Prior to 1776, women had the right to vote in several of the colonies that would become part of the United States, including Massachusetts. However, by 1807 every state constitution denied even limited women’s suffrage. Initially introduced to Congress in 1878, several attempts to pass a women’s suffrage amendment failed until the passing of the 19th Amendment in the House of Representatives on May 21, 1919, followed by the Senate on June 4, 1919. It was then submitted to the states for ratification. On June 25, 1919, Massachusetts became the eighth state to ratify the 19th Amendment. And on August 18, 1920, Tennessee was the last of the necessary 36 states to secure ratification. The 19th Amendment was officially adopted on August 26, 1920: the culmination of a decades-long movement for women’s suffrage at both state and national levels.

Document G

An excerpt from an article titled “The Women’s Rights Movement, 1848–1920.” It provides a brief explanation as to why the western states were the first in the nation to grant full voting rights to some women.

“The first state to grant women complete voting rights was Wyoming in 1869. [Then] three other western states — Colorado (1893), Utah (1896), and Idaho (1896) …. But before 1910 only these four states allowed women to vote. ‘Why the West first?’ remains a contested question. Some scholars suggest that the West proved to be more progressive in extending the vote to women, in part, because there were so few of them on the frontier. Granting women political rights was intended to bring more women westward and to boost the population. Others suggest that women had long played nontraditional roles on the hardscrabble frontier and were accorded a more equal status by men. Still others find that political expediency by territorial officials played a role. They do, however, agree that western women also organized themselves effectively to win the right."