August 19, 1918 - Women's Suffrage

As American casualties in Europe rise with increasing American military presence in the war effort, the prolonged effort for women's suffrage in the United States continues.  This from the front page of today's The Philadelphia Inquirer:

The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1870, prohibited the denial of the right to vote because of "race, color or previous condition of servitude".  Patterned after the Fifteenth Amendment, the Nineteenth Amendment reads in part: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."

The Nineteenth Amendment was not adopted by the United States Congress until June 1918, but by that time several states, especially the western states, already had full women's suffrage, and several other states had partial women's suffrage.  The amendment was finally ratified by the required number of states in August 1920.