Iron Jawed Angles

HBO's 2004's Iron Jawed Angels starring Hilary Swank (as Alice Paul) Frances O'Connor (as Lucy Burns) Lois Smith (as Rev. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw) Vera Farmiga (as Ruza Wenclawska) Brooke Smith (as Mabel Vernon) Patrick Dempsey, Julia Ormond as (Inez Milholland) and Anjelica Huston (as Carrie Chapman Catt.)

This movie will give you a glimpse into what our foremothers had to endure to gain the right to vote in this country.  

So Please – GO VOTE!

Part 1 of 12 



On January the 9th, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson announced his support of the Nineteenth Amendment:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any States on Account of sex. The Congress shall have the power by appropriate legislation to enforce the provisions of this article.

The next day the House of Representatives narrowly passed the amendment. The Senate, however, refused to debate the amendment until October.

In the 1918 midterm elections The National Woman's Party urged voters to vote against anti-suffrage Senators up for reelection. Somehow, following those elections, most members of Congress became pro-suffrage.

On May 21, 1919, the House of Representatives passed the amendment by a vote of 304 to 89 with the Senate following the House's lead on June 4, by a vote of 56 to 25.

Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan were the first states to pass the amendment.

Georgia and Alabama rushed to pass their oppositions. The anti-suffrage forces included both men and women. They were well-organized, and passage of the amendment was difficult.

Eventually thirty-five of the necessary thirty-six states ratified the amendment. Anti-suffrage and pro-suffrage forces from around the nation descended on Nashville, Tennessee. The final vote was scheduled for August the 18th, 1920.

Up to that time a young  24 year old legislator, Harry Burn, had voted with the anti-suffrage forces.  But, his mother had urged him to vote for the amendment. When he saw that the vote would be tied 48 to 48, he decided to vote as his mother had urged him – for the right of women to vote. And so, on August the 18th, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th and deciding state to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Unfortunately, the anti-suffrage forces used parliamentary maneuvers to try and convert some of the pro-suffrage votes to their side. Eventually their tactics failed.

And so, on August the 26th, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution became law, and women for the first time were able to vote in the fall elections, including for the President of the United States of America.


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