In case you forgot....didn't know....BUT always wanted to care because it is so IMPORTANT....that is when the 19th Amendment was passed GIVING WOMEN THE RIGHT TO VOTE!
Amendment XIX prohibits the states from denying women the right to vote. (Its actual anniversary was August 18) This amendment was the culmination of the women's suffrage movement in the US which had seen battles on both the state and national levels.
Originally introduced in 1878 by Senator Aaron Sargent, it was not until 1919 that Congress submitted it to the states for ratification. It took one year for the required number of states, ¾, to ratify it; TN, the 36th to ratify, was the last to do so. It erected a monument to its state's leading suffragists in 2016.
The amendment effectively overruled a unanimous SCOTUS decision, Minor v. Happersett, which had stated that the Fourteenth Amendment did not give women the right to vote.
Many legislators feared at the time that a powerful women's bloc would emerge in American politics but that did not happen until the 1950's. Few women turned out to vote (36%) in the early years for a variety of reasons: literacy tests, long residency requirements, poll taxes, beliefs that women voters were acting inappropriately...)
FYI: At the time of the adoption of the US Constitution (1789) all states denied voting rights to women with the exception of NJ! But in 1807 it revoked a woman's right to vote!
1848 marked the Seneca Falls Convention in NY which is officially considered the start of the American Women's Rights Movement.
Background: few states acted on women's rights or expanding the franchise (right to vote) in the years prior to the Civil War despite abolitionists and social reformers partnering.
Territorial Expansion (Wyoming 1869, Utah 1870 and Washington 1883) saw those areas write territorial constitutions that included women's rights but the national level strategy of congressional testimony, petitioning and lobbying was not productive. Court challenges led by two rival women's organizations were fruitless as well. After three SCOTUS defeats from 1873-1875 a constitutional amendment seemed to be the last, best option.
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was first proposed in 1923 and has seen peaks and valleys of support ever since. In 1972, it seemed to enjoy bipartisan support and designed to pass by 1977 when it had 35 of the necessary 38 state ratifications. Then a backlash erupted.
In the years since the ERA failed to ratify, several states have continued their efforts to pass it. In 2009, a new strategy was developed that targets the removal of Congress's deadline for ratification by the remaining three states needed.
FYI: Four states rescinded their approval (Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky). KY's acting governor vetoed the rescinding resolution; Nebraska re-passed its ratification. There is nothing in the Constitution regarding either a governor's veto of a state's rescinding its ratification of a proposed but not yet adopted constitutional amendment NOR a state's rescinding its ratification.
Florida is a non-ratifying state BUT 1) its House voted FOUR times to approve ratification in the past 2) renewed pressure to pass it could make a difference in 2018
Tammy Baldwin in the HR and Ben Cardin in the Senate have sponsored companion bills to secure passage of the ERA using the 'three state strategy'. Legislative sponsors would help make that happen.
The Women's March on Washington in January 2017 renewed the spark to pass the ERA. Nevada became the first state in 40 years to ratify the amendment (March 2017) and Illinois is considering it as well. Pressure in FL may make a difference.
Today the Resistance Movement is largely energized by women. Perhaps the feared women's political bloc is coming to realization.