Tennessee
Tennessee’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 Tennessee in the timeline below, or download the timeline as a printable PDF.
Tennessee’s Suffrage Timeline
1889
Lide Smith Meriwether, the Tennessee Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (TWCTU) president, founded the state’s first suffrage organization, the Equal Rights Association in Memphis (ERAM). Meriwether traveled throughout Tennessee giving speeches and helping communities form new suffrage groups. Meriwether also edited the regional Appeal to Reason newspaper, which advocated for women’s rights.
1911
Anne Dallas Dudley founded the Nashville Equal Suffrage League (NESL) and served as Tennessee Equal Suffrage Association (TESA) president. TESA broadened the Tennessee suffragist base by opening branches across the state, including Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis, and Chattanooga.
1914
Dudley and other suffragists organized a suffrage automobile parade, and later led a suffrage procession through downtown Nashville to the State Capitol. The parade coincided with the National American Woman Suffrage Association convention in Nashville.
1919
The Tennessee Legislature passed a limited suffrage bill giving women the right to vote in presidential and municipal elections.
1920
After Congress passed the 19th Amendment, suffragists convinced Governor Albert Roberts to convene a special session to consider its ratification. The Senate passed the amendment, the House vote was very unclear. Twenty-four year old Representative Harry Burn changed history by casting the deciding vote. With his mother’s note advising him to support suffrage, Burn changed his opposition into support for suffrage.
August 18, 1920
Tennessee became the needed 36th state to vote for ratification of the 19th Amendment.*
* Jim Crow laws were enforced in Tennessee until passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and Black women were not able to vote post-1920.
References
Anne Dallas Dudley. (n.d.). National Women’s Hall of Fame. https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/anne-dallas-dudley/
Cooney, Robert. (2005). Winning the Vote: The Triumph of the American Woman Suffrage Movement. American Graphic Press.
Goodstein, A. (2017, October 8). Lide Smith Meriwether. Tennessee Encyclopedia. http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/lide-smith-meriwether/
Public Chapter 139, 1919. (n.d.). Tennessee Virtual Archive. https://cdm15138.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15138coll27/id/1171
Taylor, A. (1943). A Short History of the Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee from A Short History of the Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee. Tennessee Historical Society. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42620797
Tennessee and the 19th Amendment. (2020, July 31). National Park Service. https://www.nps.gov/articles/tennessee-women-s-history.htm