Women and Social Movements in the United States

Browse Chronology

1636

Anne Hutchinson heresy trial banishes her from Massachusetts. [ 4 related primary documents ]

1692

Witch trials and executions in Salem, MA (May - October). [ 1 related primary documents ]

1768

Women and spinning bees support boycott of British cloth. [ 2 related primary documents ]

1773

Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects: Religious and Moral published in London. [ 2 related primary documents ]

1774

Fifty-one women in Edenton, North Carolina sign a declaration to boycott British goods. [ 3 related primary documents ]

1776

New Jersey law grants suffrage to "all free inhabitants" who meet property and residence requirements; soon thereafter unmarried women who own property in their own name begin to vote. In 1790 the election law referred to voters as "he or she," but in 1807 the legislature passed a law that disfranchised women. [ 7 related primary documents ]

1780

Ladies' Association of Philadelphia begins fund-raising for Continental Army. [ 20 related primary documents ]

1792

Publication in London of Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft. [ 4 related primary documents ]

1821

Emma Hart Willard establishes Troy Female Seminary in Troy, N. Y., exemplifying the spread of higher education for women in the North. [ 3 related primary documents ]

1829

Northern white women begin to petition Congress against the forced removal of Cherokee people from their land in Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. [ 7 related primary documents ]

1833

Oberlin College becomes the first college to admit female students [ 5 related primary documents ]

1836

Women begin to petition Congress to end slavery in the nation's capital, Washington, D.C. [ 4 related primary documents ]

1837

Mary Lyon establishes Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts, which sent generations of women into careers as teachers and missionaries. [ 2 related primary documents ]

1837

The first of three National Conventions of American Anti-Slavery Women, followed by conventions in 1838 and 1839. [ 15 related primary documents ]

1839

American Female Moral Reform Society (AFMRS) founded, uniting 455 local Female Moral Reform Societies in New England, New York, and Ohio. [ 1 related primary documents ]

1843

Women in Ten Hour Movement in New England begin to advocate shorter hours for factory operatives. [ 22 related primary documents ]

1848

The first women's rights convention, Seneca Falls, New York (July 19-20), which was followed by a more than a dozen other women's rights conventions in New England, New York and Ohio, 1848-1869. [ 5 related primary documents ]

1849

Amelia Bloomer lends her support to the dress reform movement, providing significant publicity. By 1851 the new outfit was described as the "bloomer costume." [ 9 related primary documents ]

1860

Women join the New England shoe strike. [ 13 related primary documents ]

1861

Northern women begin to provide aid to Union troops through the Sanitary Commission during the Civil War. [ 8 related primary documents ]

1869

Revolution, founded and edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, serves as the voice of the National Woman Suffrage Association until it is sold in 1870. [ 7 related primary documents ]

1869

Myra Bradwell denied the right to practice law in Illinois, decision upheld by U.S. Supreme Court in 1873. [ 3 related primary documents ]

1869

The National American Woman Suffrage Association forms in New York and the American Woman Suffrage Association forms in Boston. [ 3 related primary documents ]

1869

Wyoming Territory created and enfranchises women. [ 1 related primary documents ]

1870

Woman’s Journal founded and edited by Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell. The weekly voice of the American Woman Suffrage Association, in publication until 1917, becomes the most influential and most enduring of nineteenth-century feminist newspapers. [ 2 related primary documents ]

1873

United States Congress passes Comstock Act prohibiting the dissemination through the U.S. mail of birth control information and devices. [ 3 related primary documents ]

1873

Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) formed. Endorses woman's suffrage in 1881. [ 2 related primary documents ]

1882

Founding of American Collegiate Association, which in 1899 becomes the American Association of University Women. [ 2 related primary documents ]

1886

The Knights of Labor endorse woman suffrage, reflecting the 192 local assemblies consisting entirely of women. [ 1 related primary documents ]

1889

Hull House established in Chicago by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr. [ 102 related primary documents ]

1890

General Federation of Women’s Clubs founded. [ 17 related primary documents ]

1890

Unification of the National and American Woman Suffrage Associations to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). [ 1 related primary documents ]

1893

Colorado holds first successful state referendum for woman suffrage. [ 14 related primary documents ]

1893

Dozens of Women’s Congresses held in Woman’s Building during World’s Fair in Chicago. [ 35 related primary documents ]

1893

Passage of Illinois eight-hour law for women workers. [ 8 related primary documents ]

1895

Age of Consent Movement obtains passage of legislation in 31 states. In 1887, Congress raises age of consent from 10 to 16 for the District of Columbia and territories; Broderick Act (1899) raises age to 21 for D.C. and territories. [ 19 related primary documents ]

1896

National Association of Colored Women (NACW) founded. [ 4 related primary documents ]

1903

Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) founded. [ 19 related primary documents ]

1906

Founding of the Young Women's Christian Association of the United States with the merger of two earlier YWCA organizations. [ 5 related primary documents ]

1909

International Women's Day launched in New York City. [ 13 related primary documents ]

1909

Women in shirtwaist strike in New York City establishes the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) as leading union for garment workers. [ 28 related primary documents ]

1912

First minimum wage law in the U.S. is passed in Massachusetts for women. By 1923, sixteen states adopt minimum wage laws for women and become the basis for minimum wage standards for men and women included in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. [ 1 related primary documents ]

1912

Jane Addams gives nomination speech for Theodore Roosevelt as presidential candidate of the Progressive Party; many women reformers support the Progressive Party. [ 1 related primary documents ]

1913

Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage founded, headed by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns; name changed to National Woman's Party (NWP) in 1916. [ 2 related primary documents ]

1915

International Congress of Women meets at The Hague, Netherlands, with Jane Addams as President. [ 17 related primary documents ]

1916

Margaret Sanger opens first birth control clinic in Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. [ 5 related primary documents ]

1918

Founding of The Woman Patriot, subtitled "A national newspaper for home and national defense against woman suffrage, feminism and socialism." [ 5 related primary documents ]

1919

Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) founded. [ 3 related primary documents ]

1920

19th Amendment ratified granting women the right to vote. [ 22 related primary documents ]

1920

NAWSA becomes the League of Women Voters (LWV) led by Carrie Chapman Catt. [ 5 related primary documents ]

1920

Women's Interracial Conference of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation, Memphis, Tennessee. [ 7 related primary documents ]

1922

Margaret Sanger incorporates the American Birth Control League to promote the birth control movement. [ 14 related primary documents ]

1923

National Woman’s Party proposes Equal Rights Amendment to U.S. Congress. [ 27 related primary documents ]

1933

Frances Perkins becomes first woman cabinet member, serving as Secretary of Labor under Franklin D. Roosevelt. [ 4 related primary documents ]

1936

In the case of United States v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries, U.S. Circuit Court rules that contraceptive devices prescribed by physicians for the "purpose of saving life or promoting the well being of their patients" are exempt from the provisions of the 1873 Comstock Act, freeing birth control efforts from the strictures of that law. [ 4 related primary documents ]

1938

Passage of Fair Labor Standards Act, which extends wage and hours laws to men. [ 2 related primary documents ]

1961

President John F. Kennedy creates the President's Commission on the Status of Women. [ 2 related primary documents ]

1964

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bans discrimination against women in employment. [ 16 related primary documents ]

1966

National Organization for Women (NOW) founded. [ 5 related primary documents ]

1972

Congress sends Equal Rights Amendment to the states for ratification with a deadline of June 30, 1982. [ 18 related primary documents ]

1972

Phyllis Schlafly founds STOP ERA, which in 1975 becomes the Eagle Forum. [ 2 related primary documents ]

1973

U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade makes state regulation of abortion unconstitutional during first trimester of pregnancy. [ 1 related primary documents ]

1975

International Women's Year, 1975 [ 4 related primary documents ]

1977

National Women's Conference, Houston. [ 46 related primary documents ]

1994

Violence Against Woman Act (VAWA) passed by Congress. [ 22 related primary documents ]

2000

Women's access to federal courts in VAWA voided by Supreme Court in U.S. v. Morrison. [ 5 related primary documents ]