(Jewish Group) The Jewish Suffragists Who Helped Women Win the Right to Vote

Aug. 18 marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote. Certified on Aug. 26, 1920, it was the culmination of a 72-year battle beginning with the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention in upstate New York, where the women’s suffrage movement was launched.

Since the Colonial period, married women were legally nonentities under the coverture laws. Their property, wages and custody of children were controlled by their husbands. They didn’t have the right to sue or to sign a contract.

Suffragists understood that the vote was key to achieving equality. They endured ridicule, imprisonment and violence in their struggle. Nevertheless, they persisted until enfranchisement was won. Unfortunately, from Jim Crow laws of the past to the more recent purging of voter rolls, the right to vote has been challenged through the years and continues to this day.

“During this pandemic, obstacles to voting by mail are a form of voter suppression,” Ellen Carol DuBois, UCLA History and Gender Studies professor emeritus whose most recent book is “Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote,” told the Journal. “Because women usually change their names when they marry and tend to work longer hours, voter ID laws and confining when and how people can vote hurt women in particular.”

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