The Nineteenth Amendment

Women’s suffrage realized

The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, celebrating its one-hundredth anniversary last year. The amendment famously removed bans on the American woman’s right to suffrage. Although some western states, notably Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho, allowed full women’s suffrage before this date, most of the United States had partial or full restrictions on women voting.

In early America, suffrage was largely dependent on an individual’s assets – voting was limited to those who owned a certain amount of property. In most cases, this rule excluded those who weren’t white men, but laws varied enough to allow women and/or free black men to vote in several locations. New Jersey allowed all qualified citizens (including women) to vote up until 1807.

Although property qualifications declined throughout the 1800s, calls for women’s suffrage were unsuccessful. That said, the women’s suffrage movement gained traction during this time, and the most important arguments for women’s rights were made by such figureheads as Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Additionally, in some states married women gained rights that had previously been denied them. After challenging voting bans on the premise of the Fourteenth Amendment’s privileges and immunities clause (and failing in Minor v. Happersett), the suffrage movement began to focus on passing a suffrage amendment to the Constitution.

Thanks in part to the new statehood of pro-suffrage western territories, the proposed Nineteenth Amendment passed the House and Senate in 1919 before being put to vote in the 48 states. Tennessee was the final state needed to achieve a 3/4 majority and officially made the amendment law on August 18, 1920, just in time for the 1920 election.

Commentary and articles from JMC Scholars

Philosophical views of woman’s role

Nicholas Capaldi, “Evolving Conceptions of Women in Modern Liberal Culture: From Hegel to Mill.” (Nature, Woman, and the Art of Politics, Rowman & Littlefield, 2000)

Madeline Ahmed Cronin (co-author), “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman within the Women’s Human Rights Tradition, 1739-2015.” (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Yale University Press, 2014)

Madeline Ahmed Cronin (co-author), “The Life and Times of Wollstonecraft and her Family, 1688-1818.” (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Yale University Press, 2014)

Steven Forde, “Gender and Justice in Plato.” (American Political Science Review 91.3, September 1997)

Nora Hanagan (co-author), “Feminist Theory and Liberal Political Theory.” (The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Political Thought, Wiley-Blackwell, 2014)

Nancy Hirschmann, “Mill, Political Economy, and Women’s Work.” (American Political Science Review102.2, May 2008)

Nancy Hirschmann, “Revisioning Freedom: Relationship, Context, and the Politics of Empowerment.” (Revisioning the Political: Feminist Reconstructions of Traditional Concepts in Western Political Theory, Westview Press, 1996)

Nancy Hirschmann, “Wollstonecraft as a Freedom Theorist.” (The Wollstonecraftian Mind, Routledge Press, 2019)

Nancy Hirschmann (editor), Women and Welfare: Theory and Practice in the United States and Europe. (Rutgers University Press, 2001)

Christopher Kelly (editor), Rousseau on Women, Love, and the Family. (University Press of New England, 2009)

Women in American history & politics

Christine Basil (co-author), “Mark Twain’s Joan of Arc: An American Woman?“ (Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy 44.2, Spring 2018)

Jay Dow, “Gender Differences in Political Knowledge: Distinguishing Characteristics- Based and Returns-Based Differences.” (Political Behavior 31, 2009)

Benjamin Isaak Gross (co-author), “Clearing the Pipeline? Gender and Publishing in the APSR.” (PS: Political Science & Politics 51.3, July 2018)

Mark David Hall, “Beyond Self-Interest: The Political Theory and Practice of Evangelical Women in Antebellum America.” (Journal of Church and State 44, 2002)

Nora Hanagan (co-author), “Feminism and American Politics.” (Encyclopedia of American Governance, Cengage Learning, 2016)

Nancy Hirschmann, “A Question of Freedom, A Question of Rights? Women and Welfare.”(Women and Welfare: Theory and Practice in the United States and Europe, Rutgers University Press, 2001)

Nancy Hirschmann, “Feminist Thoughts on Freedom and Rights.” (Politics & Gender 8.2, June 2012)

Nancy Hirschmann, “Freedom, Power and Agency in Feminist Legal Theory.” (Ashgate Research Companion to Feminist Legal Theory, Ashgate Publishers, 2013)

Nancy Hirschmann, “Gender and the Politics of Invisible Disability.” (Diversity, Social Justice, and Inclusive Excellence: Transdisciplinary and Global Perspectives, State University of New York Press, 2013)

Nancy Hirschmann, “The Sexual Division of Labor and the Split Paycheck.” (Hypatia: Journal of Feminist Philosophy 31.3, Summer 2016)

Mirya Holman (co-author), “Can Role Models help Increase Women’s Desire to Run? Evidence from Political Psychology.” (Politicking While Female: The Political Lives of Women, Louisiana State University Press, 2020)

Mirya Holman, “Gender, Political Rhetoric, and Moral Metaphors in State of the City Addresses.” (Urban Affairs Review 52.4, 2016)

Mirya Holman (co-author), “Power, Conflict, and Community: How Gendered Views of Political Power Influence Women’s Political Ambition.” (Political Psychology 37.4, 2015)

Mirya Holman, “Sex and the City: Female Leaders and Spending on Social Welfare Programs in U.S. Municipalities.” (Journal of Urban Affairs 36.4, 2014)

Mirya Holman, “Women in Local Government: What We Know and Where We Go From Here.” (State and Local Government Review 49.4, 2017)

Mirya Holman, Women in Politics in the American City. (Temple University Press, 2015)

Benjamin Irvin, “Of ‘Manly’ and ‘Monstrous’ Eloquence: The Henpecked Husband in Revolutionary Political Debate, 1774-1775.” (New Men: Manliness in Early America, New York University Press, 2011)

Mack Mariani, “A Gendered Pipeline? The Advancement of State Legislators to Congress in Five States.” (Politics and Gender 4.2, 2008)

Mack Mariani (co-author), “See Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Sarah Palin Run? Party, Ideology and the Influence of Female Role Models on Young Women.” (Political Research Quarterly 68.4, December 2015)

Wilfred McClay, “Of ‘Rats’ and Women.” (Commentary 102.3, September 1996)

Rogers Smith, “The Distinctive Barriers to Gender Equality.” (Has Liberalism Failed Women? Parity, Quotas, and Equal Representation, St. Martin’s Press, 2001)

Rogers Smith, “Gender at the Margins of Contemporary Constitutional Citizenship.” (Gender Equality: Dimensons of Women’s Equal Citizenship, Cambridge University Press, 2009)

Rogers Smith, “‘One United People’: Second-Class Female Citizenship and the American Quest for Community.” (Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities1.2, 1989)

Michael Thomas (co-author), “Rational Irrationality and the Political Process of Repeal: The Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform and the 21st Amendment.” (Kyklos 66.1, 2013)

Kevin Wagner (co-author), “I am Woman, Hear me Tweet! Gender Differences in Twitter Use among Congressional Candidates.” (Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 38.2, 2017)

Scott Waller (co-author), “Evangelical Strength and the Representation of Women and Gays.”(Evangelicals and Democracy in America: Religion and Society, Russell Sage Foundation, 2009)

Thomas West, Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America. (Rowman and Littlefield, 1997)

Jonathan White, “‘A Shadow Over My Heart’: The Transformation of a Northern Woman’s Dream Life during the Civil War.” (UNC Press blog, March 20, 2017)

Robinson Woodward-Burns, “The Equal Rights Amendment Is One State from Ratification. Now What?“ (Washington Post: The Monkey Cage, June 20, 2018)

Jean Yarbrough, “On the Policy Implications of Feminist Theory For the E.R.A.“ (The Impact of the Equal Rights Amendment: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee of the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Ninety-eighth Congress 2, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1985)

Important women in American political thought

William Allen, Re-Thinking Uncle Tom: The Political Philosophy of H. B. Stowe. (Lexington Books, 2008)

Jonathan Bean, “Rosa Parks Day: The Triumph of Colorblindness and Capitalism.” (Beacon, November 20, 2015)

Michael Blaakman, “Martha Bradstreet and the ‘Epithet of Woman’: A Story of Land, Libel, Litigation, and Legitimating ‘Unwomanly’ Behavior in the Early Republic.” (Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 13.3, Summer 2015)

Mark David Hall, “Catharine Beecher: America’s First Female Philosopher and Theologian.” (Fides et Historia 32, 2000)

Mark David Hall, “Emma Willard on the Political Position of Women.” (Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 6.2, 2000)

Nora Hanagan, “Democratizing Responsibility: Jane Addams’s Pragmatist Ethics.” (Polity45.3, July 2013)

Nancy Hirschmann, “Democracy, Depression, and Disability: Jean Elshtain on Democracy, Despair, and Hope.” (Jean Bethke Elshtain: Politics, Ethics, and Society, University of Notre Dame Press, 2017)

Nancy Hirschmann, “Jane Addams as Feminist Heroine: Democracy and Contentious Politics.”(Politics & Gender 11.3, September 2015)

Sarah Houser (co-author), “‘Drawing the Line of Equality’: Hannah Mather Crocker on Women’s Rights.” (American Political Science Review 100.2, May 2006)

Michele Navakas, “Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Florida.”(FORUM: The Magazine of the Florida Humanities Council, Fall 2019)

James Patterson, “Go Down, Moses.” (Library of Law and Liberty, April 29, 2016)

Kyle Volk, “NYC’s 19th Century Rosa Parks.” (New York Daily News, August 4, 2014)

Kyle Volk (contributor), “Reflecting on Notable Female Historians in Celebration of Mother’s Day.” (OUPblog, 2016)