Archives West Finding Aid

The women's suffrage movement in the United States began in the mid-1800s and lasted nearly a century until the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on August 26, 1920, enfranchising all American women. The campaign for women's suffrage began in the decades prior to the Civil War, as women were becoming increasingly involved in reform groups such as temperance leagues, abolitionist organizations, and moral reform societies. In 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the Seneca Falls Convention to discuss issues surrounding women's rights. In 1890, the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) was formed with Stanton acting as its first president. By 1910, some states began to extend the vote to women, but southern and eastern states in particular resisted. In 1916, NAWSA president Carrie Chapman Catt presented a plan to gain the right to vote, a campaign that mobilized state and local suffrage organizations across the nation, focusing particularly on the states that had taken a hard line against enfranchising women. The First World War slowed their progress initially, but in 1920 the 19th Amendment was finally ratified and approximately 8 million American women voted in elections for the first time on November 2, 1920.

This collection contains postcards, photographs, and other ephemera related to the women's suffrage movement. While the bulk of the materials relate to activities in the United States, there are also postcards and ephemera relating to suffragist movements in England, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Estonia, and Mexico. Most of the materials were published between 1900 and 1920 during the height of the movement.