100th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage : Brief History and Fascinating, Free Resources

This month FFF is honoring 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which was ratified and then certified as an amendment on Aug. 26, 1920 in the United States. This post will cover American women, but if you’re curious about other countries for comparison, this site dates Europe’s suffrage timeline and offers a global suffrage timeline.

Of course, the history of American women’s suffrage is much more complex than this date alone. For one thing, many women voted before they were legally able to, like the three women below in 1917. Some were infamously arrested, like Susan B. Anthony, but others, like Mary Ann Shadd Cary (below), were successful.

“Calm about it. At Fifty-sixth and Lexington Avenue, the women voters showed no ignorance or trepidation, but cast their ballots in a businesslike way that bespoke study of suffrage.” National Photo Company Collection (Library of Congress). National Photo Company Collection / Public domain

African American educator, writer, abolitionist, and lawyer. She was the first African American newspaper editor in North America and successfully voted before 1920. 1800s, National Archive of Canada, Unknown author / Public Domain