educed to its simplest definition and elevated to its highest ideal, democracy is the power of the people. The ability to vote, however, has not always been a reality for everyone in our country. It was not until 1920 (a mere 85 years ago) that the passage of the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote. This breakthrough for social equality was the result of more than 50 years of activism by the early suffragettes. Vigils, protests, speeches, essays, civil disobedience, hunger strikes, lobbying, organizing, and

every other form of activism imaginable was used by these remarkable women; their unconventional, avant-garde, and sometimes shocking actions successfully convinced the United States Congress that our Constitution should be amended to allow women to vote. The women who made it their life’s ambition to ensure both genders the right to vote changed our country forever. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. Every time we exercise our right to vote, we honor their lives, their sacrifices, and their mission to strengthen our democracy.

Lucretia Mott
(1793-1880)

One of the early suffragettes, Lucretia Mott had a burning passion for social justice. Her initial mission was fighting for the abolition of slavery. In acts of civil disobedience, she refused to purchase slave-made goods in addition to allowing runaway slaves to live in her home. Brimming with passion to confront the injustice of gender inequality as well, she helped form the soul of the women’s rights movement before most Americans even considered the concept of women’s suffrage. Lucretia Mott theorized the idea of holding the first-ever women’s rights convention; subsequently, Mott and her fellow suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls in 1848. To preface this historic event, Mott and Stanton wrote a Declaration of Sentiments that mocked the grand words but false promises of the Declaration of Independence. The women’s parody revealed the cruel irony of the original document by declaring, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.” After the Civil War, she was elected President of the American Equal Rights Convention. She continued to fight for women’s rights until her death in 1880.

Sojourner Truth
(1797-1883)

Born into slavery and subjected to the cruelties of racism and sexism early in her life, Sojourner Truth had the first-hand experience to justify her stirring calls for reform. She married a fellow slave named Thomas Dumont and the pair fled New York before the state emancipated its slaves in 1827. She became a passionate advocate for the two segments of the U.S. population that were arguably the most oppressed at this point in history. In 1851, she gave her famous speech “Ain’t I a Woman?” in Akron, Ohio at a women’s rights convention. She continued her fight by supporting black regiments fighting in the Civil War. Taking her pleas to the highest office in the land, Sojourner Truth met President Abraham Lincoln at the White House in 1864. While there, she challenged the virulent segregation that pervaded society at the time. She continued her advocacy and had the courage to preach for civil rights and women’s rights in front of largely white audiences. Her self-confidence and integrity made her driving force in the fledgling women’s rights movement of the 19 th century.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
(1815-1902)

The ability to vote was her dream and she did everything she could to make her hopes a reality. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the earliest suffragettes, campaigning for women’s rights because of her profound conviction that women were equal to men in every respect. Stanton met leading suffragette Susan B. Anthony in 1851 and the two of them formed an indomitable team that would fight for women’s rights throughout their lives. She became President of the National Woman Suffrage Association after the Civil War and continued giving speeches in which she called on the public to protest the injustice of masculine domination. She had a flair for the controversial, often criticizing organized religion for the subordination of women in society. She worked all her life toward the goal of woman suffrage only to die before the 19 th Amendment to the Constitution had been passed in Congress. However, it is obvious today that she played a significant role in the passage of that amendment even though she died before it occurred.

Susan B. Anthony
(1820-1906)

Susan B. Anthony dedicated her life to attaining equal voting rights for women in America. She first rallied public support by going door-to-door with suffrage petitions. Little did she know that her personal passion would sweep the country like a brushfire. Turning her momentum into a movement, she founded the American Equal Rights Association in 1866. When she attempted to vote in the presidential election of 1872, she was arrested and convicted for breaking the law. True to her moral belief that the vote she cast was a civic duty and not a crime, she refused to pay all fines that the government demanded she owed. She collected over 10,000 signatures and presented them to every Congressional session for 37 years until she died. Upon her death in 1906, many states had individually granted women the right to vote. While the 19 th Amendment to the Constitution was not ratified until 1920, its inevitable success was largely due to the efforts of leading suffragette Susan B. Anthony.

Carrie Chapman Catt
(1859-1947)

Perhaps her greatest legacy is as the founder of the League of Women Voters, the leading organization that fosters political involvement in our democracy. Her legacy of bringing women into the political process resonates strongly 85 years later. Carrie Chapman Catt, a maverick who refused to be deterred by social standards or personal tragedies, fought for the right to vote. In 1883, she became one of the first women in the country to become a school district superintendent. Two years later, she became chairwoman of a committee within the National American Women Suffrage Association (NAWSA), the foremost women’s rights organization in America, in 1895. She began lobbying Congress to pass a Constitutional Amendment granting women the right to vote. In 1900, she replaced Susan B. Anthony as the President of NAWSA. Displaying a fiery zeal for her cause, Carrie Chapman Catt continued lobbying Congress and state legislatures until the passage of the 19 th Amendment in 1920.

Ida B. Wells- Barnett
(1862-1931)

A crusader for social equality and a champion of human rights, Ida B. Wells- Barnett dedicated her life to making the United States the country she knew it could be. She was one of the country’s most staunch advocates of the inherent human rights of every person, regardless of race, gender, or creed. An auspicious precursor to Rosa Parks’ act of civil disobedience 71 years later, Wells-Barnett was told to give up her seat on a train to a white man and sit in the “Jim Crow” car in the back. She refused to leave her seat and was forcibly removed only after clinging to her chair and biting the conductor’s hand. She again encountered venomous hatred and discrimination when, in 1892, three of her close friends were lynched in Tennessee. The atrocity led her to fight even harder for anti-lynching laws and equal rights. In 1913, she marched in the famous Washington, D.C. protest for universal suffrage. She continued her activism all her life and even ran for Congress one year before she died. Her legacy is one of courage and fortitude that reminds all Americans how precious equal rights really are.

Maud Younger
(1870-1936)

A feisty liberal hailing from San Francisco, (imagine that!) Maud Younger energized the latter part of the women’s rights movement with her passion and enthusiasm. She became known as the “millionaire waitress” in San Francisco. She founded the first waitresses’ union in the City and fought for and won California's first eight-hour-day labor law for women. Maud was flamboyant and famous for her stunts. In 1911, she drove the Wage Earners Equal Suffrage League's float-- a wagon pulled by six white horses down Market Street in San Francisco's Labor Day Parade. She was the first and only woman float driver in that parade. Alice Paul recruited Maud to work on passage of the 19 th Amendment—she worked tirelessly on its behalf.

Jeannette Rankin
(1880-1973)

A rebel in every sense of the word, Jeannette joined the suffrage movement while in college at the University of Washington. Her continued involvement led her home state of Montana to grant women the right to vote in 1914. Two years later, she ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and her victory signified the first woman ever to be elected to Congress. She championed the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, leading to its adoption by Congress in 1919. Later she was known for her pacifism and opposition to both World War I and World War II. She was re-elected to Congress on an anti-war platform in 1940 despite the political tide in support of the war. True to her beliefs, she led the over 5,000 women in the “Jeannette Rankin Brigade” through the streets of Washington, D.C. demanding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam at the grand old age of 88.

Mabel Vernon
(1883-1975)

The suffrage efforts of Mabel Vernon helped change public opinion in the United States; women came to be viewed as equal to men and therefore, could not be denied the right to vote any longer. A schoolteacher for many years, Mabel Vernon stopped teaching to fight for women’s rights. Vernon had a reputation for being one of the most militant of the suffragettes. She stood up in a full auditorium and heckled President Wilson while he spoke about freedom. She picketed in front of the White House daily and did time in prison for her activities. Vernon was one of the early suffragettes who lived long enough to see the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.

Alice Paul
(1885-1977)

Alice Paul challenged conventional thought to pressure the government to grant women the right to vote. She organized and participated in mass meetings, parades, vigils, and demonstrations to expose the grave injustice of disenfranchisement. In 1917, Paul’s newly formed National Women’s Party (NWP) staged the first-ever picket in front of the White House to protest President Wilson’s inaction regarding women’s rights. At a subsequent protest, Paul and fellow picketers were arrested for “obstructing traffic” and jailed at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. She led a hunger strike while in prison and was force-fed. Her time in prison, the protests and the consequent media attention put huge pressure on the Wilson Administration and changed the course of history. In 1918, President Wilson announced that a women’s right to vote was immediately necessary as a “war measure.”