Tuesday Tidbits: Suffrage

   I’ve recently been doing some research on women’s suffrage. The suffrage movement was mainly focused on women gaining the right to vote. They had other issues they were fighting for like equal wages, putting an end to child labor and sweatshops, as well as others. To not dilute their work and spread it across too many causes, the fight for the right to vote became their main battle. Because if you think about it, if women could vote, then they would have more power to fight for the other causes they wanted to see changes in.

   People often think of suffrage as something after 1900. In May and June of 1919 both the House and Senate voted to give women in the United States the right to vote and was ratified by three-fourths of the states in August 1920. So, we are told that women in the United States won the right to vote in 1920. This is only partially true.

   The first Women’s Rights Convention was held in Seneca Falls, NY on July 19^th & 20^th in 1848. That’s more than seventy years before women in the United States were given the right to vote, and they were fighting long before that convention, as early as the 1830s and probably well before that. Women actually had the right to vote in the 1700s. By 1807, all states had revoked the women’s right to vote.

   So where were the first successes for women’s suffrage? New York? Some other eastern state? The South? Did suffrage success sweep from east to west? Just the opposite.

   Wyoming was the first territory to grant women the right to vote on December 10, 1869. Their right to vote was threatened in 1890 when the national government wanted Wyoming to revoke the women’s right to vote before granting Wyoming statehood. Wyoming didn’t back down and became the first state to join the Union allowing women to cast their own ballots.

   Washington Sate also gave women the right to vote early on in 1883. They lost the vote in 1887, almost regained it in 1888 and 1898. Then in 1910 most women are given the right to vote.
   All the states west of the Rockies had given women the right to vote well before the 19^th Amendment was ratified in 1920. Around the world, women in other countries were also fighting for the right to vote.

“Holly & Ivy,” my #HistoricalRomance novella in A #BouquetOfBrides, takes place

in 1890, in Washington State. It’s about a young woman who accompanies her impetuous younger sister on her trip across the country to be a Christmas mail-order bride and is helped by a gallant stranger. 

#BouquetOfBrides

#ChristianRomance #HistoricalRomance #Romance

MARY DAVIS is an award-winning novelist of over two dozen titles in both historical and contemporary themes. She has five titles releasing in 2018; "Holly & Ivy" in A Bouquet of Brides Collection in January 2018, Courting Her Amish Heart in March 2018, The Widow’s Plight in July 2018, Courting Her Secret Heart (Working Title) September 2018, & “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in MISSAdventure Brides Collection in December 2018. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of over thirty-three years and two cats. She has three adult children and one incredibly adorable grandchild. Find her online at:

MaryDavisBooks.com

Newsletter          Blog          FB          FB Readers Group          Pinterest          Amazon          GoodReads          FictionFinder          BookBub