Georgia
Georgia’s Fight for Suffrage
Women worked for over 70 years to get the vote. Divisions over race, tactics, and strategy did not stop suffrage efforts. Women kept their eyes on the prize . . . suffrage. Learn more about the fight for suffrage in Georgia in the timeline below, or download the timeline as a printable PDF.
Georgia’s Suffrage Timeline
1892
Helen Augusta Howard founded the Georgia Woman Suffrage Association (GWSA), a branch of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Howard faced widespread community criticism as she sometimes wore pants and was . . . a vegetarian.
1895
NAWSA hosted its annual meeting in Atlanta, its first national meeting held outside of Washington, D.C. NAWSA excluded Black women from its 2,000-person conference, and during the conference week, Susan B. Anthony spoke to Black suffragists on the campus of Atlanta University.
1899
At the inaugural GWSA convention, suffragists passed a resolution stating that Georgia’s women should not be required to pay taxes since they could not vote. In 1902, Atlanta women also unsuccessfully petitioned for voting rights in municipal elections.
1914
The National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage (NAOWS) opened a Georgia chapter and presented testimony before the Georgia Legislature, which rejected numerous suffrage bills.
Despite being shut out of the legislative process, suffragists transmitted the Washington, D.C. parade energy to Atlanta, where students in caps and gowns, brass bands, and cars with “Votes for Women” banners marched as part of the town’s 1914 Harvest Festival. The next year, Georgia’s suffrage organizations joined in the city’s Labor Day parade procession.
1919
Georgia became the first state to reject ratification of the 19th Amendment on July 24.
1920
After Tennessee’s ratification made the 19th Amendment the law of the land, Central Committee of Women Citizens Chair Eleanor Raoul organized an Atlanta voter registration campaign that registered 3,784 women to vote in the 1920 election.
1922
Georgia delayed women from voting until 1922 due to a requirement that voters be registered six months before an election. While there was a push for the Georgia Legislature to waive this rule via an Enabling Act, Georgia refused to allow women to vote until 1922. From 1922 onward, women had the vote in Georgia.*
February 20, 1970
Georgia’s Legislature ratified the 19th Amendment.
* Jim Crow laws were enforced in Georgia until passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and Black women were not able to vote post-1920.
References
Augusta Howard and the Women’s Suffrage Marker Dedication. (2020, August 19). Historic Columbus. https://www.historiccolumbus.com/post/augusta-howard-and-the-women-s-suffrage-marker-dedication
Cooney, Robert. (2005). Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement. American Graphic Press.
Eltzroth, E. (2020, July 21). Woman Suffrage. New Georgia Encyclopedia. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/woman-suffrage/
Georgia and the 19th Amendment. (2020, January 15). National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/georgia-and-the-19th-amendment.htm
Kuechenmeister, L. (n.d.). Women’s Suffrage: The 19th Amendment and Eléonore Raoul’s Role in the Struggle. Emory University. https://law.emory.edu/stories/women-s-suffrage/index.html
Marshall, A. (2019, April 16). Mildred Lewis Rutherford. New Georgia Encyclopedia. https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/mildred-lewis-rutherford-1851-1928/