Timeline of women's suffrage in Alabama

Women's suffrage booth at the Alabama state fair in Birmingham in 1914

This is a timeline of women's suffrage in Alabama. Women's suffrage in Alabama starts in the late 1860s and grows over time in the 1890s. Much of the women's suffrage work stopped after 1901, only to pick up again in 1910. Alabama did not ratify the Nineteenth Amendment until 1953 and African-Americans and women were affected by poll taxes and other issues until the mid 1960s.

19th century

1860s

1867

  • Pierce Burton writes an article supporting women's right to vote in Alabama.[1]

1868

1890s

1892

  • Women's suffrage groups formed in New Decatur and Verbena.[3]

1893

  • The Alabama Woman Suffrage Organization is founded.[3]

1894

  • The Huntsville League for Woman Suffrage is created.[4]

1895

  • Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt speak in Alabama.[5]

20th century

"Selma Women Discuss Voting" from the Selma Times-Journal on March 27, 1910

1900s

1900

  • October 1: State suffrage convention held in Huntsville.[6]

1901

  • Emera Frances Griffin speaks out in favor of women's suffrage at the state constitutional convention.[1]

1910s

1910

  • March 29: Selma Suffrage League is formed.[7]

1911

  • October 22: The Equal Suffrage League of Birmingham is formed.[8][9]

1912

  • October 9: The Alabama Equal Suffrage Association (AESA) is formed in Birmingham.[8][10]
  • AESA headquarters are set up in Birmingham.[11]
  • The Huntsville Equal Suffrage Association is created.[4]

1913

  • AESA holds their first state convention in Selma at Hotel Albert and Pattie Ruffner Jacobs is elected president of the group.[8][10]
  • March 3: Delegates from Alabama march in the Woman Suffrage Procession.[12]
  • June: AESA sends representatives to the International Suffrage Alliance in Budapest.[13]
  • July: Suffrage association formed in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.[14]
  • December: Representatives from AESA attend the forty-fourth annual NAWSA convention.[15] Pattie Ruffner Jacobs speaks at the convention.[15]

1914

  • February 5: AESA holds their state convention in Huntsville.[13] Representatives from Birmingham, Coal City, Cullman, Greensboro, Hunstville, Mobile, Montgomery, Pell City, Selma, Tuscaloosa, and Vinemont were all in attendance.[13]
  • September: Suffragists host a women's suffrage booth at the Alabama State Fair.[16]

1915

  • AESA holds their state convention in Tuscaloosa.[11]
  • AESA's headquarters are moved to Selma.[11]
  • August 25: A suffrage bill is brought to the state legislature, but does not receive enough votes to pass.[17]
  • October: AESA starts to publish the Alabama Suffrage Bulletin.[18]

1916

  • Alabama Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (AAOWS) was formed.[19]
  • February 9: AESA holds its state convention in Gadsden.[20]

1917

  • February 12–13: AESA holds the state convention in Birmingham.[20] Around 81 suffrage clubs report to the convention.[21] A suffrage school is held afterwards with around 200 students.[21]

1918

  • May 7–8: AESA holds its state convention in Selma.[21]

1919

1950s

1953

  • September 8: Alabama ratifies the Nineteenth Amendment.[23]

1960s

1964

1965

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Rogers & Ward 2018, p. 380.
  2. ^ Worthy, Shalis. "The 19th Amendment and Women's Suffrage: Women's Suffrage in Alabama". Huntsville-Madison County Public Library. Retrieved 2020-11-06.
  3. ^ a b "Alabama Suffragists". UA Libraries Digital Exhibits. Retrieved 2020-11-04.
  4. ^ a b Worthy, Shalis. "The 19th Amendment and Women's Suffrage: Women's Suffrage in Huntsville". Huntsville-Madison County Public Library. Retrieved 2020-11-06.
  5. ^ Anthony 1902, p. 465.
  6. ^ Anthony 1902, p. 466.
  7. ^ Burnes 2020, p. 35.
  8. ^ a b c Rogers & Ward 2018, p. 381.
  9. ^ Harper 1922, p. 2.
  10. ^ a b Burnes 2020, p. 36.
  11. ^ a b c Burnes, Valerie Pope. "Alabama Equal Suffrage Association". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Retrieved 2020-11-04.
  12. ^ Thomas 1992, p. 150.
  13. ^ a b c Harper 1922, p. 3.
  14. ^ Thomas 1992, p. 138.
  15. ^ a b Thomas 1992, p. 146.
  16. ^ "Suffragists to Work at Fair". The Birmingham News. 1914-09-27. p. 5. Retrieved 2020-11-06 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ^ Burnes 2020, p. 37-38.
  18. ^ "Alabama Suffrage Bulletin, newsletter of the Alabama Equal Suffrage Association". Alabama Department of Archives and History. Retrieved 2020-11-06.
  19. ^ Rogers & Ward 2018, p. 382.
  20. ^ a b Harper 1922, p. 4.
  21. ^ a b c Harper 1922, p. 5.
  22. ^ "The Alabama Story". Alabama Women's Suffrage Centennial. Retrieved 2020-11-06.
  23. ^ a b "Alabama and the 19th Amendment". U.S. National Park Service. Retrieved 2020-11-03.
  24. ^ "The 24th Amendment". US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives. Retrieved 2020-11-06.
  25. ^ Maloney, Christopher. "Voting Rights Act of 1965 in Alabama". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Retrieved 2020-11-06.

Sources

  • Anthony, Susan B. (1902). Anthony, Susan B.; Harper, Ida Husted (eds.). The History of Woman Suffrage. Vol. 4. Indianapolis: The Hollenbeck Press.
  • Burnes, Valerie Pope (January 2020). "Will Alabama Women Vote?: The Women's Suffrage Movement in Alabama from 1890-1920". Alabama Review. 73 (1): 28–39. doi:10.1353/ala.2020.0011. S2CID 219811342 – via Project MUSE.
  • Harper, Ida Husted (1922). The History of Woman Suffrage. New York: J.J. Little & Ives Company.
  • Rogers, William Warren; Ward, Robert David (2018). "Women in Alabama from 1865 to 1920". Alabama: The History of a Deep South State (Bicentennial ed.). Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. pp. 376–391. ISBN 9780817391669 – via Project MUSE.
  • Thomas, Mary Martha (1992). The New Woman in Alabama: Social Reforms and Suffrage, 1890-1920. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 9780817360108.