Dbq Women Equality

As early as 1848 women began forming a movement for gender equality, but not until the late 1800s and early 1900s did this movement gain significant recognition throughout the United States. As the fight for gender equality grew, compromises were made, rights were recognized, and reform progressed onward. Though it took almost three-quarters of a century, since the Seneca Falls movement in 1848, women’s rights reached a milestone as they gained the right to vote in 1920, but this was no small fight won. When feminists first gathered in Seneca Falls in 1848, they had full equality for women on their minds, with little approval or support from anyone. Many of these first feminists were avid supporters of equality for all, which many viewed

The Declaration went on the challenge every social idea of the women’s proper place. With these extreme ideas, the feminist movement did not see much change in government and society or a significant increase in support until, the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were passed without recognition for the right for women to vote. Though many feminists still fought for full equality, many began to focus on women’s suffrage as the beginning of a new era. As women’s suffrage came more into focus, the argumentative reasons for women’s equality and rights began to look at the differences between men and women, and not their similarities. Suffragists described women as being spiritual creatures that could

Organizations, such as the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, began to push for a new amendment with their “Winning Plan”. This plan was set in place by Carrie Chapman Catt, in which state efforts would reinforce federal efforts, in a way that for every local victory additional congressmen and senators would be persuaded to vote in favor of women’s suffrage. As Carrie and other suffragists put the “Winning Plan” place, they began to more states grant women’s suffrage, and as local governments continued to do so Carrie began to focus on Washington D.C., but most importantly the president, Woodrow Wilson. By the time a new Congress convened in 1919, twenty-six states were petitioning to enact a federal amendment for the women’s suffrage, and when putting it to a vote it looked as if there was never any contention over subject. With votes in the House at 304 to 90 and in the Senate 56 to 25, the Nineteenth Amendment was passed in Congress, then fourteen months later it became a law, as Tennessee was the thirty-sixth state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to