Today marks the centennial of the ratification of the Amendment XIX to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing: "The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." On August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment, which had passed in both chambers of Congress during the summer of 1919. The National Archives include a high-resolution image of the House Joint Resolution at its America's Founding Documents site for the U.S. Constitution.
To commemorate the occasion, the New York Times has published Suffrage at 100, a series of articles exploring the fight for women's right to vote and the stories of those left behind by it. As the articles note, Native American women and Asian immigrants were excluded due to citizenship laws of the era, while Black Americans faced discriminatory measures such as poll taxes in much of the country.
For more information about the history of the 19th Amendment, check out the Duke Libraries Catalog for the subject heading "Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History". You’ll find dozens of electronically available titles like 2020's Picturing Political Power: Images in the Women's Suffrage Movement or the recent anthology 100 Years of Women's Suffrage. Print titles are also available and may be requested through the Library Takeout Service by the Duke University community.
For help with navigating library resources on the Nineteenth Amendment or voting rights history, be sure to Ask a Librarian.
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