Timeline of women's suffrage

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Women's suffrage has been achieved at various times in various countries throughout the world. In many countries women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, so women (and men) from certain classes or races were still unable to vote, while some granted it to both sexes at the same time.

The timeline below lists years when women's suffrage was enacted in various places. In many cases the first voting took place in a subsequent year.

New Zealand in 1893 is often said to be the first "country" in the world to give women the right to vote. A contestant for being the first independent nation to grant women the right to vote would be Sweden, where conditional woman suffrage was granted during the age of liberty between 1718 and 1771, when taxpaying women listed in their guilds as professionals were allowed to vote[1]

Disclaimer: This timeline reflects a vast amount of information from the women's suffrage movement throughout the globe. In many cases, countries passed various laws which progressively gave women the right to vote. Many countries may appear on the list more than once because restrictions on suffrage were only lifted slowly. This list only states the right to vote; for other rights, see Timeline of women's rights (other than voting).

Suffrage parade, New York City, May 6, 1912.


Contents

[edit] 18th century

[edit] 19th century

  • 1838
  • 1861
    •  South Australia (Only property-owning women for local elections, universal franchise in 1894)
  • 1862
    •  Sweden (only in local elections, votes graded after taxation, universal franchise in 1919, which went into effect at the 1921 elections)[2]
  • 1863
    • Finland The Grand Principality of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1863, taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the country side, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities[2]
  • 1864
    • Victoria (Australia) Women in Victoria, Australia were unintentionally enfranchised by the Electoral Act (1863), and proceeded to vote in the following year's elections. The Act was amended in 1865 to correct the error.[3]
    • Bohemia In the former Bohemia, taxpaying women and women in "learned professions" where allowed to vote by proxy and made eligible to the legislative body in 1864.[2]
  • 1869
    • United Kingdom United Kingdom (only in local elections, universal franchise in 1928)
  • 1869–1920
    • Wyoming States and territories of the USA, progressively, starting with the Wyoming Territory in 1869 and the Utah Territory in 1870, though the latter was repealed by the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887. Wyoming acquired statehood in 1890 (Utah in 1896), allowing women to cast votes in federal elections. The United States as a whole acquired women's suffrage in 1920 (see below) through the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution; voting qualifications in the U.S., even in federal elections, are set by the states, and this amendment prohibited states from discriminating on the basis of sex.
Statue of Esther Hobart Morris in front of the Wyoming State Capitol
  • 1870
  • 1872
    • Finland The Grand Principality of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1872, taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the cities[2]
  • 1881
    •  Isle of Man (only property-owners until 1913, universal franchise in 1919.)
  • 1884
    •  Canada Widows and spinsters granted the right to vote within municipalities in Ontario (later to other provinces).[4]
  • 1889
    • Franceville grants universal suffrage.[5] Loses self-rule within months.
  • 1893
  • 1894
    •  South Australia grants universal suffrage, extending the franchise to all women (property-owners could vote in local elections from 1861), the first in Australia to do so. Women are also granted the right to stand for parliament, making South Australia the first in the world to do so.
    • United Kingdom United Kingdom extends right to vote in local elections to married women.
  • 1896
  • 1899

[edit] 20th century

[edit] 1900s

The argument over women's rights in Victoria was lampooned in this Melbourne Punch cartoon of 1887

[edit] 1910s


[edit] 1920s

[edit] 1930s

[edit] 1940s

[edit] 1950s

[edit] 1960s

[edit] 1970s

[edit] 1980s

[edit] 1990s

[edit] 21st century

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b * Åsa Karlsson-Sjögren: "Männen, kvinnorna och rösträtten : medborgarskap och representation 1723–1866" (Men, women and the vote: citizenship and representation 1723–1866) (in Swedish)
  2. ^ a b c d P. Orman Ray: Woman Suffrage in Foreign Countries. The American Political Science Review. Vol. 12, No. 3 (Aug., 1918), pp. 469-474
  3. ^ Women in Parliament - Parliament of Victoria
  4. ^ Canada-WomensVote-WomenSuffrage
  5. ^ "Wee, Small Republics: A Few Examples of Popular Government," Hawaiian Gazette, Nov 1, 1895, p 1
  6. ^ Bourdiol, Julien (1908), Condition internationale des Nouvelles-Hebrides, p 106
  7. ^ (Italian) Extension to the women of the right to vote
  8. ^ Gregory Hammond, The Women's Suffrage Movement and Feminism in Argentina From Roca to Peron (U of New Mexico Press; 2011)
  9. ^ Woman Suffrage Timeline International - Winning the Vote Around the World
  10. ^ El Voto Feminino en Ecuador, published 6 April 1991, accessed 1 November 2010
  11. ^ Darwish, Adel (October 25, 2002). "Bahrain's women vote for first time". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/bahrain/1411264/Bahrains-women-vote-for-first-time.html. Retrieved May 25, 2010. 
  12. ^ "Women in Saudi Arabia 'to vote and run in elections'". BBC News (London). September 25, 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15052030. Retrieved September 25, 2011. 

[edit] External links

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