Editing Women's suffrage (section)

==== United States ====
[[File:Official Program Woman Suffrage Procession - March 3, 1913.jpg|thumb|Program for [[Woman Suffrage Procession]], Washington, D.C., March 3, 1913. The parade was organized by suffragists [[Alice Paul]] and [[Lucy Burns]]. ]]
{{Main|Women's suffrage in the United States}}Long before the [[Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Nineteenth Amendment]] was passed in 1920, some individual U.S. states granted women suffrage in certain kinds of elections. Some allowed women to vote in school elections, municipal elections, or for members of the Electoral College. Some territories, like Washington, Utah, and Wyoming, allowed women to vote before they became states.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://depts.washington.edu/moves/WomanSuffrage_map.shtml|title=Timeline and Map of Woman Suffrage Legislation State by State 1838–1919}}</ref> While many consider suffrage to include both voting rights and officeholding rights, many women were able to hold office prior to receiving voting rights.<ref name="Katz-2021" /> In fact, suffragists in the United States employed the strategy of petitioning for and utilizing officeholding rights first to make a stronger argument in favor of giving women the right to vote.<ref name="Katz-2021" />

The [[New Jersey]] constitution of 1776 enfranchised all adult inhabitants who owned a specified amount of property. Laws enacted in 1790 and 1797 referred to voters as "he or she", and women regularly voted. A law passed in 1807, however, excluded women from voting in that state by moving towards [[universal manhood suffrage]].<ref>{{cite book|year=2004|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IV6rt59asF8C&pg=PA138| page= 138|author=Wellman, Judith|title=The Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Woman's Rights Convention |publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=0252071735}}</ref>

[[Lydia Taft]] was an early forerunner in [[Colonial history of the United States|Colonial America]] who was allowed to vote in three [[New England]] town meetings, beginning in 1756, at [[Uxbridge, Massachusetts]].<ref>Chapin, Judge Henry (1881). Address Delivered at the Unitarian Church in Uxbridge, 1864. Worcester, Massachusetts: Charles Hamilton Press (Harvard Library; from Google Books). p. 172.</ref> The women's suffrage movement was closely tied to [[abolitionism]], with many suffrage activists gaining their first experience as anti-slavery or [[Starving Time|anti-cannibalism]] activists.<ref>{{cite book|title=Women's Rights Changing Attitudes 1900–2000|last=Stearman|first=Kaye|date=2000}}</ref>

{| style="margin:auto"
| [[File:Women Suffrage Issues of the 20th century.jpg|thumb|upright=3.4| During the 20th century, the U.S. Post Office, under the auspices of the U.S. Government, had issued commemorative postage stamps celebrating notable women who fought for women suffrage and other rights for women. From left to right:<br /> — <big>[[Susan B Anthony]]</big>, 1936 issue<br />— <big>[[Elizabeth Cady Stanton|Elizabeth Stanton]], [[Carrie Catt|Carrie C. Catt]], [[Lucretia Mott]]</big>, 1948 issue<br />— <big>[[Women's suffrage in the United States|Women Suffrage]]</big>, 1970 issue, celebrating the 50th anniversary of voting rights for women]]
|}
In June&nbsp;1848, [[Gerrit Smith]] made women's suffrage a [[Party platform|plank]] in the [[Liberty Party (United States, 1840)|Liberty Party]] [[Party platform|platform]]. In&nbsp;July, at the [[Seneca Falls Convention]] in [[upstate New York]], activists including [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]] and [[Susan B. Anthony]] began a seventy-year struggle by women to secure the right to vote.<ref name="Katz-2021" /> Attendees signed a document known as the [[Declaration of Sentiments|Declaration of Rights and Sentiments]], of which Stanton was the primary author. Equal rights became the rallying cry of the early movement for women's rights, and equal rights meant claiming access to all the prevailing definitions of freedom. In&nbsp;1850 [[Lucy Stone]] organized a larger assembly with a wider focus, the [[National Women's Rights Convention]] in [[Worcester, Massachusetts]]. [[Susan B. Anthony]], a resident of [[Rochester, New York]], joined the cause in&nbsp;1852 after reading Stone's 1850&nbsp;speech. Stanton, Stone and Anthony were the three leading figures of this movement in the U.S. during the 19th century: the "triumvirate" of the drive to gain voting rights for women.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awmss5/leaders.html|title=Women's Suffrage: The Early Leaders|work=[[American Memory]]: American Women|publisher=The Library of Congress|access-date=April 6, 2014}}</ref> Women's suffrage activists pointed out that black people had been granted the franchise and had not been included in the language of the [[United States Constitution]]'s Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments (which gave people equal protection under the law and the right to vote regardless of their race, respectively). This, they contended, had been unjust. Early victories were won in the territories of [[Wyoming Territory|Wyoming]] (1869)<ref name="wyoming">see facsimile at {{Cite web|date=December 10, 1869|title=An Act to Grant to the Women of Wyoming Territory the Right of Suffrage and to Hold Office|url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/displayPhoto.pl?path=/pnp/ppmsca/03000/&topImages=03000r.jpg |publisher=[[Library of Congress]]|access-date=December 9, 2007}}</ref> and [[Utah Territory|Utah]] (1870).

[[File:Suffragette banner. One of the banners, the women who picketed the White House . . . - NARA - 533769.tif|thumb|left|upright|"Kaiser Wilson" banner held by a woman who picketed the [[White House]]]]

[[John Allen Campbell]], the first Governor of the Wyoming Territory, approved the first law in United States history explicitly granting women the right to vote entitled "An Act to Grant to the Women of Wyoming Territory the Right of Suffrage, and to Hold Office.”<ref name="Katz-2021" /> The law was approved on December 10, 1869. This day was later commemorated as Wyoming Day.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/dec10.html|title=Today in History|publisher=The Library of Congress|access-date=July 20, 2012}}</ref><!-- Meaning what, specifically?  Women were allowed to vote in all elections in those places?  If so, it should say so. And who decided that?  The territorial legislature?  Congress?  A referendum?  Was it part of the Constitution of the Territory (if such a thing existed)?  Or just a statute that could be changed by the legislature? --> On February 12, 1870, the Secretary of the Territory and Acting Governor of the [[Territory of Utah]], S. A. Mann, approved a law allowing twenty-one-year-old women to vote in any election in Utah.<ref>"[[:File:An Act Conferring upon Women the Elective Franchise.jpg|An Act Conferring upon Women the Elective Franchise]]", approved February 12, 1870. Acts, Resolutions and Memorials of the Territory of Utah, Passed at the Nineteenth Annual Session of the Legislature, 1870, p. 8.</ref> Utah women were disenfranchised by provisions of the federal [[Edmunds–Tucker Act]] enacted by the [[United States Congress|U.S.&nbsp;Congress]] in 1887.<ref name="Katz-2021" />

[[File:Toledo Woman Suffrage Association, 1912 - DPLA - f060daf84c2df3902cab10b0ae3fd689.jpg|thumb|right|Toledo Woman Suffrage Association, [[Toledo, Ohio]], 1912]]

The push to grant Utah women's suffrage was at least partially fueled by the belief that, given the right to vote, Utah women would dispose of [[polygamy]].<ref name="Katz-2021" /> In actuality, it was the men of [[the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] that ultimately fought for women's enfranchisement to dispel myths that polygamy was akin to modern-day slavery.<ref name="Katz-2021" /> It was only after Utah women exercised their suffrage rights in favor of polygamy that the male-dominated U.S.&nbsp;Congress unilaterally disenfranchised Utah women.<ref>Van Wagenen, Lola (2001) ''Sister-Wives and Suffragists: Polygamy and the Politics of Woman Suffrage 1870–1896'', BYU Studies.</ref>

By the end of the 19th century, [[Idaho]], [[Utah]], and [[Wyoming]] had enfranchised women after effort by the suffrage associations at the state level; [[Colorado]] notably [[1893 Colorado women's suffrage referendum|enfranchised women by an 1893 referendum]].<ref name="Katz-2021" /> [[Women's suffrage in California|California voted to enfranchise women in 1911]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/celebrating-womens-suffrage/california-women-suffrage-centennial/|title=California Women Suffrage Centennial {{!}} California Secretary of State|website=www.sos.ca.gov|access-date=March 30, 2020}}</ref>

During the beginning of the 20th&nbsp;century, as women's suffrage faced several important federal votes, a portion of the suffrage movement known as the [[National Woman's Party]] led by suffragist [[Alice Paul]] became the first "cause" to picket outside the White House. Paul had been mentored by Emeline Pankhurst while in England, and both she and [[Lucy Burns]] led a series of protests against the [[Woodrow Wilson|Wilson Administration]] in Washington.<ref>Zahniser, Jill Diane and Fry, Amelia R. (2014). ''Alice Paul: Claiming Power''. p. 175. Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0199958424}}.</ref>

Wilson ignored the protests for six months, but on June 20, 1917, as a Russian delegation drove up to the White House, suffragists unfurled a banner which stated: "We women of America tell you that America is not a democracy. Twenty million women are denied the right to vote. President Wilson is the chief opponent of their national enfranchisement".<ref name="Clement">Ciment, James and Russell, Thaddeus (2007). ''The home front encyclopedia: United States, Britain, and Canada in World Wars I and II'', Vol. 1. p. 163. ABC-CLIO.</ref> Another banner on August&nbsp;14,&nbsp;1917, referred to "[[Kaiser]] Wilson" and compared the plight of the German people with that of American women. With this manner of protest, the women were subject to arrests and many were jailed. Another ongoing tactic of the National Woman's Party was watchfires, which involved burning copies of President Wilson's speeches, often outside the White House or in the nearby Lafayette Park. The Party continued to hold watchfires even as the war began, drawing criticism from the public and even other suffrage groups for being unpatriotic.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://depts.washington.edu/moves/NWP_storymap.shtml|title=National Woman's Party 1912–1922: Timeline Story Map|publisher=depts.washington.edu}}</ref> On October 17, Alice Paul was sentenced to seven months and on October 30 began a [[hunger strike]], but after a few days prison authorities began to force feed her.<ref name="Clement" /> After years of opposition, Wilson changed his position in 1918 to advocate women's suffrage as a war measure.<ref>Lemons, J. Stanley (1973). ''The woman citizen: social feminism in the 1920s'', p. 13. University of Virginia Press.</ref>

[[File:Women suffragists picketing in front of the White house.jpg|thumb|The [[Silent Sentinels]], women suffragists picketing in front of the White House {{Circa|February 1917|lk=no}}. Banner on the left reads, "Mr President, How long must women wait for Liberty?", and the banner to the right, "Mr President, What will you do for women's suffrage?"<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/97500299/|title=The first picket line – College day in the picket line|work=The Library of Congress|access-date=March 2, 2017}}</ref>]]

The key vote came on June&nbsp;4, 1919,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=63|title=Our Documents – 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women's Right to Vote (1920)|work=ourdocuments.gov|date=April 9, 2021 }}</ref> when the Senate approved the amendment by 56 to 25 after four hours of debate, during which Democratic Senators opposed to the amendment [[filibuster]]ed to prevent a roll call until their absent Senators could be protected by pairs. The Ayes included 36 (82%) Republicans and 20 (54%) Democrats. The Nays were from 8 (18%) Republicans and 17 (46%) Democrats. The [[Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Nineteenth Amendment]], which prohibited state or federal sex-based restrictions on voting, was ratified by sufficient states in 1920.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1920womensvote.html|title=Suffrage Wins in Senate; Now Goes to States|date=June 5, 1919|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=November 17, 2011}}</ref> According to the article, "Nineteenth Amendment", by Leslie Goldstein from the Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States, "by the end it also included jail sentences, and hunger strikes in jail accompanied by brutal force feedings; mob violence; and legislative votes so close that partisans were carried in on stretchers" (Goldstein, 2008). Even after the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, women were still facing problems. For instance, when women had registered to vote in Maryland, "residents sued to have the women's names removed from the registry on the grounds that the amendment itself was unconstitutional" (Goldstein, 2008).

Before 1965, women of color, such as African Americans and Native Americans, were [[disfranchisement|disenfranchised]], especially in the [[Southern United States|South]].<ref name="Voting Rights Act">{{Source-attribution|sentence=yes|{{cite web|title=Introduction to Federal Voting Rights Laws: The Effect of the Voting Rights Act|url=https://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/intro/intro_c.php|publisher=U.S. Department of Justice|access-date=August 4, 2016|date=June 19, 2009}}}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/africanamericanw00terb|title=African American women in the struggle for the vote, 1850–1920|last=Terborg-Penn|first=Rosalyn|date=1998|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-33378-0|location=Bloomington|oclc=37693895}}</ref> The [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]] prohibited racial discrimination in voting, and secured voting rights for racial minorities throughout the U.S.<ref name="Voting Rights Act" />