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The History of Women's Suffrage

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Submitted By veward
Words 2619
Pages 11
Victoria Ward
Bonnie McMeans
English 112
March 30th, 2015
Votes for Women: The Struggle to Get Women from the Household to the Polls
In “Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, the protagonist Mrs. Mallard is told her husband has died. At first she is sad, and weeps in her sisters arms. Soon after though, she is sitting in her room and she becomes relieved when she realizes that she is now free. She notes that she often didn’t love her husband, and vows to live her life for herself. At the end of the story, her husband walks through the door, having been alive the whole time. Mrs. Mallard literally dies of grief at seeing he is alive and well. This intrigued me, as I wondered why she was so upset he wasn’t dead, and I wanted to find out more about women’s roles in 1894. At the time this story was written, women did not have many rights. They could not seek higher education, own land or property, and they could not vote. In 1894, the fight had started but the battle was still a long way from being won. This story was inspiring to me, and it made me want to learn about the fight for women’s suffrage since 1848, which is when the Seneca Falls Convention was held on July 19 and 20th (“Rights for Women”). According to the National Woman’s History Museum, it took women more than seventy-two years to get right the vote (“Rights for Women”). I find it amazing that the United States denied women the right to vote for that long. The fight for women’s suffrage, which started with the Seneca Falls Convention and is still going on today, reveals a long and arduous struggle. This paper will explore the origins, the early history, the advancements in the 1900’s, the final outcome, and finally the fight for women’s equal rights that still exists today.
According to the National Women’s History Museum, “In the early 1800’s, women were second class citizens. Women were expected to

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