The Constitution of the United States did not give women the right to vote until 1920. The women who were active in protesting and fighting for that right were known as suffragettes.
Suffrage means "the right to vote". By the end of the 1800s, almost every male in a democratic country had the right to vote. Women became more and more active in demanding their own voting rights.
The fight for American women's voting rights began in the 1820s. By 1869, leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton formed the National Women's Suffrage Association. Fifteen years later, this group joined with another suffrage group to become the National American Woman Suffrage Association.
These suffrage groups were active for a long time before the term "suffragette" was born. It wasn't used until the early 1900s when a British journalist used the word to describe the women who were actively protesting for women's rights.
American Alice Paul went to England in 1910 and learned about the suffragette movement. When she returned home a few years later, she formed the National Women's Party, which adopted some of the more militant protest methods of the British suffragettes. They organized protest marches in Washington, held hunger strikes and were often arrested.
After World War 1, President Woodrow Wilson reversed his objection to women's suffrage. It took until August 26, 1920, after a few more years of protest and political debate to finally pass the 19th Amendment giving American women the right to vote.
Source: worksheetsplus.com/Reading/Suffragette.html What Is a Suffragette?
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