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The Civilian Conservation Corps, established in 1933, employed a quarter of a million young men annually who lived in military-style camps and carried out conservation and construction projects. It proved to be one of the most popular New Deal programs, but it did not include women. First lady Eleanor Roosevelt advocated for a comparable program…

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Item Type: Diary/Letter
Date: Circa 1935

As millions of men lost their jobs during the Great Depression, many began to argue that women (particularly married women) should not be occupying the scarce jobs that remained. When women could find jobs, employers routinely paid them less than men, even for the same work. Women were also more likely to be employed irregularly, which further…

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Item Type: Photograph
Date: 1933

Mary Ballou and her husband ran a boarding house in a California gold mining town. Ballou’s letter to her son, written in 1852, evokes the rough housing, violence, and high prices (from which the Ballous profited) in California during the gold rush. She also describes how the few women there provided each other with companionship and…

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Item Type: Diary/Letter
Date: 1852

James Sullivan, a state court judge in Massachusetts and colleague of John Adams, was often sympathetic to those who thought women and non-elite men should have a voice in the new nation’s government. Adams disagreed, explaining to Sullivan why women and the poor should be excluded. Some spelling changes and edits have been made to improve…

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Item Type: Diary/Letter
Date: 1776

A new militant suffrage group, the National Women’s Party (NWP), formed in 1916. Led by Alice Paul, the NWP began picketing the White House. The militants criticized President Woodrow Wilson for going to war “to make the world safe for democracy” in World War I, while in the United States women were denied the right to vote.…

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Item Type: Photograph
Date: 1917

Although early suffragists were not successful in passing a federal constitutional amendment to give women the right to vote, activists worked hard at the local and state levels throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They formed local organizations, proposed new state laws, and campaigned for state-wide referenda that gave women the…

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Item Type: Map
Date: 1880

In 1848 a group of 300 women and men, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, met in Seneca Falls, New York to outline a list of demands for women’s equality. The Declaration of Sentiments, modeled on the U.S. Declaration of Independence, included a list of grievances directed at the male-led government. It was signed by…

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Item Type: Pamphlet/Petition
Date: 1848

Female suffragists were disappointed when the final language of the 15th Amendment did not specifically protect the right of women to vote. Some women activists opposed the amendment for this reason. Virginia Minor was one of those activists. Partly inspired by western territories granting universal suffrage, partly to test how well the 14th…

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Item Type: Laws/Court Cases
Date: 1875

Suffrage activists were disappointed that the 15th Amendment did not explicitly protect women’s right to vote. Susan B. Anthony and others formed the National Woman Suffrage Association, based in Washington, D.C., to pressure Congress to pass an amendment that would guarantee women’s suffrage. The N.W.S.A. sent this appeal to hundreds of local…

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Item Type: Pamphlet/Petition
Date: 1876

During the 1870s and 1880s, hundreds of petitions bearing the signatures of thousands of people flooded Congress, asking for a suffrage amendment. Local activists went door-to-door in their communities, gathering the signatures of sympathetic women and men. These Massachusetts activists followed a template circulated by Susan B. Anthony and…

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Item Type: Pamphlet/Petition
Date: 1879