The Final Stretch

I’ve told you all about the events leading up to the final vote but I haven’t actually told you how they essentially got it approved.

            In 1910 some states in the West began to extend the vote to women for the first time in almost 20 years. Many suffragists argued that women should receive the vote as a war measure. Women’s suffrage would prove that the allies were fighting for democracy. In 1916 NAWSA president Carrie Chapman Catt revealed her “Winning Plan” which was a blitz campaign that mobilized state and local suffrage organizations all over the country. There was another group that focused on more militant tactics including hunger strikes and White House pickets. WW1 slowed the suffragists’ campaign but helped them advance in there argument.

In 1918 President Wilson announced he his support for the women’s suffrage amendment. That year South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Michigan gave women the right. Authorization was repeatedly defeated in the Senate. One member of Congress left his wife’s deathbed to vote and when he had gotten back home she was dead.

To become part of the Constitution, the amendment had to be approved by 36 states. West Virginia became the 34^th state by a single vote and Washington soon followed. Tennessee was the most likely state to be the deciding factor. The decisive vote was cast by there youngest member who had earlier changes his vote because of his mother’s reasoning. The measure passed 49 votes to 47 votes. They became the 36^th state to ratify.

And on August 26, 1930, the 19^th Amendment was added to the Constitution of the United States.