The history of American suffragism (the fight for women’s suffrage) began in earnest immediately after the Civil War, when the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was passed defining American citizenship and including former slaves as citizens. Gender equality advocates argued that the amendment applied equally to women, guaranteeing, among other things, their right to vote. This idea, however, was not well received by the conservative majority (which included many women, by the way). So the following year, two independent suffragist organizations were formed, one of which chose to lobby for an amendment to the federal Constitution, while the other concentrated on working in each state individually. The second tactic bore fruit sooner: as early as December 1869, Wyoming women were allowed not only to vote, but also to serve as jurors. Other states followed suit, but it took another half-century of fighting before Congress finally passed Amendment 19 to the Constitution in 1919, which guaranteed voting rights for American women (it became law one year later).
Ironically, the first woman was elected to the U.S. Congress even before American women were allowed to vote. In 1917, Montanans elected Janet Rankin to the House of Representatives (the lower house of Congress, with the number of members from each state proportional to its population). In 1933, Hattie Caraway became the first woman elected to the Senate (the upper house of Congress, where only two representatives from any state are elected). Curiously, the first women governors were wives of ex-governors (in Texas and Wyoming). The first “governoress” whose husband had never been governor himself was Ell Grasso, who took over the state of Connecticut in 1974.
In 1984, an organization with the intriguing name “EMILY’s List” was created. “Emily” here is not a name at all, as one might think, but an abbreviation of a figurative expression: “Early Money Is Like Yeast. The purpose of this organization is to fundraise for Democratic women who want to run for political office. Thanks to this organization, the number of women elected to Congress has increased significantly. It should be noted that American women are more successful in local elections. The general trend is as follows: the lower the level of government, the higher the representation of women. Arizona holds the record at the state level, where in 1998 five top elected positions (Governor, Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Treasurer and State Inspector General) were held by women.
In 1984, one of the two major parties in a real struggle for power nominated a woman for the first time as candidate for vice-president (it was Geraldine Ferraro of the Democratic Party). Since the fall of 2006, Nancy Pelosi became the first woman speaker of the House of Representatives, thus becoming the third in line for the presidency (after the Vice-President) – in case of the death or illness of the incumbent. Former first lady Hillary Clinton, who is representing New York State in the Senate for the second term, now has a high chance of representing the Democrats in the 2008 presidential election.