Source: "Woman suffrage," Collier's New Encyclopedia, X (New York: P.F. Collier & Son Company, 1921), pp. 403-405.
Meanwhile efforts to obtain an amendment to the Federal Constitution had not abated. Finally, on January 12, 1915, a bill to this effect was brought before the House of Congress, but was lost by a vote of 174 against 204. Again a bill was brought before the House, on January 10, 1918. On the evening before President Wilson made a strong and widely published appeal to the House to pass the bill. It was passed with one more vote than was needed to make the necessary two-thirds majority. The fight was now carried into the Senate. Again President Wilson made an appeal, and on September 30, 1918, the question was put to the vote, but two votes were lacking to make the two-thirds majority. On February 10, 1919, it was again voted upon, and then it was lost by only one vote.
There was now considerable anxiety among politicians of both parties to have the amendment passed and made effective before the general elections of 1920, so the President called a special session of Congress, and a bill introducing the amendment was brought before the House again. On May 21, 1919, it was passed, 42 votes more than necessary being obtained. On June 4, 1919, it was brought before the Senate, and after a long discussion it was passed, with 56 ayes and 25 noes. It only remained now that the necessary number of States should ratify the action of Congress. Within a few days Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, their legislatures being then in session, passed the ratifications. One after another the other States followed their examples, Connecticut being the last of the needed 36 States to ratify, in the summer of 1920. The amendment was now an accomplished fact and the Presidential election of November, 1920, was therefore the first occasion on which all American women were allowed to exercise their right of suffrage.
[Note: Tennessee was actually the 36th state; Connecticut the 37th.]
Source: "Woman suffrage," Collier's New Encyclopedia, X (New York: P.F. Collier & Son Company, 1921), pp. 403-405.
