How the Vote Was Won: The Story of Woman Suffrage and Beyond

There is a long history behind women's rights in the United States. The struggle to win the right to vote took place over a period exceeding 70 years. In the almost one hundred years since gaining the vote, American women have progressed in leaps and bounds from being second-hand citizens. The birth of the woman suffrage movement in the second half of the nineteenth century began the process that led to sweeping changes, and this book chronicles the major events and characters involved in that series of changes. How the Vote Was Won begins at a time in history when America was cloaked in civil unrest. In the years before and after the Civil War, awareness of social inequality led to the rise of one of the strongest forces in the suffrage battle: coalitions of women banding together for equal rights. The story of this struggle shines a light on the small victories, setbacks and ultimate triumph of the woman suffrage movement, and illuminates the time span from the Seneca Falls conference in 1848 to the casting of the winning vote for the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. The book concludes with an overview of some of the major changes in women's lives in this country since women gained the right to vote. The data presented show both positive and negative transformations in women's lives in the past 100 years and indicates selected areas where the need for additional progress is evident.