League celebrates Women's Equality Day

Ninety years ago, women gained the right to vote with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on August 26, 1920. It has been said that no other single event in the 20th century has had a more profound influence in shaping our country, our government and our lives. It is commemorated each year on August 26, as Women’s Equality Day.

More than any other organization, the League of Women Voters claims ownership of this defining moment in American history. Anticipating the need to educate women with the mechanics and responsibilities of voting, the League of Women Voters (LWV) was formally established in February 1920 in Chicago, Ill. Today’s nonpartisan, political organization evolved from the Women’s Suffrage movement. 

Now the LWV has more than 150,000 members and supporters and 850 Leagues throughout all 50 states. There are three Leagues serving our area: the League of Women Voters of the Cleveland Area; the League of Women Voters Cuyahoga Area (with chapters in Bay Village, Westlake/North Olmsted, Lakewood, Rocky River, Fairview Park, Cleveland Heights/University Heights and Hillcrest Area)and the League of Women Voters Shaker Heights.

With its 90th Anniversary and the 90th Anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment this year, the League of Women Voters rightfully celebrates Women’s Equality Day. The three area LWVs have organized a dinner cruise for members on August 26 with the theme “90 Years of Women Making Waves,” honoring the legacy of the suffragists whose sacrifices and public advocacy led to equal voting rights.

The path to women’s suffrage began in Seneca Falls, N.Y., on July 19, 1848, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and others first seriously proposed women’s right to vote. In 1919, suffragist leader Carrie Chapman Catt spoke at a National American Suffrage Association convention in St. Louis, Mo., and proposed the formation of “a league of women voters.” One of the first state leagues to be recognized in 1920 was the League of Women Voters of Ohio.

Since the many attempts to amend the Constitution were thwarted by the U.S. Senate, a campaign began on June 4, 1919, to win the vote by amending every single state constitution. It took six days for Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin to ratify the amendment. Kansas, New York and Ohio followed on June 16, 1919. The last required state to ratify was Tennessee. The Tennessee vote hinged on the vote of a 24-year-old state legislator named Harry Burn. He had originally voted against ratification. He changed his vote after his mother urged him to do so.

With the Tennessee ratification the 36 states met the constitutional requirement. The remaining twelve states took over sixty years to add their ratifications. Mississippi was the last state of the 48 states to ratify the 19th amendment on March 22, 1984.

The sacrifices that suffragists made to win the right to vote for women were amazing amid circumstances that few people recognize today. It is almost impossible to conceive how difficult their lives were, what hardships they endured – public humiliation, terms in jail, torture, sometimes loss of life, ridicule – and they did it so that the women of yesterday, today and tomorrow could exercise their right to vote. Women’s Equality Day reminds us of how the 19th Amendment has changed our country.

Today, the nonpartisan League of Women Voters is where hands-on work to safeguard democracy leads to civic improvement. The League encourages citizens to get involved. For more information on the League of Women Voters, call the Cuyahoga Area League office at 216-781-0555 (referral will be made to the League of your choice). Or visit these websites: League of Women Voters of the Cleveland Area at www.lwvcef.org; League of Women Voters Cuyahoga Area at www.LWVCuyahogaArea.org; League of Women Voters Shaker Heights at www.shakerlwv.org.

NOTE: Janet Kershaw, Westlake resident and co-President of the LWV Cuyahoga Area, highly recommends the HBO film “Iron Jawed Angels,” for, without reminders, few of us can really know what these brave women endured.

Information compiled from various sources by Joan Hirsh.