The American Revolution took place around several ideals, one of which being that people who are taxed should be represented. Colonists won the right to vote in their new states, but only males obtained election rights. Women continued to be subservient to their father, then their husbands. In the 1840s, a group of women got together to discuss ways to secure the vote for them, so they could influence laws like property rights and divorce.
Over the course of the next 75 years, women fought against a repressive and conservative government not interested in allowing women to vote. Women organized marches, newspapers, conventions, and lobbied intensely to secure the franchise. They were ridiculed. They were arrested, charged with crimes such as loitering, disturbing the peace, and jailed. They were force-fed when they went on hunger strike. Through it all, women remained in solidarity with one another and pushed forward until changes came.
It took the First World War to really trigger a social shift. The necessity of fighting for democracy abroad by sending millions of soldiers ringed hollow when more than half the population could not vote in the United States. Many women leaders pushed forward and convinced the US Congress to pass a Constitutional amendment, which was soon followed by 36 states, making the Nineteenth Amendment providing women with the right to vote the law of the land.
The women's struggle later inspired the Civil Rights movement of civil disobedience, and led to an increase in female representatives. Throughout the suffragist movement all, women of all socio-economic classes and races fought together and achieved a constitutional victory like no other.
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