“As Natural as Breathing” – Women Vote for First Time in a New York Election
Suffragist leader Carrie Chapman Catt, together with her colleague Mary Garrett Hay, voted for the first time in a New York state election on this day.
“It seemed as natural as breathing,” said Mrs. Hay in a New York Times article. New York had amended its constitution in 1917 to grant women the right to vote.
The Nineteenth Amendment granting women the right to vote in all elections was ratified on August 18, 1920, and women voted in state and federal elections for the first time, including presidential elections, on November 2, 1920.
Read about Carrie Chapman Catt: Jacqueline Van Voris, Carrie Chapman Catt: A Public Life (1987)
View a timeline of the Suffrage Movement: http://www.suffragist.com/timeline.htm
Learn more about the history of women’s suffrage, from the 19th Century to the present: Ellen Carol DuBois, Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote (2020)
Read Paul’s biography: Mary Walton, A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot (2010)
Learn more: Sandra Holton, Suffrage Days: Stories from the Women’s Suffrage Movement (1996)