Email   Print   Share By Ericka Jones, EEO Office

Facebook Digg Delicious August 23, 2012 | Editorial

Women’s Equality Day, instituted by Bella Abzug, was first established in 1971, and each year Aug. 26 is designated as the date to celebrate this event. This date commemorates the passage of the19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that gave U.S. women full voting rights in 1920.

The National Woman Suffrage Association was founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in May 1869. These women had reacted to the 15th Amendment, passed that year that allowed emancipated black men to vote, but not women. The NWSA strived for another constitutional amendment that gave women some rights. A more moderate but similar organization, the American Woman Suffrage Association approached the state legislatures, rather than the federal government, to win women the right to vote. In 1890, the NWSA and AWSA merged to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

Women’s suffrage may be defined as women’s right to vote in political circumstances. In America, women worked shoulder to shoulder with men to build the country. Women helped well beyond childbearing and menial labor to help make their cultures flourish. Conditions in the 1830s provoked women to press for suffrage. Women were increasingly in the factory labor force, but were not treated equally. With reason, women regarded themselves as second-class citizens. In addition to not having the vote, they had few property rights, faced educational and employment barriers, and had no legal protection in divorce or child custody cases. Suffragists were usually advocates of such change. In return, they were accorded more of a voice in public matters. That declaration spread the fire of a revolution that would reach every facet of society. Women’s rights leaders were convinced that suffrage would be the most effective means to reconstruct this unfair social structure.

Many were influential, such as Abigail Adams (1744-1818), who wrote lucidly about her life and time in letters, and exerted political influence over her president husband, John, and son, John Quincy Adams. Abigial, in a letter to her husband on March 31, 1776, asked him in the new code of laws to remember their ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than his ancestors. Also, Lucy Stone organized the Women’s Rights Convention at Worcester, Massachusetts. The convention distinction lay in being a national assembly of women and men in 1850s.

Alice Paul and the National Women’s Party began using more radical tactics to work for a federal suffrage amendment to the Constitution: picketing the White House, staging large suffrage marches and demonstrations. By the early 20th century, some battles for woman suffrage were won state-by-state. During World War I, women took up jobs in factories to support the war, as well as taking more active roles in the war than in previous wars. After the war, the National American Woman Suffrage Association, headed by Carrie Chapman Catt, reminded President Woodrow Wilson and the Congress that women who contributed to the war should be rewarded with recognition of their political equality. Wilson responded by beginning to support woman suffrage.

World War I required the support of women. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, a women suffrage amendment was submitted in the House of Representatives. By 1919, the amendment had passed both houses of Congress. When 35 of the necessary 36 states had ratified the amendment, the battle came to Nashville, Tennessee. On Aug. 18, 1920, the final vote was scheduled. Harry Burn, a young 24 year old legislator, had decided to vote for the rights of women – as his mother had urged him to. So on Aug. 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th and deciding state to ratify. The 19th Amendment, also called the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, was drafted and first introduced by Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1878. 41 years later on August 26, 1920, the amendment became law and women could vote in the fall elections, including the Presidential election.

Fort Hood and III Corps will host the Women’s Equality Day observance beginning with a Commemorative Suffrage March at 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary)’s Guidon Field at 6:30 a.m., Friday. A presentation commemorating Women’s Equality Day is also set for 1 p.m., Friday, at Howze Auditorium. The guest speaker will be Patty Shinseki, spouse of retired Gen. Eric Shinseki, former Army Chief of Staff and current head of Veterans Affairs. Refreshments will be served after the presentation.