Historical Society of Delaware - Time Line-Women's Suffrage

Above: February 20, 1913; members of the Woman's Suffrage Army,
shown outside the Deer Park Hotel, Newark, Delaware;
originally in the collections of the Newark Historical Society.

1868	Mary Ann Sorden Stuart of Greenwood begins to fight for women's rights.
Nov. 12, 1869	Wilmington's first women's rights convention. Abolitionist Thomas Garrett presided, Lucy Stone spoke.
1870s	Married women in Delaware receive the right to make wills, own property, and control their own earnings.
1880	Mary Ann Sorden Stuart testifies before U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in favor or woman's suffrage.
1881	Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony address Delaware General Assembly in an attempt to amend the state constitution to allow woman's suffrage.
1888	Delaware Woman's Christian Temperance Union endorses woman's suffrage.
1895	Wilmington Equal Suffrage Club organized
1896	Delaware Equal Suffrage Association (DESA) founded, affiliated with National American Woman's Suffrage Association (NAWSA).
Jan. 13, 1897	Carrie Chapman Catt, Martha Cranston, Emalea Pusey Warner, Margaret White Houston, and Emma Worrell address hearing at Delaware constitutional convention in favor of suffrage. The Committee on Elections votes against woman's suffrage.
1912	Alice Paul becomes chair of Congressional Committee of NAWSA, bringing new life to the suffrage movement. The focus switches from a state-by-state approach to an amendment to the United States Constitution.
1913	Equal suffrage amendment to state constitution fails in Delaware General Assembly.
1913	Alice Paul breaks from NAWSA to form Congressional Union (CU).
Summer 1913	Series of suffrage meetings in Wilmington.
Sept. 1913	Florence Bayard Hilles hears Mabel Vernon speak and is converted to the suffrage cause.
Sept. 1913	Joint CU-DESA headquarters open at Seventh and Shipley streets in Wilmington with Mabel Vernon in charge.
Nov. 23, 1913	Mrs. Emmaline Pankhurst, noted English suffragette, speaks in Wilmington.
Apr. 25, 1914	DESA plants suffrage tree, a pin oak, at north end of Van Buren Street bridge in Wilmington.
May 2, 1914	Big suffrage parade in Wilmington.
Summer 1914	Florence Bayard Hilles and Miss Hill speak in 7 towns on a two-day tour of Delaware.
Jan.-Feb. 1915	The "Votes of Women Flyer," Florence Bayard Hilles's gaily decorated car, tours the state taking the suffrage message to many small towns.
Mar. 1915	Equal suffrage amendment to state constitution fails in Delaware General Assembly.
June 1915	DESA and CU split, with DESA moving out of joint headquarters at 305 Delaware Avenue in Wilmington.
June 1916	CU becomes National Woman's Party.
July 8, 1916	Mabel Vernon heckles Woodrow Wilson from the platform at an event in Washington.
Dec. 1916	Delaware CU has 36 branch organizations.
Dec. 1916	Mabel Vernon and Florence Bayard Hilles are in a group that unfurls a suffrage banner in Congress during a speech by Woodrow Wilson.
Jan. 10, 1917	"Silent Sentinels" begin to picket the White House.
Feb. 18, 1917	15 women from Delaware go to Washington to do picket duty at the White House.
Feb. 18, 1917	Delaware Association of Women Opposed to Woman's Suffrage goes to Dover for a General Assembly hearing.
Mar. 1, 1917	Delaware Day: all White House pickets are form Delaware.
June 22, 1917	First arrest of suffrage pickets at the White House.
June 25, 1917	12 women arrested, including Mabel Vernon and Annie Arneil of Delaware, on charge of "obstructing traffic." Sentenced to 3 days in jail.
July 14, 1917	16 women, including Florence Bayard Hilles, arrested at White House. Sentenced to 60 days in the workhouse. Pardoned by Woodrow Wilson after serving 3 days of their sentence.
March 1918	Washington Court of Appeals declares all suffrage arrests, trials, punishments illegal.
June 1918	A group of suffragist munitions workers from Delaware, led by Florence Bayard Hilles, who also worked in the factory, wait at the White house for 2 weeks in a futile attempt to see Woodrow Wilson.
Aug. 6, 1918	Arrests of White House pickets resume.
Dec. 16, 1918	Suffragists begin to burn Woodrow Wilson's words in watch fires in front of the White House.
Jan. 1, 1919	Perpetual watch fire lit at the White House.
Feb. 9, 1919	President Woodrow Wilson burned in effigy at the White House.
June 1919	Suffrage amendment wins Congressional approval.
Aug. 9, 1919	Ratification rally in Dover.
March-June 1920	Special session of Delaware General Assembly to consider suffrage amendment. Great national interest because if successful, Delaware was the final state needed. Senate votes to ratify, House does not.
Aug. 1920	Woman's suffrage becomes part of the United States Constitution.