The Phenomenon of the Women’s National Candidate
Democratic Party women challengers for national leadership trace their political origin back to the Seneca Falls Declaration of 1848. A brief history of the pioneers, the political organizing of women voters, what’s changed and what’s been achieved. (1)
A history of courage and persistence, coupled with a good degree of malice and misogyny.
1848 The first women’s rights convention in the U.S. took place in Seneca Falls, New York. Convened by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and others active in the anti-slavery movement, it resulted in a Declaration of Sentiments modeled on the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration demanded a variety of rights for women, including suffrage. (CAWP)
1872 Victoria Woodhull, a stockbroker, publisher, and protégé of Cornelius Vanderbilt, ran for president of the United States on the Equal Rights Party ticket. (CAWP)
August 18, 1920, Ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, giving women the right to vote.
1935 Mary McLeod Bethune formed the National Council of Negro Women to pursue civil rights and the rights of black women who were unable to cast their ballots “due to barriers such as poll taxes, literacy tests and racial terrorism.” Repression of black suffrage would continue until passage of the Voting Rights Act in…
