http://www.vintageofyore.com/

My Grandmother Ebba is on the far left

Being it is close to the election day of 2008, I wonder what my Grandmothers experience of voting was. What did it feel like for her in 1900s , so I'll do some history research.

What it was like before the movement

Married women were legally dead in the eyes of the law


Women were not allowed to vote


Women had to submit to laws when they had no voice in their formation


Married women had no property rights


Husbands had legal power over and responsibility for their wives to the extent that they could imprison or beat them with impunity


Divorce and child custody laws favored men, giving no rights to women


Women had to pay property taxes although they had no representation in the levying of these taxes


Most occupations were closed to women and when women did work they were paid only a fraction of what men earned


Women were not allowed to enter professions such as medicine or law


Women had no means to gain an education since no college or university would accept women students


With only a few exceptions, women were not allowed to participate in the affairs of the church


Women were robbed of their self-confidence and self-respect, and were made totally dependent on men.


Great video of the womens movement history

After the Vote was WonAfter the vote was finally won in 1920, the organized Women's Rights Movement continued on in several directions. While the majority of women who had marched, petitioned and lobbied for woman suffrage looked no further, a minority - like Alice Paul - understood that the quest for women's rights would be an ongoing struggle that was only advanced, not satisfied, by the vote.
In 1919, as the suffrage victory drew near, the National American Woman Suffrage Association reconfigured itself into the League of Women Voters to ensure that women would take their hard-won vote seriously and use it wisely.
In 1920, the Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor was established to gather information about the situation of women at work, and to advocate for changes it found were needed. Many suffragists became actively involved with lobbying for legislation to protect women workers from abuse and unsafe conditions.
In 1923, Alice Paul, the leader of the National Woman's Party, took the next obvious step. She drafted an Equal Rights Amendment for the United States Constitution. Such a federal law, it was argued, would ensure that "Men and women have equal rights throughout the United States." A constitutional amendment would apply uniformly, regardless of where a person lived.