It’s a good time to collect family stories on women’s right to vote

A century ago, on August 18, voting rights for women were secured with the Tennessee legislature’s very narrow vote to approve the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

A good documentary of this long struggle is the two-part series, “The Vote,” on PBS. Also, there’s “By One Vote: Woman Suffrage in the South.” Between both, you will learn how very close it was. There was a movement just as opposed to giving women the right to vote as the suffragettes were in favor. Also, African American women were expected to support the cause with little chance of actually being allowed to vote.

You can research the struggle in your own community via newspapers online. Decades later, some women in my own family had not registered. Ask some of your relatives if they have stories from ancestors about the movement. I know, in 1980, my next-door neighbor would not register as she thought, even then, only men should vote. The National Genealogical Society’s NGS Magazine for July-September is dedicated to Women’s Suffrage and includes websites and other sources. See the article “Was Grandmother a Suffragist?”