100 Years of Power, Part 1: Battle for Suffrage

The Story Exchange

72 years. That's how long it took for women to win the right to vote, after suffragists first rallied at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention. The battle was long, heart-felt, and sometimes bitter -- with a surprising split over race issues after the Civil War ended. The 19th Amendment was finally ratified on August 18, 1920, in the wake of the Spanish Flu Pandemic. 100 years later, the war for equality is still being fought -- making the history explored in this podcast more important than ever. Ellen DuBois, author of Suffrage: Women's Long Battle for the Vote, joins reporter Victoria Flexner to answer this question: How did getting the vote in 1920 change women’s ability to wield power in America?