The Women's Vote, 1920

Alice Paul, a leading advocate for the women's vote, sewed another star on the suffrage flag in 1920. Library of Congress.

U.S. WOMEN, AT LONG LAST, WON THE RIGHT TO VOTE IN 1920 and had their first chance to vote in a presidential election that year. 

     Yet the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage vowed to fight on, warning female voters in October 1920 that lawsuits would soon be filed, aiming to make women's ballots invalid in states that hadn't ratified the vote. Indeed, the New York Times reported that this organization claimed "men who have worked for the ratification of Nineteenth Amendment are politically unsound and not to be trusted." 

     Despite that, women voted in huge numbers that year, served as election judges and even ran as candidates. 

     As we approach Election Day 2012, let's remember that there will always be those who not only try to prevent progress but aim to take us backward. Next Tuesday, let's honor our grandmothers' and great-grandmothers' examples and vote. 
     As Carrie Chapman Catt wrote in The Woman Citizen (Nov. 13, 1920): "The election is over; woman suffrage is here forever, and on the whole, women have good and sufficient reason to be fairly well satisfied with this, their first participation in a great national contest."