Ninety-three years ago today, the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allowing women a right to vote in federal and in state elections was finally ratified.
The amendment cleared Congress on a 56-25 Senate vote on June 4, 1919, forty-one years after it was drafted by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Two Senate votes on the amendment failed in late 1918 and early 1919, with southern Democrats providing the single largest source of opposition (they split against it 7/14 on September 30, 1918).
Irin Carmon of MSNBC has a fun if horrifying illustrated history of the arguments advanced against women’s suffrage before its enactment. I wish I could say the gender stereotypes underlying them had died in the interim.
