Women'S Suffrage &Amp; The Nineteenth Amendment

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Women's Suffrage & the Nineteenth Amendment American women gained the right to vote on August 26, 1920, with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, after fighting one of the largest civil rights battles in United States history. The suffrage movement began in 1848 at a convention in Seneca Falls, New York, but women had been voicing their frustrations for generations, with the earliest publicly recorded declaration of women's rights dating back to the time of the American Revolution. Early Suffragists The earliest form of the women's suffrage movement was evident in post-revolutionary America, but women's freedom to enact reform was consistently repressed. Women were considered inferior to men, and activists were forced to hold their meetings in secret. By the nineteenth century, suffragists began working alongside the abolitionist movement, which was dedicated to ending slavery. However, due to public prejudice against feminism, women were granted limited power among the abolitionists. During debates, for example, women were often denied the opportunity to speak, and were seated in the back of the room. Growing discouraged and frustrated, suffragists disassociated themselves from the abolitionist and temperance movements, and began to organize their own crusade, dedicated solely to women's rights. Among the most prominent figures of the early women's movement were Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), Lucretia Mott (1793-1880), Lucy Stone (1818-1893), Abbey Kelly Foster (1810-1887), and Ernestine P. Ross (1810-1892). Male supporters of women's suffrage included clergymen Henry Ward Beecher, abolitionist orator Wendell Phillips, and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson. The first formal assembly of the women's rights movement took place in Seneca Falls, New York, in July 1848. Elizabeth Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the
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