1818 

Constitution of Connecticut gives the  right to vote in state elections only to adult males who are taxpayers or served in the militia.

1848 

Seneca Falls Convention in NY; first event held to discuss women’s rights. Supporters sign the Declaration of Sentiments, the first formal demand made in the U.S. for women’s right to vote.

1861–1865

Efforts for female full franchise wane during Civil War.

1868

The 14th Amendment is ratified, with “citizens” and “voters” defined exclusively as male.

1869

Connecticut Woman Suffrage Association (CWSA) founded by Isabella Beecher Hooker and Frances Ellen Burr.

National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) is founded to achieve the vote through a Constitutional amendment.  

American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) is formed to work for suffrage through amending state constitutions.

Wyoming territory is organized with a woman suffrage provision.

1870

The 15th Amendment gives black men the right to vote; NWSA refused support its ratification, causing Frederick Douglass to break with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

1877

Married women in CT gain the right to control their own property.

1878 

Woman suffrage amendment, drafted by Susan B. Anthony, is introduced to Congress.

1887

First vote on woman suffrage taken in the U.S. Senate is defeated.

1890

NWSA and AWSA merge. 

1893

CT General Assembly gives women the right to vote in school district matters.  1903

Emmeline Pankhurst establishes the Women’s Social and Political Union in England. Their militant tactics inspire Americans.

1905

CWSA has 50 members.

1906

British suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst’s U.S. tour, includes a stop in Hartford. 

1907

Woman’s Town Improvement Association founded in Westport.

1910

CWSA president Katharine Houghton Hepburn brings new energy to state movement.

Women’s Political Union organizes first annual suffrage parade in NYC. 

1911

Norwalk and Fairfield organize Equal Franchise Leagues.

CWSA Automobile Campaign, Litchfield County. 

1912

CWSA expands to 47 chapters (10,000 members).

CWSA’s Trolley Campaign underway. 

Westport EFL founded. 

1913

Mabel Ballin and other WEFL members visit local factories to recruit female laborers to cause. 

NAWSA holds a mass march down Pennsylvania Avenue drawing 5,000 to 10,000 people. 

Alice Paul organizes the Congressional Union (CU), later known as the National Woman Party (NWP, 1916). 

CWSA holds rally in Norwalk. 

Woman’s Journal’s “Hurdy Gurdy Pilgrimage” stops in Norwalk and Westport on way to Boston.

Westport organizes “Suffrage Week;” downtown parade with 100 marchers.

Pankhurst delivers her “Freedom or Death” speech in Hartford.

1914

May 2, CWSA hosts state suffrage parade with over 2,000 attendees; Westport EFL builds parade’s Fine Arts float.

WEFL holds a rally with state Attorney General John E. Light.

1915

WEFL hosts CWSA convention of Fairfield County leagues at Compo Beach.

Westport demonstrates voting machines for upcoming school election.

Westporters march with 40,000 in NYC suffrage parade.

WEFL shows pro-suffrage silent movie, “Your Girls and Mine,” at the Fine Arts Theater.

1917

NWP begins silent pickets at the White House with banners critical of President Wilson; protestors arrested and jailed. 

CWSA membership now 32,000.

U.S. enters World War I.

NY becomes first eastern state granting women the vote.

CWSA holds Fairfield County convention in Westport.

Katharine H. Hepburn resigns as CWSA president in dispute and joins NWP.

1918

NWP protesters arrested for burning President Wilson’s speeches at Lafayette Park in D.C.

President asks Senate to pass federal amendment as war measure; Senate defeats it, two votes shy of required two-thirds majority.

World War I ends.

1919

U.S. House and Senate pass federal woman suffrage amendment; state ratification process begins. 

NWP “watch fire” demonstrations begin, with President Wilson burned in effigy. Those arrested and imprisoned begin hunger strike.

1920

NWP lobbies for suffrage plank on Democratic and Republican convention platforms. 

League of Women Voters is founded by NAWSA president Carrie Chapman Catt as “a mighty experiment,” 6 months before the
19th Amendment’s ratification. 

May, NAWSA campaign fails for calling special session in CT to ratify 19th Amendment.

Aug. 18, TN ratifies 19th Amendment, providing necessary 36th state.

Aug. 26, 19th Amendment signed into federal law by Secretary of State Colby. 

Sept. 14, CT ratifies the 19th Amendment, as 37th state. 

Nov. 2, female American citizens cast first ever votes in a national election.

1923

Alice Paul begins work on a new

constitutional amendment; renamed in 1943 the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), calling for absolute equality.

ERA is introduced in Congress and presented every year until it passes.

1972

ERA passed by Congress with current wording, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

Congress sends ERA to states for ratification, with a 7-year deadline.

1973

Connecticut ratifies ERA.

2020

VA becomes the final 38th state required to ratify ERA. 

IL, NV and VA (last states to ratify the ERA) sue the U.S. government, demanding that amendment to the U.S. Constitution be declared valid.