Today, in 1919, women were given the right to vote.

[nolabear]

I just thought it worth a mention.

[CreekDog]

1. should they have waited until issues affecting more people were taken care of first?

:sarcasm:

[Darth_Kitten]

9. How dare you just mention women without mentioning everybody else!

:evilgrin:

[treestar]

17. They did

It took more than 50 years to get the vote. The movement came out of the abolitionist movement. And that did need to be taken care of first.

Gee they haven't cured cancer yet either! How dare they? Don't they know they owe us all a life in a future century? And we shouldn't have to lift a finger ourselves!

Think of the poor women of 1788 who couldn't vote! Why wasn't that done sooner?

[CreekDog]

19. are we clear on the concept of sarcasm?

:shrug:

[treestar]

23. Must not be!

And I think I'm so good at detecting it! Without even :sarcasm: :hi:

[lazarus]

2. where?

The Nineteenth Amendment (Amendment XIX) to the United States Constitution prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. It was ratified on August 18, 1920.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Granted, Congress passed the 19th today, but it still had to be ratified by the states.

[Lars39]

3. I like the phrasing, " In 1919, women had their right to vote recognized."

"Given" makes it sound like we earned an especially good lollipop that day. :)

[madmax]

4. Thank you - 'Iron Jawed Angels' K&R n t

K&R

[WolverineDG]

5. The 19th Amendment wasn't ratified until August 18, 1920

The first states to ratify the amendment did so on June 10, 1919---Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan.

Texas, the perennial whipping boy of DU, ratified the amendment on June 28, 1919.

dg

[Boojatta]

6. From June 4th, 1919 to January 16, 1920 wasn't much of a wait.

Coincidence, or unintended consequence of the very abrupt introduction (as opposed to phasing in) of voting by women?

1874
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is founded by Annie Wittenmyer. With Frances Willard at its head (1876), the WCTU became an important force in the fight for woman suffrage. Not surprisingly, one of the most vehement opponents to women's enfranchisement was the liquor lobby, which feared women might use the franchise to prohibit the sale of liquor.

1878
A Woman Suffrage Amendment is introduced in the United States Congress. The wording is unchanged in 1919, when the amendment finally passes both houses.

Edited to add link:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawstime.html

At midnight, January 16, 1920, the United States went dry; breweries, distilleries, and saloons were forced to close their doors.

Led by the Anti-Saloon League and the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the dry forces had triumphed by linking Prohibition to a variety of Progressive era social causes. Proponents of Prohibition included many women reformers who were concerned about alcohol's link to wife beating and child abuse and industrialists, such as Henry Ford, who were concerned about the impact of drinking on labor productivity.

In 1919, a year before Prohibition went into effect, Cleveland had 1,200 legal bars. By 1923, the city had an estimated 3,000 illegal speakeasies, along with 10,000 stills.

Prohibition also fostered corruption and contempt for law and law enforcement among large segments of the population.

Al Capone's Chicago organization reportedly took in $60 million in 1927 and had half the city's police on its payroll.

Homicides increased in many cities, partly as a result of gang wars, but also because of an increase in drunkenness.

Prohibition devastated the nation's brewing industry. St. Louis had 22 breweries before Prohibition. Only nine reopened after Prohibition ended in 1933. Anheiser-Busch made it through Prohibition by making ice cream, near beer, corn syrup, ginger ale, root beer, yeast, malt extract, refrigerated cabinets, and automobile and truck bodies.

The jobs and tax revenue that a legal liquor industry would generate looked attractive as the country entered the Great Depression.

The noble experiment ended at 3:32 p.m., December 5, 1933, when Utah became the 36th state to ratify the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition. By then, even some proponents admitted that the 18th Amendment resulted in "evil consequences."

From:
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=441

From 1878 to 1919 would have been more than enough time to phase in full voting power for American women. Perhaps too much was sought in 1878 and too little obtained.

[klook]

7. Wow, and they didn't even have to prove their worth by fighting in the military first. (n/t)

[left coaster]

16. No, instead they gave birth to all of the future soldiers/cannon fodder. nt

[William769]

8. And it's been down hill ever since!

For men that want to keep women barefoot & pregnant.

[eShirl]

10. Only 70+ years after Seneca Falls!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_Falls_Convention

"The Seneca Falls Convention was an early and influential women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, July 19–20, 1848. It was organized by local New York women upon the occasion of a visit by Boston-based Lucretia Mott, a Quaker famous for her speaking ability, a skill rarely cultivated by American women at the time. The local women, primarily members of a radical Quaker group, organized the meeting along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a skeptical non-Quaker who followed logic more than religion." -snip-


(forgive my math today, recovering from a migraine)

[Book Lover]

11. Today, in 1919, the right of women to vote was recognized, and returned to the women of New Jersey

There, fixed that for ya.

[woo me with science]

21. Nice job. nt

[lunatica]

12. And Republicans are still throwing tantrums over it

[ensho]

24. kick

nt

[Warpy]

13. We weren't "given" a damned thing

Women like my grandmother and great grandmother fought like hell for the right to determine their political futures and they did it in corsets.

Women were beaten, starved, and jailed until the shame was too great for this country to endure.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

14. Watch "Shoulder to Shoulder"

An historical drama that ran on Masterpiece Theater on PBS, about Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst and their struggles to bring suffrage to British women.

They were jailed, force-fed, beaten and humiliated. The battle to get the vote for women was long and violent for British women.


Woodrow Wilson, who was president when the amendment was ratified, was against womens' suffrange and so was his wife, Edith.

[Warpy]

20. Because of what happened in Britain

(where women died from it), they never force fed American Suffragettes.

They did everything else, though.

Wilson was a pig along with most other men in government at the time. They had to be shamed into doing the right thing along with being abused by husbands whose wives and daughters had been mistreated.

[treestar]

18. When you come right down to it

It was. Mostly male legislators (voted in by the all male vote) voted for this to happen. There's no reason not to give credit to people who did the right thing.

[ensho]

25. true and then some

nt

[MineralMan]

15. Actually, their right to vote was officially recognized.

Rights cannot be given. They can only be suppressed or not interfered with.

[Boojatta]

22. .

:kick:

[barbtries]

26. i always thought the date was august 26, 1920

and i know i didn't just make it up because august 26 is my birthday...

found it
"In 1920, the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing American women the right to vote, was declared in effect." it was the day we actually began to be allowed to vote.

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/on-this-day/#august

[struggle4progress]

27. I've thought about this a lot, and I've decided I'm in favor of women voting