American history has changed in a variety of ways. As you go back in time you notice the difference with groups, including African Americans and women. How these changes and experiences affected their voting rights. There was one amendment that did change voting rights that freed Americans, which is the 17th amendment. Many women during that time were viewed as stay at home, clean, raise children, and not be able to work. The industrial revolution started and that view on how woman traditionally are supposed to be, ended up changing.
To begin, change is a something we want for our life. Change isn’t just a lifestyle but something that can have a strong positive outcome. In the textbook on chapter 15 of The American Yawp, many women were waiting for “the possibility for radical change.” Many were delighted with hope of being able to have a voice in society. Woman not only suffered from being able to vote, but so did African Americans. They also made it very impossible for African Americans to have the ability to vote. African Americans at the time needed to own their property in order to vote. With these recurring changes, whether it would be in education or even living conditions, women went to seek for their rights and have equality of their own.
By having the right to vote, generations before us have fought to protect the most treasured rights of citizenship in the United States. It’s the foundation of how our government is created. For instance, people take voting in this country for granted. Not realizing the lives lost and how many hardships to go through to get this simple right. It’s like you wouldn’t ever realize that women had a long and difficult journey to reach true equality and freedom.
That privilege was called suffrage. Many states restricted voting rights. Which meant that most women, slaves and people of color could not vote. It even got to the point where they held meetings in every place that existed. As said in chapter 15 of the American Yawp, Woman did what they could even if it was at a church, “…for equal treatment and access to the pulpit as preachers, even though they were able to vote in church meetings.” Many did not think that the NWRC, National Woman’s Rights Convention was going to be, “…with the American Anti-Slavery Society to form the American Equal Rights Association (AERA).” It brought a lot of benefits having that in place. In other words the it was the “…culmination of the long-standing partnership between abolitionists and women’s rights advocates.”
They didn’t let anything stop them from making sure their voice was heard. In chapter 20 of the American Yawp, they discuss on how the “National Woman’s Party took to the streets to demand voting rights, organizing marches and protests that mobilized thousands of women.” Insanely enough that brought a lot of woman intro wanting their own rights and joining the National Woman’s Party. At the same time some women were against the idea of having the right to vote. Even calling them masculine because they wanted to have rights like men.
Moreover, it was very unbelievable how far woman went to achieve the equal rights for women to vote. It could even be as simple as running for political office. The idea of being able to have the sense of freedom to vote was always made impossible during their times. Woman were always confined to their homes and actually had no freedom to choose who should be leading in the government. As seen in chapter 20 of the American Yawp reader, “Women protested silently in front of the White House for over two years before the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment.” That just shows how much these women have came a long way. Creating an impact by forming groups of women wanting a change in their life.
In conclusion, going through various changes in history, helped us shape our country to have the right to be free, the right to vote. No matter what your ethnicity, race, color you are able to make a difference in the nation. Progress goes a long way depending on how much effort you put. Although it took so many years to make changes thoughts, and rights for both women and people of color, it was still possible. There were multiple challenging factors for woman. When the rights were given the society changed as a whole. People were more open towards the idea of women and people of color having a voice in their own country. Although many things were not settled our country was going on the right path for equality. Which ended up giving different perspectives from individual roles, I hope you can understand the importance of women’s rights not only for women, but for everybody.