Timeline 1875-1920

1875 Through her will, Sophia Smith is the first woman to found and endow a women's college. Smith College was chartered in 1871, opened in 1875.

1875 Minor v. Happersett: Supreme Court refuses to extend the 14th amendment protection to women's rights, denying voting rights to women.

1876 Matilda Joselyn Gage writes a Declaration of the Rights of Women, distributed on July 4 by NWSA women to crowds attending the massive Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Many women's networks grow out of this action.

1876 Ellen Swallow Richards opens the Woman's Laboratory at MIT, which lasts until the school admits women in 1883.

1877 Helen Magill is the first woman to receive a Ph.D. at a U.S. school, a doctorate in Greek from Boston University.

1878 The Susan B. Anthony Amendment, to grant women the vote, is first introduced in the U.S. Congress.

1879 Belva Lockwood is the first woman lawyer admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. Her years of lobbying pay off when Congress passes legislation permitting women to practice law in all federal courts.

1880 The 1870s have seen an 80% increase in the number of women teachers, mainly in the West.

1883 On November 16, at a Liverpool reception in honor of Susan Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the women's rights movement becomes global when they are joined by women from England, Scotland, Ireland, and France.

1883 Mary Hoyt earns the top score on the first civil service exam and becomes the first woman (and second person) appointed under this new merit system. She starts out as a clerk in a Treasury Dept.

1884 Belva Lockwood, presidential candidate of the National Equal Rights Party, is the first woman to receive votes in a presidential election (appx. 4,000 in six states)

1887 For the first and only time in this century, the U.S. Senate votes on woman suffrage. It loses, 34 to 16. 25 Senators do not bother to participate.

1888 Led by Lillie Devereux Blake, New York suffragists win passage of a law requiring women doctors for women patients in mental institutions. In 1892 they secure matrons in all police stations.

1889 The work of educated women serving the Chicago poor at Hull House establishes social work as a paid profession for women.

1890 The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC) coalesces about 200 local clubs, many supporting a wide range of reform activities.

1890 National Woman Suffrage Association and American Woman Suffrage Association merge to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), becoming the movement's mainstream organization.

1892 The University of Kansas offers an early example of a "women's studies" course through the sociology department, "Status of Women in the United States."

1893 Hannah Breenbaum Solomon founds the National Council of Jewish Women and becomes its first president. Within three years, 50 local chapters develop.

1893 Colorado is the first state to adopt a state amendment enfranchising women.

1894 The monthly Woman's Era begins publication with national news of the growing black women's club movement, legislation, and family life issues. Edited by Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, founder of the civic-minded New Era Club.

1895 Elizabeth Cady Stanton publishes the first volume of The Woman's Bible, in which she revises biblical passages that degrade women. Reviled but not deterred, she publishes a second volume in 1898.

1896 The National Association of Colored Women, founded by Margaret Murray Washington, unites Black women's organizations, with Mary Church Terrell its first president. The NACW becomes a major vehicle for attempted reform during the next forty years.

1899 National Consumers League is formed with Florence Kelley as its president. The League organizes women to use their power as consumers to push for better working conditions and protective laws for women workers.

1900 Two-thirds of divorce cases are initiated by the wife; a century earlier, most women lacked the right to sue and were hopelessly locked into bad marriages.

1900 Nannie Helen Burroughs' speech to the National Baptist Convention, "How the Sisters are Hindered from Helping," results in the formation of the Women's Convention, which becomes the largest Black women's organization.

1903 Middle class reformers and women labor organizers join forces to form the national Women's Trade Unions League (WTUL), to bring public attention to the concerns of women workers.

1908 Muller v. Oregon - US Supreme Court declares unconstitutional protective legislation for women workers.

1909 Women garment workers strike in New York for better wages and working conditions in the Uprising of the 20,000. Over 300 shops eventually sign union contracts.

1910 The number of women attending college has increased 150% since 1900

1910 Wasington State: Women win the vote.

1910 The first large suffrage parade in New York City is organized by the Women's Political Union.

1911 Jovita and Soledad Pena organize La Liga Femenil Mexicanista (League of Mexican Feminists) in Laredo, Texas. Its motto: "Educate a woman and you educate a family."

1911 The most elaborate campaign ever mounted for suffrage succeeds in California by 3,587 votes, an average of one in every precinct.

1912 20,000 suffrage supporters join a New York City parade, with a half-million onlookers.

1912 Juliette Gordon Low founds first American group of Girl Guides, in Atlanta, Georgia. Later renamed the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., the organization brings girls into the outdoors, encourages their self-reliance and resourcefulness, and prepares them for varied roles as adult women.

1913 Ida Bell Wells-Barnett founds the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago, the first black women's suffrage association in Illinois, through which she pressed for integration of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

1913 Alice Paul and Lucy Burns organize the Congressional Union, which later becomes the National Women's Party. Members picket the White House and engage in other forms of civil disobedience, drawing public attention to the suffrage cause.

1913 On March 3, 5-8,000 suffragists parade in Washington, D.C., drawing people away from newly-elected President Wilson's arrival in the city. They are mobbed by abusive crowds along the way.

1913 On May 10, the largest suffrage parade to date, including perhaps 500 men, marches down Fifth Avenue in New York City.

1914 Margaret Sanger calls for legalization of contraceptives in her new, feminist publication, the Woman Rebel, which the Post Office bans from the mails.

1915 40,000 march in New York City suffrage parade, the largest parade ever held in that city.

1915 A transcontinental automobile tour by suffragists, including Mabel Vernon and Sara Bard Field, gathers over a half-million signatures on petitions to Congress.

1916 October 16: Margaret Sanger and her sister, Ethel Byrne, open the first U.S. birth control clinic, in Brooklyn, NY. It was shut down ten days later; the women were tried and imprisoned.

1917 During WWI women more into many jobs working in heavy industry in mining, chemical manufacturing, automobile and railway plants. They also run streetcars, conduct trains, direct traffic, and deliver mail.

1917 Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress.

1917 January: National Woman's Party pickets appear in front of the White House holding aloft pro-suffrage banners. They remain there despite frigid weather or violent public response.

1917 October: 168 National Woman's Party members are arrested and convicted for peacefully picketing the White House for woman suffrage, becoming the first U.S. citizens held as political prisoners. In prison, they staged hunger strikes and were force-fed. In response to public outcry, they are eventually released without comment or pardon.

1918 January 8: New York v. Sanger. Margaret Sanger wins her suit in New York to allow doctors to advise their married patients about birth control for health purposes.