On June 4, 1919, the 19th amendment reached the ratification stage of it's passing.

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

-19th Amendment of the Constitution-

 

After more than 50 years of fighting, women's suffrage came down to a single voting process. Though the shortest stage, taking only a year and a half, ratification is "the most difficult political test that the NAWSA activists would face."(Citation) (NAWSA, an acronym for the National American Women Suffrage Association.)

Ratification is the official approval of a law or amendment, usually decided by vote. This amendment needed 36 state legislatures to vote "aye" in order for it to become a law, for women to receive the rights they desired. Each state had it's own individual suffragists that would push for their representative to vote in approval of the amendment. But, each state also had antisuffragists that were working for the opposite result.
All this work, these fifty plus years of pushing and praying and begging and persuading, led to the vote of one man.

Henry Burn, the Tennessee Rep, was the only one left to vote. But, as he was about to vote, something made him pause, and rethink his choice. His elderly mother was a suffragist, and earlier on, she had made him promise that if things ended up as a tie, with his vote deciding whether or not women got the rights they so longed for, he would vote "aye". And so, Burn rose, and gave his vote. The tie was broken, and women had their rights.
 

Henry T. Burn, the representative from Tennessee whose vote turned the tide.

Surprisingly, the impact of the 19th amendment led to more than just a change of the political rights of women. It bled into their culture, their life choices, and their perspectives.

Now, women were more educated. They knew more, and they knew how to do more with that knowledge. No longer were they so far behind the men, and they knew that this was only the beginning of what they thought would be a bright future. The League of Woman Voters was born, created by Carrie Chapman Cat, a major leader in the suffrage movement. This League planned to use the power they received in government to better their country, and were strongly against all forms of female discrimination. They were just as good as men in every way, and they may have even believed that they were better.
But these women did not now what they were getting themselves or the generations after themselves into. No longer was the female population addressed by the term of "lady". They were dubbed "women". The ability women had to vote had changed America's view of females. Previously, women had been "ladies", with strict moral obligations and even stricter behaviors. They were thought to be morally superior to men. But this began to change. Women were in the field now; they were no longer "untouchable." If they wanted to be in the field, they had to be okay to get dirty. And dirty they got. Skirts got shorter, wine and cigarettes were seen more and more in the hands of women, and sex, no longer a taboo subject, was accepted outside of marriage. These were flappers, and they didn't care about how they got freedom. All they knew was that women were now almost equal to men, and they wanted to flaunt that. This irritated the suffragist, the woman who had risked reputation and had sacrificed much of her life to gain this freedom, and it was being ungracefully thrown out of the window. Carrie Chapman Catt held major disapproval of these flappers. But her husband reminded her: "You did all this, you know. You wanted independence, you wanted rights. Now you've got 'em, and you can't complain if women didn't choose to use them as you thought they would." (Stalcup, 193)
When women got the vote, everything changed. They believed that it would be honorable, that politics was a simple game where they could put their moral foot down and everything would be fair. But politics is dirty. It runs deeper than that. The women were not prepared: there was nothing that could've prepared them.

            The Roarin’ 20’s. The time after WWI when Americans started a party so wild that it lasted for a decade. Life became better for everyone, especially women, who had recently gained newly found rights, such as voting, as a result of women’s suffrage. Because of this newly found freedom, a new type of girl emerged on the streets: the Flapper.

            The complete definition of the term “wild child,” Flappers would smoke, break rules, wear short hair (bobs) and skirts, and go out with men and do wild things. The term “flapper,” originating in England, referred to girls who were in the “in-between stage” and had long, skinny bodies, which required a special type of dress, called “flapper dresses.” The average age for a flapper was about 19, and they tried to stay that age for as long as possible. Flappers wore more makeup and less clothing than normal girls, and they had scandalous reputations, making them very popular with boys, fairly popular with other girls, and not popular at all with parents. Their clothing was based off of designs by Coco Chanel, and the bell-shaped hats that they wore were called cloches. Flappers enjoyed living on the edge and partaking in many new fads, such as dancing to jazz music. Jazz music, being a relatively new and unique form of music, was quite unpopular with adults, which naturally made it more popular with teenagers. Some of the more popular dances were the “Charleston” and the “Shimmy.” Dances like these helped flappers to flaunt their sexuality, which they did as much as possible. One reason for this was because so many young men had died in the war that women actually had to go out and find men in order to prevent a potential generation gap. This different style of dating did nothing if not to add to the growing amounts of confidence and influence that women were gaining during the 20’s.

            Though probably not the citizens America is most proud of, flappers were a large part of both the 20’s and American history. Once the Great Depression started, flappers pretty much disappeared because people could no longer afford to spend money on fancy clothes, parties, alcohol, or even cigarettes. However, that doesn't mean that female independence died out with them. The flappers were so influential that they led to the creation of the modern women today. They were the first women to exercise their newly gained independence, so who could blame them for going a little over the top?

Flapper Dance Craze

Flappers

Women in the Workforce

At the turn of the century women were still being looked at as the things that cared for the children, cleaned the house, and made sure dinner was on the table when the husband got home from work. The years that made up the nineteen twenties changed the roles of women in society in a way that essentially changed life forever. With women gaining the right to vote right off the bat in 1920 it was a great start for a life changing decade As the years went on, women began to enter the work force and by the end of the 1920’s more than 75 percent of women started their jobs before their husbands. It was clear that times were changing.  By 1930 there were women as political leaders in local, state, and federal committees helping influence the country in all its decisions.

                Girls started graduating from high school and continuing on to college to further their education, although, most jobs they studied for were teaching and nursing because these were the only jobs considered practical for women.  Women who worked were no longer considered “mill girls,” they also started doing clerical work in offices and retail work in stores. It also became common that young girls would work away from their families in order to learn how to be independent and manage their own profits.

More and more women were done having children by their mid-thirties in order to pursue other interests.  By the mid-1920s every one in four women over the age of sixteen were in the work force. They began earning their own money allowing them to buy nonessentials like clothing and makeup.  However, women were still not paid a percentage of men were being paid and had half the opportunities for work. If a woman got married or pregnant, she was expected to quit her job in order to be home for her family.  The role of women changed drastically during the nineteen twenties; allowing them to work and make a living for their families helped our country move towards a more equal society.

Women in the Workforce