Delaware Public Archives (DPA) logo

Women's Vote Centennial

Women voting

Celebrate, Educate and Continue



"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."

the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution



The 19th Amendment was one of the most impactful expansion of democracy in the history of the United States of America. The Women's Suffrage Movement and along with the Woman Suffrage Procession on Washington, D.C. on March 3rd 1913, removed obstacles to voting for women along with the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Thus, paving the way forward to empowerment of women's rights and issuses throughout various facets of American society.




Women's Vote Suffrage Facts


Fact:

Women's Suffrage Centennial Logo

  The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving women the right to vote in America, was first proposed and rejected in 1878, then reintroduced every year for the next 41 years. In 1984, Mississippi became the last state to ratify it.

Fact:

Women's Suffrage Centennial Logo

  In 1797, New Jersey temporarily granted voting rights to unwed women. For the next 10 years, single women were permitted to cast ballots. Married women weren’t given this privilege because their husbands legally controlled every piece of property they owned.

Fact:

Women's Suffrage Centennial Logo

  Not all suffrage opponents were men. Alice Hay Wadsworth was among the most prominent women to denounce what became the 19th amendment. Wadsworth was the former president of the National Association Opposed to Women’s Suffrage and the wife of Senator James Wolcott Wadsworth, Jr., Republican of New York.

Fact:

Women's Suffrage Centennial Logo

  Eight days after the 19th amendment was ratified, 10 million women joined the electorate.



yellow rose

Women’s Suffrage Photo Gallery

Florence Bayard Hilles
Mary Ann Shadd Cary
Nettie Tappan Horn of Rehoboth DE Suffragist
The Women’s Political Union organizes the first suffrage parade in New York City in the year 1910.
The hikers taking a break and talking to a few local residents earlier today at the Deer Park Hotel in Newark, Delaware. (February 20th, 1913)
Ida B. Wells marching in 1913
Inez Milholland Boissevain preparing to lead the suffrage parade in Washington D.C. on March 3rd, 1913
Jeannette Rankin of Montana is the first woman elected to the House of Representatives. Woodrow Wilson states that the Democratic Party platform will support suffrage. Congress woman Jeannette Rankin speaks from the NAWSA headquarters in 1917.
Lucy Burns, Vice Chairman of the Congressional Union. Photo was taken in 1913.
Suffragist Lucy Branham in an Occoquan Prison dress in 1919. Branham was speaking at an outdoor meeting during the National Woman’s Party “Prison Special” tour. She is above a large crowd, wearing a prison dress and suffrage sash, with a suffrage flag and camera on a tripod right behind her.
Mabel Vernon and Sara Bard Field in the automobile in which they crossed the country in 1915. The women were involved in a transcontinental tour which gathers over a half-million signatures on petitions to Congress.
In 1911, the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage is organized. This organization is led by Mrs. Arthur Dodge, its members included wealthy, influential women, some Catholic clergymen, distillers and brewers, urban political machines, Southern Congressmen, and corporate capitalists.
The National Woman’s Party activists watch as Alice Paul sews a start onto the NWP Ratification flag, representing another state’s ratification of the 19th Amendment.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony found the National Woman Suffrage Association, a more radical institution, to achieve the vote through a Constitutional amendment as well as push for other woman’s rights issues. NWSA was based in New York.
Nineteenth Amendment Passes in the Senate and the ratification process begins. Gov. Sproul of Pennsylvania is signing the Suffrage Amendment
Susan B. Anthony casts her ballot for Ulysses S. Grant in the presidential election of 1872 and is arrested and brought to trial in Rochester, New York. Fifteen other women are arrested for illegally voting. Sojourner Truth appears at a polling booth in Battle Creek, Michigan, demanding a ballot to vote; she is turned away.
Sojourner Truth, a former slave, delivers her memorable “Ain’t I a woman?” speech at a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio.
Suffrage envoys from San Francisco greeted in New Jersey on their way to Washington D.C. to present a petition to Congress. The petition contained more than 500,000 signatures.
Mary Winsor (Pennsylvania) holding a Suffrage Prisoners banner in 1917
Twenty thousand suffrage supporters join a New York City suffrage Parade on May 6th, 1912.

1 2






Celebrate the Women’s Suffrage Centennial by making sure you’re registered to vote.


All Delawareans are encouraged to register to vote or update their registration at ivote.de.gov.




Learn More