Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Lauren bob obam here. Sometimes it feels
Speaker 1: like the United States as a society has made major
Speaker 1: strides in the ongoing fight for gender equality, and sometimes
Speaker 1: reality rears its ugly head and you realize, well, the
Speaker 1: country still has a long way to go. And the
Speaker 1: truth is women continue to fight every day for equal rights.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't that long ago that the female portion
Speaker 1: of the population, which is roughly half of the United States,
Speaker 1: was prohibited from participating in politics until the Nineteenth Amendment
Speaker 1: changed that passed by Congress on June four of nineteen
Speaker 1: nineteen and ratified on August eighteenth of nineteen twenty, the
Speaker 1: Nineteenth Amendment finally acknowledged women's right to vote in America.
Speaker 1: For the article of this episode is based on How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. Spoke with Alison ka Lang, PhD, Assistant Professor
Speaker 1: of history at Boston's Wentworth Institute of Technology, an author
Speaker 1: of picturing political power images in the women's suffrage movement.
Speaker 1: She said the nineteenth Amendment prevented states from limiting the
Speaker 1: right to vote based on sex. Women started voting in
Speaker 1: Wyoming in eighteen sixty nine, and won the vote in
Speaker 1: other states in later years, They could also often vote
Speaker 1: in local city elections or school board elections before the
Speaker 1: Nineteenth Amendment. Even so, the nineteenth Amendment was revolutionary because
Speaker 1: it enfranchised more people than any other law in US history.
Speaker 1: Well before the Civil War broke out, many women were
Speaker 1: beginning to push back against the idea that their role
Speaker 1: was confined to managing the husband's home and family. Women
Speaker 1: were playing leading roles in reform groups, religious movements, and
Speaker 1: anti slavery organizations. All of these actions helped redefine what
Speaker 1: it meant to be a woman in the eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: in America, but the first real proposal for the idea
Speaker 1: of women's suffrage as a goal, a suffrage meaning the
Speaker 1: right to vote, began at the Seneca Falls Convention, which
Speaker 1: was the first women's right convention in the United States.
Speaker 1: It was held in July eighteen forty eight in Seneca Falls,
Speaker 1: New York. More than three hundred people, both men and women, attended,
Speaker 1: including slavery abolitionist Frederick Douglas and leading women's right advocate
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Katie Stanton, one of the meeting organizers. She kicked
Speaker 1: off the event with a rousing speech. She said, we
Speaker 1: are assembled to protest against a form of government existing
Speaker 1: without the consent of the governed, to declare our right
Speaker 1: to be free, as man is free, to be represented
Speaker 1: in the government which we are taxed to support, to
Speaker 1: have such disgraceful laws as give man the power to
Speaker 1: chastise and imprison his wife, to take the wages which
Speaker 1: she earns, the property which she inherits, and, in the
Speaker 1: case of separation, the children of her love. The delegates
Speaker 1: of the convention wrote a declaration of Sentiments modeled on
Speaker 1: the u S Declaration of Independence, right down to this
Speaker 1: line in the preamble, we hold these truths to be
Speaker 1: self evident, that all men and women are created equal.
Speaker 1: It included a list of eleven resolutions, the ninth encouraging
Speaker 1: women quote to secure themselves their sacred right to the
Speaker 1: elective franchise, that is, their right to vote. It was
Speaker 1: by far the most controversial, even prompting many women's right
Speaker 1: supporters to pull their support, and it barely passed, but
Speaker 1: it also became the foundation of the women's suffrage movement
Speaker 1: going forward. In the years following, women of all ages
Speaker 1: began writing about, marching for and practicing civil disbedience, sometimes
Speaker 1: referring to the Declaration of Sentiments in an effort to
Speaker 1: change the Constitution, which originally permitted only landowning white men
Speaker 1: aged twenty one and older to vote. Lang said suffrage
Speaker 1: was a popular term in the nineteenth century, and it
Speaker 1: means the right to vote. Americans discussed male suffrage, female suffrage,
Speaker 1: black suffrage, etcetera. Today, people often associate the term with
Speaker 1: the women's voting rights movement. The Nineteenth Amendment was first
Speaker 1: introduced in Congress in eighteen seventy eight, but it took
Speaker 1: more than forty years of organizing, petitioning, picketing, and more
Speaker 1: to finally get ratified. Over the decades, different strategies were
Speaker 1: employed to try to get the amendment passed, and some
Speaker 1: attempted to get suffrage acts passed in each individual state.
Speaker 1: The tactic worked to an extent. By nineteen twelve, nine
Speaker 1: western states had adopted women suffrage. Other advocates went to
Speaker 1: court to challenge male only voting laws, and some suffragusts
Speaker 1: organized and participated in parades, hunger strikes, and silent visuals.
Speaker 1: Regardless of the type of action these supporters took, these
Speaker 1: women almost invariably encountered countless forms of verbal and even
Speaker 1: physical abuse. By nineteen sixteen, almost all the major suffrage
Speaker 1: organizations formed a united front to pass a constitutional amendment.
Speaker 1: New York officially adopted women suffrage in nineteen seventeen, and
Speaker 1: a year later, President Woodrow Wilson changed his original position
Speaker 1: on the matter and declared support for the amendment. Finally,
Speaker 1: on May twenty one, nineteen nineteen, the House of Representatives
Speaker 1: passed the amendment, and the Senate followed two weeks later.
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty Tennessee became the thirty sixth state to
Speaker 1: ratify the amendment, and with three fourths of the states
Speaker 1: in agreement, the US was finally able to officially adopt
Speaker 1: the new policy. The nineteenth Amendment states the rights of
Speaker 1: citizens of the United States to vote shall not be
Speaker 1: denied or abridged by the United States or by any
Speaker 1: State on account of sex. But as impactful as the
Speaker 1: Nineteenth Amendment was, it didn't end the struggle. Lang said
Speaker 1: it's important to keep in mind that the Nineteenth Amendment
Speaker 1: did not grant all women the right to vote. Many
Speaker 1: poorer women and women of color were still subject to
Speaker 1: poll taxes. Literacy tests and other restrictive laws. American women
Speaker 1: gained greater access to the pole through other laws like
Speaker 1: the Indian Citizenship Act of nineteen, the repeal of the
Speaker 1: Chinese Exclusion Act in ninety three, and the Voting Rights
Speaker 1: Act of nineteen. Puerto Rico granted women the vote in
Speaker 1: nine so the Nineteenth Amendment opened up opportunities, but many
Speaker 1: women still had to fight for the vote. Today's episode
Speaker 1: is based on the article the Battle for the Nineteenth
Speaker 1: Amendment and Women's right to Vote on how stuffworks dot Com,
Speaker 1: written by Michell Konstantinovski. Brain Stuff is production of by
Speaker 1: Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com,
Speaker 1: and it's produced by Tyler Clay. Four more podcasts. My
Speaker 1: heart Radio was at the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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