How Did Susan B Anthony Get The Right To Vote?

Susan B. Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869, the same year that Henry Ward Beecher and Lucy Stone formed the American Woman Suffrage Association. Both groups fought for the right to vote until they merged in 1890 and became the National Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Susan B. Anthony was named president and began to lead the movement towards gaining the right to vote. People were opposed giving women the right to vote for many different reasons. Companies that made alcohol feared women would put the Prohibition Amendment into action, making alcohol illegal. Many southerners were afraid women would apply the Fifteenth Amendment and end segregation. Men feared how women would use their power, and businesses were fearful that women would increase wages and fight for improved working conditions if given the right to vote because women made up much of the workforce.
On the other hand, western states and territories pressured for suffrage. Wyoming Territory gave women the right to vote in 1869, and others followed. In some territories, women were allowed to vote on everything, but other territories and states limited voting to presidential elections or school board elections (Imbornoni).
Lots of progress was made throughout the country; however, in 1900, Susan B.
Anthony retired from her position as president of NAWSA leaving her job to Carrie Chapman Catt. In 1904, Carrie C. Catt was forced to leave NAWSA due to her husband’s poor health. Ten years after his death, Carrie C. Catt was drafted to serve as the president of NAWSA again. At that time, NAWSA was very divided due to the leadership of Alice Paul, who believed in more militant protests. Under Alice Paul’s leadership, suffragists began picketing outside of the White House. Catt did not agree with the form of protest, and later on Alice Paul left NAWSA and formed the Woman’s Party in 1916
(Imbornoni).
Carrie Chapman Catt took over NAWSA , and once it was back on track, she proposed the “Winning Plan” which would combine acting on the federal level of government with trying to gain support on the state level. The plan suggested that if the Nineteenth Amendment was signed and sent to states for ratification, suffragists would already have enough votes from states to pass the amendment. The plan was set into action.
In 1917, when the U.S. entered WWI, suffragists decided to stop working to gain the right to vote and focus on supporting the country while men were away at war. Suffragist gained support from the government for their actions because they were relied on to run the country during that time. In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson showed support of the suffrage movement. In addition by 1918, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, California, Oregon, Kansas, Arizona, Alaska, Illinois, Montana, Nevada, New York, Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma all allowed women to vote due to the “Winning Plan” (Imbornoni).
In 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment was passed which prohibited alcohol. The Eighteenth Amendment helped to pass the Nineteenth Amendment because people no longer feared that women would put the Prohibition Act into action because alcohol was already illegal (Imbornoni).