On August 26, 1920, U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby signed a piece of paper at his home in Washington, D.C., and just like that, the 19th Amendment officially became part of the Constitution. Twenty-six million American women had just won the right to vote. There was no big ceremony, but across the country, suffragists who had marched, picketed, and gone to jail for decades cried tears of joy.
The fight had been a long one. As far back as 1848, women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony had been demanding the vote. They gave speeches, gathered petitions, and were laughed at, arrested, and even force-fed in prison during hunger strikes. Newer leaders like Alice Paul and Ida B. Wells took up the cause in the 1900s. The amendment finally passed Congress in 1919, but it still needed three-quarters of the states to ratify it. The decisive vote came down to Tennessee, where a young state legislator named Harry Burn changed his mind at the last second after his mother sent him a note saying 'Be a good boy' and vote yes.
Three months later, in November 1920, women across the country voted in a presidential election for the very first time. The 19th Amendment didn't fix everything; many women of color still faced unfair barriers at polling places for decades. But it cracked open a door that has never closed. Every single woman who runs for office, votes in a school board election, or registers to vote at 18 walks through the doorway opened on that warm August day in 1920.
