1840: Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were not allowed to take part in the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London because they were women. This experience inspired them to organize a women's rights convention in the United States.
1848: The first major women's rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton helped write the Declaration of Sentiments, which called for greater rights for women.
1851: Sojourner Truth spoke at a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio. Her speech, now known as “Ain't I a Woman?”, called attention to the lack of rights for Black women.
1866: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony helped form the American Equal Rights Association. The group supported voting rights regardless of race or sex.
1869: The women's suffrage movement split into two major national organizations that used different strategies to fight for women's voting rights.
1869: Wyoming Territory granted women the right to vote.
1870: The Fifteenth Amendment protected voting rights for Black men, but it did not protect women's voting rights.
1872: Susan B. Anthony voted in the presidential election even though women were not legally allowed to vote in New York. She was arrested and later found guilty.
1878: A women's suffrage amendment was introduced in Congress. Its wording was later used in the Nineteenth Amendment.
1890: Two major suffrage organizations joined together to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association. That same year, Wyoming became a state and kept women's voting rights.
1896: Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Frances E. W. Harper, and other Black women helped form the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, which worked for women's rights and other reforms.
1913: Thousands of suffrage supporters marched in Washington, D.C., to call for women's voting rights.
1917: Members of the National Woman's Party protested outside the White House. Some protesters were arrested and jailed.
1919: Congress passed the Nineteenth Amendment and sent it to the states for approval.
1920: Enough states approved the Nineteenth Amendment for it to become part of the Constitution. The amendment stated that voting rights could not be denied because of sex.
