One hundred years ago this week, on June 4, 1919, the U.S. Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would guarantee women the right to vote, and sent it on to the states for ratification (which took another 14 months). The battle for women’s suffrage in the United States had been taking place for years—in Congress, in the streets, and at home—with supporters organizing demonstrations, petitions, parades, and speeches, and coordinating with fellow activists in England, France, and other countries. Gathered below, images of some of the brave women who worked tirelessly for years to demand equal rights, and finally succeeded by having them written into law.
Photos: The Battle for Women’s Suffrage in the U.S.
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The suffragist Aimee Hutchinson speaks to a crowd. Hutchinson, a New York Catholic-school teacher, was dismissed from her job for attending the 1912 suffrage parade. #
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The suffragist Alice Paul in a 1913 photograph. Paul was born in New Jersey, earned a master's and doctorate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, then traveled to England and became friends with members of the women's-suffrage movement there. She soon became very active herself, and on returning to the United States soon after, joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Her first action as part of the NAWSA was to organize a massive parade in Washington, D.C., to promote a new constitutional amendment that would guarantee women's right to vote in the United States. #
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Suffragists on a bus in New York City, part of the suffrage hike to Washington, D.C., which joined the March 3, 1913, National American Woman Suffrage Association parade #
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A March 3, 1913, photo taken at the suffrage parade showing the marchers (left to right) Mrs. Russell McLennan, Mrs. Althea Taft, Mrs. Lew Bridges, Mrs. Richard Coke Burleson, Alberta Hill, and Miss F. Ragsdale #
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Original caption: October 22, 1913—Women of Political Union starting off an Army and Navy day electioneering tour of Brooklyn. Mildred Tailor, Jane Pincus, Eliz Aldrich, Mrs. Buxton, Mrs. L. E. Carson, and Beatrice Brawn. #
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The German actress Hedwig Reicher wears the costume of "Columbia," with other suffrage-pageant participants standing in background, in front of the Treasury building in Washington, D.C., on March 3, 1913. The performance was part of the larger suffrage parade of 1913. #
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More than 25,000 women marched in New York City on October 23, 1915, advocating equal suffrage. Here, representatives of California, Wyoming, and Montana—three of the U.S. states in which women had already been granted the franchise. #
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Original caption: February 24, 1916—Left to right: Mrs. Charles S. Whitman, wife of the Governor of New York, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, and Mrs. Norman de R. Whitehouse, Chairman of the New York State Suffrage Party, photographed at the Harris Theatre in New York #
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Three hundred delegates of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage gather on the steps of the Capitol in 1915. They were received by the president after presenting their petitions. #
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Lucy Burns, photographed in jail after a suffragette picket in Washington, D.C. Burns was imprisoned four times over the years for her activism, and is believed to have served the most time in jail of any suffragette. #
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Suffragettes hold a jubilee celebrating the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Melanie Lowenthal was one of the leaders of the demonstration celebrating the dawn of political equality. #
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