The Nineteenth Amendment granted American women the constitutional right to vote nationwide, a milestone in America250 history.
Congress approved the amendment in 1919, and Tennessee became the thirty-sixth state to ratify it on August 18, 1920. That ratification supplied the three-fourths majority required for an amendment to become part of the Constitution.
The amendment states that voting rights cannot be denied by the United States or a state “on account of sex.” It followed decades of organizing by activists including Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ida B. Wells, and Carrie Chapman Catt.
The amendment did not create equal voting access for every woman in practice. Many women of color continued to face poll taxes, literacy tests, intimidation, discriminatory local rules, and citizenship restrictions. Native American women also encountered barriers tied to citizenship and federal policy. Later civil-rights laws helped challenge these obstacles.