Women's Right to Vote

Essay by Anonymous UserHigh School, 12th gradeA+, September 1996

download word file, 3 pages 3.2

The women's suffrage movement began in 1848 when a group of women met in

Seneca Falls New York. These women issued what became known as the Declaration of

Sentiments and Resolution s, and 11 pt. document outlining the demand for equal rights.

Al of the articles of the Declaration passed except for the right to vote. It was widely

believed at that time, that women were both physically and mentally inferior to men, and

therefore should not have the right to vote. The Seneca Falls convention was organized

by a group of women who had been active in the antislavery movement. When they were

rejected as delegates to an abolitionist convention because of their sex, they vowed to turn

their attention to women's rights. This convention attracted lots of attention from the

press, mostly negative. One of the organizers, Elizabeth cady Stanton, welcomed even the

negative attention. She said "It might start women thinking; and men to; when men and

women think about a new question they the first step is taken.

Because of their involvement in the abolitionist movement, women had learned to

organize, to hold public meetings, and conduct petition campaigns. As abolitionists,

women first won the right to speak in public, and they began to evolve a philosophy of

their own place in society. When the 15th amendment, which gave black men the power

to vote, was passed women became furious. Julia Ward Howe said "For the first time, we

saw... every Negro man govern every white woman. This seemed to me intollerable

tyranny."

After the fifteenth amendment was passed, the women's suffrage movement

turned its attention towards gaining the right to vote state by state. Susan B. Anthony, a

leader in the movement, met a wealthy businessman named George Francis Train while

campaigning in Kansas. He...