1. Women’s Suffrage Movement

2. Women’s Suffrage Movement
OBJECTIVES: When this presentation is done, you will be able to . . .
Explain why the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 was important.
Identify three women who were important to the Women’s Suffrage Movement.
Give one (1) fact about each of them.
Summarize the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution in your own words.

3. Women’s Suffrage Movement
I. Women’s Rights, 1780’s =
A. United States Constitution written.
B. Only white men may vote.
C. Women had no property rights.
D. Women also could not be educated for certain jobs.

4. Women’s Suffrage Movement
Women’s Rights, 1800’s
People began thinking women should be able to vote, too.
1848 – Women organized a convention in New York.
Called the “Seneca Falls Convention”.
Background: Women protesting President Wilson’s reluctance to sign Women’s Suffrage legislation. He was involved in post – World War I diplomacy issues instead. Photo url:
Vocab to Know! “Suffrage” = The right to vote.

5. Women’s Suffrage Parade in New York City

6. Women’s Suffrage Movement
D. It took 80 years before women would get the right to vote!
E. Many generations of women (and some men) worked to make this happen
NEXT! Important people from the suffrage movement:
Background: Louisa Anne Swain – the first woman to vote in an election in America. Cast her vote in Wyoming in (Wyoming was not yet part of the United States, which is how she was able to vote.) She was 70 years old when she cast this vote.

7. I. Susan B. Anthony Raised in a Quaker family.
Quakers long activist traditions.
Developed a strong sense of justice because of this!

8. II. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Women’s Suffrage Movement
II. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Met Susan B. Anthony in 1851.
They worked together for the next fifty years!
Stanton wrote and gave speeches.
Wanted improvement of legal and traditional rights for women.

9. Women’s Suffrage Movement
III. Lucretia Mott
Helped organize and call together the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention.
Was a strong supporter of education.
Lucretia Mott Schools – One opened in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Background image: 3 cent stamp from 1948 celebrating 100 year anniversary of the beginning of the women’s suffrage movement. Photo url: From left: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Carrie Catt (Lucretia Mott is under her own photo on the slide.)

10. Women’s Suffrage Movement
IV. Sojourner Truth
Famous for her work as an “abolitionist” (people who opposed slavery).
Truth started speaking about women's rights after attending a Women's Rights Convention in 1850.
Background: Promotional poster for Sojourner Truth’s 1851 Speech at the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio (1851). At that convention she gave her famous “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech. Photo url:

11. One thing that had to be done, was to let the people of each state vote on the idea.

12. Women’s Suffrage Movement
Tennessee - 36th state to approve the law.
This gave the amendment the majority it needed to become a law.
Finally, after years of hard work, the 19th Amendment was added to the Constitution of the United States (August, 1920)!

13. Women’s Suffrage Movement
Amendment XIX:
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”