19th Amendment Ratified (1920)
On August 18, 1920, Tennessee cast the deciding vote to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits the federal government and states from denying citizens the right to vote on account of sex. The ratification came 72 years after the first organized demand for women's suffrage at the Seneca Falls Convention.
Seventy-Two Years
The women's suffrage movement in America is usually traced to July 1848, when approximately 300 people — including 40 men — gathered at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, for the first women's rights convention. Organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, the convention produced the Declaration of Sentiments, which declared that "all men and women are created equal" and demanded the right to vote. The demand was considered radical even by many of the convention's attendees; only Frederick Douglass spoke forcefully in its favor. Susan B. Anthony was arrested and tried in 1872 for voting in a federal election — the judge directed the jury to find her guilty without deliberating. Women won limited suffrage in some western states beginning with Wyoming in 1869, but the federal amendment ground through decades of organizing, marching, congressional lobbying, and repeated failure before the House finally passed it in May 1919 and the Senate followed in June 1919. It then needed ratification by 36 states.
Did You Know?
The deciding vote in Tennessee's ratification came from 24-year-old Harry T. Burn, the youngest member of the state legislature, who had been expected to vote against ratification. That morning he had received a letter from his mother: "Dear Son, Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt. I noticed some of the speeches against. Be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt." Burn switched his vote. He later said his mother had never been wrong in advising him.
The "Perfect 36"
By August 1920, 35 states had ratified and one — Tennessee — remained needed for the required 36. The ratification battle in Nashville was fierce. Anti-suffrage forces — backed by liquor interests, textile manufacturers, and Southern Democrats who feared Black women voting — distributed red roses for opponents and yellow roses for supporters. Suffrage leaders checked the vote count hourly. The Tennessee Senate ratified easily, but the House was deadlocked. On August 18, the anti-suffrage faction thought it had the votes to table the amendment indefinitely. When Harry Burn switched his vote, the amendment passed 50–46. Tennessee certified its ratification. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby proclaimed the Nineteenth Amendment in effect on August 26, 1920 — the date now observed as Women's Equality Day. Women voted in a federal election for the first time in the November 1920 presidential election.
Suffrage Incomplete
The Nineteenth Amendment guaranteed all women the legal right to vote, but in practice, the right was restricted for many. Black women in Southern states faced the same poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and outright violence used to suppress Black male voters — barriers that remained largely in place until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Native American women were not fully enfranchised until 1924 (Indian Citizenship Act) and faced state-level discrimination for years after. Asian American women faced barriers tied to naturalization restrictions. The full story of American women's suffrage is one of a formal right secured in 1920 that was not fully realized across race and class for decades — a history acknowledged by modern scholars and increasingly reflected in how the movement's centennial in 2020 was commemorated.