Jennifer A. Lemak and Ashley Hopkins-Benton’s new book Votes For Women: Celebrating New York’s Suffrage Centennial (Excelsior Editions, 2017) chronicles the history of the women’s rights and suffrage movements in New York State and examines the important role the state played in the national suffrage movement.
The work for women’s suffrage received a boost more than seventy years before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 when Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and one hundred supporters signed the Declaration of Sentiments asserting that “all men and women are created equal.”
This convention served as a catalyst for debates and action on both the national and state level, and on November 6, 1917, New York State passed the referendum for women’s suffrage. Its passing in New York signaled that the national passage of suffrage would soon follow. On August 18, 1920, “Votes for Women” were constitutionally granted. [Read more…] about New Book Celebrating New York’s Suffrage Centennial