Happy Women’s Equality Day!
Today marks the 95th anniversary of the day women were granted the right to vote: the 19th Amendment was certified as law on August 26, 1920, though it would be many more years until minority groups of women could realistically vote.
A new group of women reformers emerged in nineteenth-century America. These educated women set out to solve social and economic problems caused by injustice and inequity. They discovered that without political power, they could not effect the changes necessary to fulfill the American promise. Gradually these women from different perspectives arrived at the same conclusion: in order to solve problems, women needed a political identity. They needed the vote.
Lucretia Mott, who was a Quaker, believed slavery was evil, and she traveled the country to preach against it. Her transition into a women’s rights advocate was complete after she was refused a seat at the 1840 World’s Anti-Slavery Convention because of her gender. Undaunted by injustice, she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed a decades-long collaboration that established a direction and tone for the the fight for women’s suffrage.
As a young teacher, Mott was struck by the unfairness of women receiving half the pay of male teachers. In this manuscript, Mott argues for women’s equality within the family and society.
#VotesForWomen #WomensEqualityDay
alexmanhatten 