What were 3 major events in the womens rights movement?

International Women’s Day celebrates the achievement of women. The theme of this year is #BeBoldForChange, which encourages all of us to play an active role in making gender equality a reality. In January, hundreds of thousands of women attended the Women’s March in the United States. Here’s a look at some of the major accomplishments of the women’s movement over the years:

1850: The Women’s Movement Gets Organized

Two years after the famous Seneca Falls Convention, which helped define what the women’s movement would entail, the first National Women’s Rights Convention took place in Massachusetts. Over 1,000 people attended, and the convention became an annual event.

1893: States Begin to Grant Women the Right to Vote

Colorado becomes the first state to adopt an amendment granting women the right to vote. Utah and Idaho followed in 1896. In 1910, Washington state jumped on board, along with California in 1911, and Kansas, Oregon and Arizona in 1912.

1903: A Union Is Formed for Working Women

The National Women’s Trade Union League was formed to “assist in the organization of women wage workers into trade unions and thereby to help them secure conditions necessary for healthful and efficient work and to obtain a just reward for such work.” The effort bonded women across economic and social divides, attracting “a coalition of working-class women, professional reformers, and women from wealthy and prominent families.”

1916: Women Gain Access to Birth Control

As a nurse in immigrant communities, Margaret Sanger met many women who experienced multiple childbirths, miscarriages and self-induced abortions because they lacked the proper information about how to avoid unwanted pregnancy. She decided to take matters into her own hands, opening up the first family planning and birth control clinic in Brooklyn, New York. While she faced initial challenges with this first clinic, her idea eventually evolved into Planned Parenthood.

1920: The 19th Amendment Becomes Law

Congress finally ratified the 19th Amendment in 1920, granting women across the United States the right to vote and moving one step closer toward equality for women.

1963: Congress Passes the Equal Pay Act

President John F. Kennedy appointed Eleanor Roosevelt chairwoman of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women in 1961, and a report published by the commission in 1963 found “substantial discrimination against women in the workplace.” As a result, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, aimed at eradicating the pay gap between men and women.

1972: Title IX Brings Equal Opportunity to Education

Title IX, now known as the Patsy Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, was authored by Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana. It brought greater educational opportunities to women. The 1964 Civil Rights Act included gender equality, but it left out public education. Title IX had an especially significant impact on American sports because it required high schools and colleges to provide equal opportunities for female athletes. The landmark legislation is credited with greatly increasing the participation of young women in sports.

2013: Ban on Women in Combat Is Lifted

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta petitioned the Joint Chiefs of Staff to reverse a 1994 rule that prevented women from serving in combat. The result? An announcement from Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey that said, “The time has come to rescind the direct combat exclusion rule for women and to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to service.”

1869 National Woman Suffrage Association is founded with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as president. American Woman Suffrage Association is founded with Henry Ward Beecher as president. Wyoming Territory grants suffrage to women.

1870 Utah Territory grants suffrage to women. First issue of the Woman’s Journal is published with Lucy Stone and her husband Henry Blackwell as editors. The 15th amendment to the U. S. Constitution is adopted. The amendment grants suffrage to former male African-American slaves, but not to women. Anthony and Stanton bitterly oppose the amendment, which for the first time explicitly restricts voting rights to “males.” Many of their former allies in the abolitionist movement, including Lucy Stone, support the amendment.

1871 Victoria Woodhull addresses the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives arguing that women have the right to vote under the 14th amendment. The Committee issues a negative report.

1872 In Rochester, NY, Susan B. Anthony registers and votes contending that the 14th amendment gives her that right. Several days later she is arrested.

1873 At Anthony’s trial the judge does not allow her to testify on her own behalf, dismisses the jury, rules her guilty, and fines her $100. She refuses to pay.

1874 In Minor v. Happersett, the Supreme Court decides that citizenship does not give women the right to vote and that women’s political rights are under the jurisdiction of each individual state.

1876 Stanton writes a Declaration and Protest of the Women of the United States to be read at the centennial celebration in Philadelphia. When the request to present the Declaration is denied, Anthony and four other women charge the speakers’ rostrum and thrust the document into the hands of Vice-President Thomas W. Ferry.

1879 Belva Lockwood becomes the first woman lawyer admitted to practice before the Supreme Court.

1880 November 11: Lucretia Mott dies. New York state grants school suffrage to women.

1882 The House of Representatives and the Senate appoint Select Committees on Woman Suffrage.

1885 January 11: Alice Paul is born.

1887 The first three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage, edited by Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, are published.

1888 The International Council for Women is founded and holds its first meeting in Washington, DC.

1890 After several years of negotiations, the NWSA and the AWSA merge to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone as officers. Wyoming joins the union as the first state with voting rights for women. By 1900 women also have full suffrage in Utah, Colorado and Idaho. New Zealand is the first nation to give women suffrage.

1892 Susan B. Anthony becomes president of the NAWSA.

1893 October 18: Lucy Stone dies.

1895 Elizabeth Cady Stanton publishes The Woman’s Bible, a critical examination of the Bible’s teaching about women. The NAWSA censures the work.

1900 Anthony resigns as president of the NAWSA and is succeeded by Carrie Chapman Catt.

1902 October 26: Elizabeth Cady Stanton dies. Women of Australia are enfranchised.

1903 Carrie Chapman Catt resigns as president of the NAWSA and Anna Howard Shaw becomes president.

1906 March 13: Susan B. Anthony dies. Women of Finland are enfranchised.

1907 Harriet Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, founds the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women, later called the Women’s Political Union.

1908 March 8: International Women’s Day is celebrated for the first time.

1910 The Women’s Political Union holds its first suffrage parade in New York City.

1911 National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage is founded.

1912 Suffrage referendums are passed in Arizona, Kansas, and Oregon.

1913 Alice Paul organizes a suffrage parade in Washington, DC, the day of Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration.

1914 Montana and Nevada grant voting rights to women. Alice Paul and Lucy Burns organize the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage. It merges in 1917 with the Woman’s Party to become the National Woman’s Party.

1915 Suffrage referendum in New York State is defeated. Carrie Chapman Catt is elected president of the NAWSA. Women of Denmark are enfranchised.

1916 Jeannette Rankin, a Republican from Montana, is elected to the House of Representatives and becomes the first woman to serve in Congress. President Woodrow Wilson addresses the NAWSA.

1917 Members of the National Woman’s Party picket the White House. Alice Paul and ninety-six other suffragists are arrested and jailed for “obstructing traffic.” When they go on a hunger strike to protest their arrest and treatment, they are force-fed. Women win the right to vote in North Dakota, Ohio, Indiana, Rhode Island, Nebraska, Michigan, New York, and Arkansas.

1918 Women of Austria, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Scotland, and Wales are enfranchised. House of Representatives passes a resolution in favor of a woman suffrage amendment. The resolution is defeated by the Senate.

1919 Women of Azerbaijan Republic, Belgium, British East Africa, Holland, Iceland, Luxembourg, Rhodesia, and Sweden are enfranchised. The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution granting women the vote is adopted by a joint resolution of Congress and sent to the states for ratification. July 2: Anna Howard Shaw dies. New York and twenty-one other states ratify the Nineteenth Amendment.

1920 Henry Burn casts the deciding vote that makes Tennessee the thirty-sixth, and final state, to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment. August 26: The Nineteenth Amendment is adopted and the women of the United States are finally enfranchised.

1923 At the 75th anniversary of the Seneca Falls convention, Alice Paul proposes an Equal Rights Amendment to remedy inequalities not addressed in the 19th Amendment.

Late 1920s Many states continue to bar women from jury duty and public office. Widows succeed their husbands as governors of Texas and Wyoming. Middle-class women attend college and enter labor force. Anticipated “women’s vote” fails to materialize by end of decade.

1933 Frances Perkins is appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as first female Secretary of Labor. In the New Deal years, at urging of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Democratic women’s leader Molly Dewson, many women gain positions in federal social service bureaus, including Mary McLeod Bethune, director of the Negro Affairs Division of the National Youth Administration.

1936 Federal court rules birth control legal for its own sake, rather than solely for prevention of disease.

1941 United States enters World War II. Millions of women are recruited for defense industry jobs in war years and become significant parts of labor force. WAC and WAVE are established as first women’s military corps.

1947 Percentage of women in the labor force declines as women leave jobs to get married and to make way for returning soldiers. By end of decade, numbers of workingwomen are again on the increase.

1952 Democratic and Republican parties eliminate women’s divisions.

1955 Civil Rights movement escalates in the South; Septima Clark and others lead sit-ins and demonstrations, providing models for future protest strategies.

1960 FDA approves birth control pills.

1961 President’s Commission on the Status of Women is established, headed by Eleanor Roosevelt. Commission successfully pushes for passage in 1963 of Equal Pay Act, first federal law to require equal compensation for men and women in federal jobs.

1963 Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique articulates dissatisfaction about limits on women.

1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits job discrimination on the basis of race or sex and establishes Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to address discrimination claims.

1966 National Organization for Women, founded by Betty Friedan and associates, promotes child care for working mothers, abortion rights, the Equal Rights Amendment, and “full participation in the mainstream of American society now.”

1972 After nearly 50 years, Equal Rights Amendment passes both houses and is signed by President Richard Nixon. Civil Rights Act bans sex discrimination in employment and education. Shirley Chisholm is first black American to run for president.

1973 In Roe v. Wade, U.S. Supreme Court affirms women’s right to first trimester abortions without state intervention.

1974 Ella Grasso of Connecticut becomes the first woman Governor elected in her own right.

1981 Sandra Day O’Connor is appointed first woman U.S. Supreme Court justice.

1982 Deadline for ERA ratification expires; final count is three states short of adoption.

1984 Geraldine Ferraro is first woman from a major political party nominated as Vice President.

1991 Senate confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas as U.S. Supreme Court justice and testimony of Anita Hill raise awareness of sexual harassment.

1992 More women run for and are elected to public office than in any other year in United States history.

Today The fight for equality is waged on many fronts; women are seeking political influence, better education, health reform, job equity, and legal reform. The demands echo those of the movement throughout its history. In 1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and others claimed on behalf of American women “all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens.” What would the reformers from Seneca Falls do today to contribute toward a future of equality? What will you do?

1792-1920 prepared by Mary M. Huth, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of Rochester Libraries, February 1995.
1920-present from the Women’s Rights brochure produced by the Women’s Rights National Historical Park, National Park Service, 1994.