19th–20th centuriesPrimary sourceWell documented

Votes for All: The Long Struggle for Suffrage

On the timeline · around 19th–20th centuries · Democracy for All

What happened

Early democracies gave the vote only to propertied men. Over the 19th and 20th centuries, reform movements steadily widened the franchise — to working-class men, and then, after decades of campaigning by suffragists, to women. In the United States the 19th Amendment gave women the vote in 1920; other nations followed at their own pace.

Why it matters

The expansion of the vote transformed democracy from the privilege of a wealthy few into the right of nearly all adults. The long, hard-won struggle for universal suffrage is at the heart of what makes a government truly democratic.

Sources

U.S. National Archives. Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment · Primary source

Related timelines

The Civil Rights Movement → — The wider struggle for the vote and equal rights

Part of a timelineHistory of Democracy12 events · From an Athenian assembly to universal human rights — 2,500 years of the idea that people should rule themselves, every milestone sourced.View all →