Voting is the foundation stone for political action." - Martin Luther King Jr.
A once highly controversial topic, voting rights for Americans have come a long way since the first election. Many believed, due to masculinity and racism, that women and African Americans were incapable of voting. However, through much reform and protesting, all American citizens are now allowed the right to vote; men, women, black, white, Hispanic, or Asian. Voters' rights have unquestionably become more lenient, showing the shift in America's attitudes toward acceptance of all peoples.
Declaration of Sentiments Table
On this parlor table, Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote the draft of the Declaration of Sentiments, a radical demand for equality that launched the first women’s rights convention, in Seneca Falls, New York. This was a big step toward women's voting rights.
Click here for more artifacts on women's voting rights “- Woman Suffrage.” National Museum of American History, 18 Dec. 2013, americanhistory.si.edu/treasures/womens-suffrage. MORE ON WOMEN'S ROLE IN ELECTIONS: |
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." - 19th Amendment The Nineteenth amendment prohibits the government from denying the right to vote based on sex. This amendment is established after a long struggle of the Women's Suffrage Movement. The 19th amendment giving women the right to vote was adopted August 26, 1920. This artifact answers the question of "How did this come about, and how does this civil rights movement compare to others before and since?"
US Constitution. Amendment XIX. Our Documents, www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=63. Accessed 26 Oct. 2017. |
There are still protests regarding voting rights.
Newton Democrats. newtondems.org/calendar/2017/6/13/ voting-rights-event-hosted-by-the-ward-6-dems. Accessed 19 Dec. 2017. |
The Cult of True Womanhood"Meanwhile, many American women were beginning to chafe against what historians have called the “Cult of True Womanhood”: that is, the idea that the only “true” woman was a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family. Put together, all of these contributed to a new way of thinking about what it meant to be a woman and a citizen in the United States.
"The Fight for Woman's Suffrage." History, www.history.com/topics/womens-history/ the-fight-for-womens-suffrage. Accessed 18 Oct. 2017. |
One of the reasons women were not able to vote until 1920 was due to the influence the "Cult of True Womanhood," or the "Cult of Domesticity," had in American society during the mid-1800's. This idea shaped men's critical attitudes toward allowing women to vote, particularly because they felt women were incapable of doing so. |
"The First Vote"
"Wood Engraving, 'The First Vote,' on Cover of Harper's Weekly, November 16,
1867." The Henry Ford, www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/ digital-collections/artifact/344640/. Accessed 12 Jan. 2018. |
The image on the left shows a wood engraving titled "The First Vote." It comes from the cover of a Harper's Weekly, an American political magazine based in New York City. This November 16, 1867 issue was very relevant, considering congress had recently approved the African American vote. In the image, some of the first African Americans to cast their ballots are depicted.
|