Lucretia Mott was a Quaker preacher and abolitionist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and abolitionist and a temperance preacher.
What tipped the balance was the energy, resourcefulness, and devotion of wartime women workers in occupations hitherto carried out exclusively by men, especially in factories. By July 1917 full suffrage had been conceded in fifteen states. Both the Democratic and the Republican parties had endorsed women’s suffrage in 1916 and in January 1918 Wilson made it official administration policy. Congress passed the legislation by June 4, 1919, when the Nineteenth Amendment was submitted to the states. Section One read: ‘The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex.’ Ratified, and proclaimed on August 26, 1920, it allowed women the vote just in time to give Harding his landslide.
‘America is God’s crucible, the Great Melting Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming! God is making the American.’ (Israel Zangwill).
