Nancy Schuetz presented a program on Women’s Suffrage to the Progress Club at the Feb. 7 meeting. She stated that most Americans do not really appreciate the right to vote. Only 60% of eligible voters voted in the 2016 election. 

Women were granted the right to vote just over 100 years ago. Before that time women were considered the property of men. They were expected to stay home and care for the house and raise children. They could not own property or have their own money.  

The fight for women’s suffrage began in 1848 in Seneca Falls, N.Y. Early leaders were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote. Tennessee was the last state necessary to ratify the amendment and only did so after the mother of one of the legislators wrote her son a letter so that he changed his vote to yes. 

Alice Paul headed a more militant branch of women who demanded the right to vote. Kansas granted women the right to vote in 1912 before the passage of the 19th Amendment.

The next meeting will be held March 7.  Co-hostesses will be Darlene Mathers and Kathy Schugart.