Women's Rights During The Progressive Era

t was a long and difficult struggle for women to gain the right to vote in the United States. Equality between the sexes has been an issue for centuries, not just in modern times. A British author even wrote in 1792, "The Vindication of the Rights of Women" because she felt that women were not treated equally. The modern day struggle was kicked off though in 1848. This was the year of the first women's rights convention, which was held in Seneca Falls, New York. It was not until over 70 yeas later that women were finally given the right to vote when the 19th amendment was completely ratified in 1920.
The Seneca Falls convention was called by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott out of their anger with male abolitionists and the patriarchal system that they represented. In 1840, when Stanton and Mott attended the World's Anti-Slavery Convention, the predominately male convention refused to seat female delegates. Stanton and Mott, along with other activist women in the U.S. started to see the similarities between their own status and that of the slaves. The convention at Seneca Falls lit a fire among women who were determined to change their legal and political status. These conventions went on regularly throughout the 1850's but the Civil War halted these meetings when women had to turn their
During the Progressive Era, all reform efforts became revitalized. Millions of women started addressing severe social problems, which brought them into the public eye. As their roles in society grew, they started to become part of mainstream politics. However, after recognizing that most of the reform that they sought was regulated by law, and that legislators responded to voters, they realized that the policies they were advocating could only be achieved through voting. So not long after the start of the 20th century, the idea of woman suffrage had become part of mainstream