The Women's Rights Movement

The Women’s Rights Movement that officially started at Seneca Falls in 1848 continued on to build women’s equality for decades to follow and positively impacted women’s roles in society to this day. The Women’s Right Movement officially started at a convention in 1848, but was at its strongest point in the 1900s. This entire movement was started by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. These two women created the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA), which pushed its efforts toward changing federal laws to include women in the fifteenth amendment.
The Women’s Rights Movement slowed its momentum in the 1880s because the NWSA had trouble getting funds to persuade male politicians to support the organization. The turning point came

in the late 1880s and early 1890s, when the nation experienced a surge of volunteerism among middle-class women—activists in progressive causes, members of women’s clubs and professional societies, temperance advocates, and participants in local civic and charity organizations. The women active in the movement became more determined to spread the movement and soon formed the Nation American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Shortly after this association was formed, some states began supporting women’s suffrage. However, only four states allowed women to vote. The movement rapidly grew in the time between 1910 and 1914 when more states adopted the idea of women voting, including Washington, California, Arizona, Kansas, and Oregon. Illinois’ women gained the right to vote after Ruth McCormick gained the right for women. In Illinois, future Congresswoman Ruth Hanna McCormick of Illinois helped lead the fight for suffrage as a lobbyist in Springfield when the state legislature granted women the right to vote in 1913.
The National Women’s Party was formed in 1913 by Alice Paul who was a Quaker activist. This party organized large rallies and marches to try to gain support for the Women’s Movement. Soon after President Woodrow Wilson urged Congress to pass a voting rights amendment, the movement progressed in 1917 when Jeanette Rankin was sworn into the 65th Congress. Rankin became known as the first woman to serve in the national legislature. “Catt’s steady strategy of securing voting rights state by state and Paul’s vocal and partisan protest campaign coincided with the Wilson administration’s decision to intervene in the First World War, a development that provided compelling rhetoric and a measure of expediency for granting the vote.” Carrie Chapman Catt was a former suffragist and a former president of the NAWSA. Women activists argued that the failure to extend the vote to women might restrain their participation in the war effort just when they were needed the most to play a greater role as workers and volunteers outside of their homes. The House of Representatives listened to these ideas and finally passed a voting rights amendment on January 10, 1918. However, the Senate did not vote the approval of the amendment until after the war. The amendment was all-together approved in 1919, and ratified on August 26, 1920. The 20th Amendment provided full voting rights for women throughout the United States.
However, after women gained the right to vote, the movement did not end there.

This successful phase of the Women’s Rights Movement set insight for the ability for a woman to hold a position of power in the national political office. Even with the right to vote independently, women’s choices still shadowed in the footsteps of the men in their families which made it all the more difficult for women to sustain power in a political party. “Not only did they face institutional prejudices but nearly three quarters of the first generation were dependent of their husbands or fathers for positions.” However, even with this pattern, the new women in Congress paved the way for the century-long fight to expand women’s roles in the

government.
Thirty-six women entered Congress for the first time between 1935 and 1954.

Over these twenty years, women made large advances especially in the workforce and the military. Shortly after WWII started, men were being sent overseas and away from the job positions they originally held. This created a demand for workers and an opportunity for women to work a job outside of the home front. Women not only took over for the men in factories, but they also played a role in the military. For the first time ever, women were being paid for working a man’s job. With a need for nurses and pilots in the military, women were able to take these roles and change warfare in society forever. In the span of these same twenty years, women were appointed to more powerful positions on political committees. These committees had say in important matters such as agricultural issues and issues within the military. Some women even became national figures who spoke out for their committees and parties. The idea that women’s jobs were taking care of the family was long overcome by the women who took stand in the workforce. Without the women in the workforce during the war, the United States probably would not have won the war. After the war, it was suggested that women should be eligible for future drafts. Those who joined the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) flew planes from the factories to military bases. Some were killed in combat or captured as prisoners of war. Over sixteen hundred female

nurses received various decorations for courage under fire.
In 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment, which had languished in Congress for almost fifty years, was finally passed and sent to the states for ratification. The wording of the ERA was simple: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” This just shows how far the Women’s Movement progressed from the start to this point in society. At the start of the movement, women were not active in the workforce, married at a young age, and were only thought to be responsible of the family. The movement advanced women’s equality in ways that would not be possible if women followed the rules. Women saw that the equality level was not at all fair, and they took a chance and overall made major changes to the way society looked at women.