869, the 1878 “Susan B. Anthony Amendment” proposing women’s suffrage gathered dust in Congress. New activism in the early 20th century reinvigorated the cause. While groups and individuals agreed on the end goal, they often disagreed philosophically. The National American Woman Suffrage Association pursued change state by state, until shifting course in 1916. The National Woman’s Party sought a swifter constitutional amendment, and members went to prison for picketing the White House, dismaying moderates. Black communities linked the vote to fighting racism. Some white-led groups welcomed Black members, while others sought the vote to entrench white power. Workers demanded the vote to gain shorter days, higher wages, and safer workplaces. Most visibly, grand parades drew crowds and publicity. Despite the range of suffragist beliefs, all disagreed with anti-suffrage claims that women should stay out of politics.

Woman Suffrage Party
Sash, ca. 1915
Satin
Gift of Mrs. Dana Converse Backus, 1955; INV7421.1

Working women first wore signs as part of labor strikes. Middle-class women similarly pinned sashes to their chests as they marched in suffrage parades.

Different colors signaled different philosophies. Green and purple were associated with the militant British suffrage movement.
After the failed 1915 referendum in New York, some groups chose yellow to avoid radical connotations.
Anti-suffrage groups chose entirely different color schemes.

Women’s Political Union pin-back button, ca. 1913–15 Metal, plastic
Purchase, 2014.16.2

Vote for Woman Suffrage pin-back button, 1917
Metal, paper, plastic
New-York Historical Society, Z.2769

Opposed to Woman Suffrage pin-back button, ca. 1911 Metal, plastic
New-York Historical Society, INV.2478

National American Woman Suffrage Association
The Woman Citizen, 1918
Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society

During WWI, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) sent women doctors to the front and associated war efforts with citizenship, claiming their work demonstrated their worthiness of the vote.

Suffrage Mothers, ca. 1911
Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society

A frequent argument for the vote was that women needed the vote to protect children.

National Women’s Party Pickets, 1917
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington D.C.

Alice Paul organized pickets outside the White House. The banners became increasingly provocative, and she and many of her “Silent Sentinels” served time in a workhouse for disturbing the peace.

New York State Woman Suffrage Party
To The Voters broadside, 1917
Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society

Some organizations feared militant tactics would hurt their cause and distanced themselves from Paul’s controversial pickets, citing patriotism as part of their claim to full citizenship.

Wyoming shield from unidentified march, ca. 1915
Cardboard, tape, fabric
The Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism

Convincing the Men

Suffragists depended on men to support state referendums and a national amendment. While many men already agreed, others had to be convinced it was time to share the vote. The Crisis compared women’s lack of vote to Black men’s disenfranchisement. Despite her opposition to Black women’s suffrage, socialite Alva Belmont bankrolled both a Black suffrage headquarters to help secure Black men’s support and workers’ lunchrooms that served inexpensive meals on “Votes for Women” dishes. A poster aimed at Spanish speakers claimed California needed the cooperation of all its citizens. A nativist poster insisted that educated white women’s votes would cancel those of “undesirable” men. Meanwhile, anti-suffrage groups argued women would be “dirtied” by politics. In convincing men that women should vote, suffragists changed a generation’s ideas about democracy.

Illinois Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage
Woman’s Best Work: The Making of Voters, 1912
Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society

Anti-suffrage activists believed voting threatened traditional gender roles. This pamphlet argued that women’s real political power lay in raising sons to be good citizens, reminiscent of the 18th-century concept of “Republican Motherhood.”

Votes For Women Will Improve the Electorate broadside, 1912 Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society

Some argued for “educated suffrage,” claiming white, educated women should vote to “balance” the votes of Black, immigrant, and uneducated men.

Woman Suffrage Party
As Man to Man broadside, ca. 1915
Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society

Political Equality League
Dad a la mujer de California el derecho de votar broadside, 1911
Courtesy of Women’s Suffrage and Equal Rights Collection, Ella Strong Denison Library, Scripps College, Claremont, CA

California activists appealed to Spanish speakers to support a referendum in 1911, which passed by a slim margin. New Mexico suffragist Adelina Otero-Warren, who later ran (unsuccessfully) for Congress, also stressed the need for literature to be published in Spanish.

Political Equality Association/Maddock and Sons Ltd.
Votes for Women plate, ca. 1910
Whiteware
Purchase, 2017.7

“We must go into our communities and improve them;
we must go out into the nation and change it.”
— Mary Church Terrell, 1916

Black Clubwomen and the Vote

As Jim Crow laws proliferated after the end of Reconstruction, Black women’s organizations advocated for improved education and employment, and spoke out against racial violence. Groups such as the National Association of Colored Women, Brooklyn’s Equal Suffrage League, and the Alpha Suffrage Club of Chicago sought the vote as a tool to achieve these goals and, in their own words, “uplift the race.” Black suffragists confronted racism that marginalized or dismissed their concerns within the suffrage movement. In response, Black women not only marched in multiple parades, but wrote and lectured extensively in support of the vote, supported progressive candidates, wrote to legislators, petitioned Congress, and exhorted Black men to support state referendums. After the 19th Amendment’s ratification, clubwomen worked to educate voters and fight widespread disenfranchisement.

Nannie Helen Burroughs and others meeting for Banner State Woman's National Baptist Convention, ca. 1905
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington D.C.

African American women’s “clubs,” frequently associated with churches, were powerhouses of activism. Nannie Burroughs was an outspoken suffragist as well as a leader in the Baptist church.

Howard University Delta Sigma Theta founders, 1913
Courtesy of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and Howard University

Fearing the objections of Southern suffragists, Alice Paul first discouraged Black women from participating in the March 1913 parade in Washington, DC, then agreed to segregate them at the back of the procession. The young founders of Delta Sigma Theta marched, as did many well-known Black suffragists including Mary Church Terrell and Ida B. Wells.

A copy of this photograph is displayed at the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated National Headquarters located at 1707 New Hampshire Avenue, Northwest, Washington, DC 20009.

Front Row: Winona Cargile Alexander, Madree Penn White, Wertie Blackwell Weaver, Vashti Turley Murphy, Ethel Cuff Black, Fredericka Chase Dodd
Middle Row: Pauline Orberdorfer Minor, Edna Brown Coleman, Edith Mott Young, Marguerite Young Alexander, Naomi Sewell Richardson
Last Row:   Myra Davis Hemmings, Mamie Reddy Rose, Bertha Pitts Campbell, Florence Letcher Toms, Olive Jones, Jessie McGwire Dent, Jimmie Bugg Middleton, Ethel Carr Watson    Not Pictured: Eliza Pearl Shippen, Osceola Macarthy Adams, Zephyr Chisom Carter

Vote for Woman Suffrage November 6th poster, 1917
The Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism

On October 27, 1917, twenty thousand people paraded down Fifth Avenue in support of the upcoming state referendum. While newsreel footage and photographs show only white marchers, the New York Times reported that Black women participated in the parade.

Equal Suffrage League
Petition to Congress in Support of Woman Suffrage, 1908
Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries

The Equal Suffrage League represented the National Association of Colored Women’s suffrage initiative. They obtained thousands of signatures for this petition to enforce the 14th and 15th Amendments and support women’s suffrage, specifically addressing African American concerns.

“We believe that a wage earner supporting a family
by her toil has a right to the ballot!”
— Leonora O’Reilly, 1909

Bookkeepers and stenographers in suffrage parade, 1911
Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society

Signage expressed identities and concerns. While these women marched as bookkeepers and stenographers, other banners proclaimed other interests, such as “Women Need Votes To End Sweat Shops.”

Working-Class Suffragists

One-third of women worked for a wage in early 20th-century American cities. Many were immigrants and women of color who saw the vote as crucial for addressing low pay, long hours, and dangerous sweatshop conditions. They believed increased political power might help avoid disasters like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. As union members, women engaged in labor politics, from strikes to legislation. This sense of collective purpose drew many to organizations such as the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women and the Wage Earners’ Suffrage League. Some groups brought middle-class and working women together—to often mixed results—while others prioritized labor perspectives. Working-class women distributed literature, petitioned legislators, and held rallies, theatricals, and debates. They were the first to march in the streets and were essential in engaging working-class men to support suffrage as part of the class struggle.

Amalgamated Clothing Workers on Strike, Chicago, 1915
Jacob Rader Marcus Center for the American Jewish Archives

Working women boldly asserted their desire for the vote. Broadsides proclaimed “every thinking working woman . . . wants the power
the ballot will give her and her fellow workers,” urging workers to attend meetings and parades “to show the gentlemen we have arrived.”

Wage Earners’ Suffrage League and Collegiate Equal Suffrage League
Senators vs. Working Women broadside, ca. 1915
Sophia Smith Collection

National American Woman Suffrage Association
Women Workers Want Vote broadside, ca. 1915
Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society

“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.”
—19th Amendment, 1919

Hartsook Photo
With Women voting in all states, the League of Women Voters go forth to finish uncompleted tasks, ca. 1920
Patricia D. Klingenstein Library, New-York Historical Society

Six months before the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) organized the nonpartisan League of Women Voters. The League encouraged civic participation and promoted such legislation as the Sheppard-Towner Act of 1921, which funded maternal and child health care, and the Cable Act of 1922, which allowed women who married foreign nationals to keep their US citizenship.

Not the End, But a Step
on the Way

The ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 removed sex as a barrier to the vote. This was an expansive political step, representing years of work. In its wake, new forms of collective action emerged. Women voted, ran for office, and supported issues that suffragists had championed for years. Their successes included the creation of the Women’s Bureau, legislation funding maternal and child health care, and the preservation of citizenship for US women who married foreign men. Even so, many women still could neither vote nor exercise other aspects of citizenship. Literacy tests, poll taxes, intimidation, and violence discouraged black people from the ballot. Asian Americans and many Native Americans could not vote because of exclusionary laws. Many states lacked provisions for women on juries and equal access to property, while segregation and Jim Crow laws persisted. Following the suffrage victory, women continued to push for political inclusion. The National Woman’s Party introduced the Equal Rights Amendment in Congress in 1923, but workers feared it would reverse gains in protective legislation, such as limits to women’s working hours.

League of Women Voters
Just How to Vote, 1920
The Dobkin Family Collection of Feminism

Organizations such as the Alpha Suffrage Club and the League of Women
Voters instructed new voters on how to register, mark, and submit a ballot.

Americanization Society
A Woman Living Here has Registered to Vote window card, ca. 1918–20
Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan

See how state and local legislation determined where, when, and which women could vote in the United States.

Headquarters for Colored Women Voters, attributed as Georgia, ca. 1920
Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library

Black voters fought efforts to keep them from the polls.
The NAACP spoke before Congress on election-related violence, and these women formed a voters’ group despite widespread disenfranchisement.

1895-1929

“Women of all ages, from the nearly feeble to the vigorously youthful, walked side by side — all seemingly fired by enthusiasm for their cause.” — The New York Times, 1917

“We must go into our communities and improve them; we must go out into the nation and change it.” — Mary Church Terrell, 1916

“We believe that a wage earner supporting a family by her toil has a right to the ballot!” — Leonora O’Reilly, 1909

“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.” —19th Amendment, 1919

“Women of all ages, from the nearly feeble to the vigorously youthful,
walked side by side — all seemingly fired by enthusiasm for their cause.”
— The New York Times, 1917

“We must go into our communities and improve them;
we must go out into the nation and change it.”
— Mary Church Terrell, 1916

“We believe that a wage earner supporting a family
by her toil has a right to the ballot!”
— Leonora O’Reilly, 1909

“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.”
—19th Amendment, 1919