Definition of 19th Amendment

Ratified on August, 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment forbids voting rights discrimination anywhere in the United States based on sex. The amendment's adoption was the result of a nearly century-long campaign to allow women to vote. Activists for women's suffrage, sometimes known as Suffragettes, adopted or developed many of the non-violent political protest techniques familiar today—hunger strikes, marches, and "sit-ins" resulting in mass arrests. Prior to the amendment, state laws had varied, though most western states (beginning with the Wyoming Territory in 1869) and a few elsewhere had already granted women equal voting rights. The first national American election in which women could universally vote was in 1920. Passage of the 18th Amendment, which created Prohibition, is sometimes linked to passage of the 19th.