Timeline of women's suffrage in Virginia

1778

• Hannah Lee Corbin from Gloucester County protests women's taxation without representation.[1]

1870

• The Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association (VSWSA) is formed by Anna Whitehead Bodeker.[2]

1871

• November: Bodeker attempts to vote in a municipal election in Virginia.[2]

1893

• The Virginia Suffrage Society is formed by Orra Gray Langhorne.[3]

1895

• Susan B. Anthony gives a suffrage speech in Culpeper.[4]

1900

• Carrie Chapman Catt urges Virginia to adopt women's suffrage in the next constitutional convention.[5]

1902

• Virginia disenfranchises many voters, including African Americans, poor whites and Republicans, during the state convention.[6] A literacy test and poll tax is required for voters.[6]

1909

• November 27: The Equal Suffrage League of Virginia is founded in the home of Anne Clay Crenshaw.[3][2]

Suffrage speech April 10, 1916, near Norfolk, Virginia

1910

• February: The Equal Suffrage League of Virginia affiliates with the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).[2]

1911

• The first state suffrage convention was held in Richmond with delegates from Norfolk, Lynchburg, Williamsburg, and Highland Springs.[7]

1912

• February: The House of Delegates rejects a resolution to amend the state constitution to allow woman suffrage.[8]
• July: The National Association of Colored Women (NACW) holds their convention in Hampton where they have sessions on women's suffrage and the women's clubs of Hampton and Norfolk state a suffrage parade as part of the convention's activities.[2][9]
• The Virginia Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage is formed.[10]
• The Men's Equal Suffrage League of Virginia is formed.[11]
• The second state suffrage convention is held in Norfolk.[7]
• A resolution for women's suffrage is proposed in the House of the Virginia General Assembly by Hill Montague.[5]

1913

• The third state suffrage convention is held in Lynchburg.[7]

1914

• March: The House of Delegates rejects amending the state constitution to allow woman suffrage.[12]
• May 2: Suffrage demonstration is held on the steps of the Virginia State Capitol.[7]
• October: A monthly newspaper, the Virginia Suffrage News, is created.[11][13]
• The fourth state suffrage convention is held in Roanoke.[7]
• Another suffrage amendment is brought up in the House of the General Assembly.[5]

1915

• From May till Thanksgiving, women held "street meetings" on women's suffrage in Lynchburg, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Richmond, and Warrenton.[7]
• May 1: A May Day celebration is held at the Capitol building, with suffragists hosting booths, selling buttons, flags and copies of the Woman's Journal.[7]
• June 10: The Virginia Branch of the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage is organized in Richmond with Sophie G. Meredith as chair.[9]
• December: The fifth state suffrage convention is held in Richmond.[7] Around 200 delegates marched to the governor's office.[14]

1916

• February: The House of Delegates rejects amending the state constitution to allow woman suffrage.[15]
• October: Aviator, Katharine Stinson, drops women's suffrage leaflets on behalf of the Virginia Congressional Union over the Virginia State Fair during the airshow.[16]
• The sixth state suffrage convention was held in Norfolk.[17]
• A third suffrage amendment is proposed in the House and the Senate of the General Assembly.[5]

1917

• January 29 – February 2: Suffrage school is conducted in Richmond in concert with NAWSA.[17]
• November: The seventh state convention on women's suffrage is held in Richmond.[17]
• November 15: The Night of Terror takes place in the Occoquan Workhouse.[18]
• December: Virginia sends the largest suffrage delegation to the National Suffrage convention in Washington, D.C.[17]

1919

Virginia Equal Suffrage League convention photo from November 1919

• August 13: The General Assembly came together for a special session and suffragists used this time to learn politicians' positions on women's suffrage.[19]
• November: State suffrage convention is held in Richmond.[20]

1920

• February 12: The Virginia General Assembly votes against ratifying the Nineteenth Amendment.[21]
• August 26: The Nineteenth Amendment is declared ratified.[22]
• September: The Equal Suffrage League of Virginia dissolves and becomes the League of Women Voters (LWV) of Virginia.[11][23]
• September 2 – October 2: between 75,000 and 100,000 white and African American women register to vote in Virginia[9]
• November 10: LWV of Virginia holds their first meeting.[23]

1924

• Native American women are given the rights to vote.[24]

1952

• February 21: Virginia ratifies the Nineteenth Amendment.[11]

1965

• The Passage of the Voting Rights Act ends voter suppression against African American women.[25][23]

• Anthony, Susan B. (1902). Anthony, Susan B.; Harper, Ida Husted (eds.). The History of Woman Suffrage. Vol. 4. Indianapolis: The Hollenbeck Press.
• Graham, Sara Hunter (April 1993). "Woman Suffrage in Virginia: The Equal Suffrage League and Pressure-Group Politics, 1909–1920". Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 101 (2): 227–250. JSTOR 4249352 – via JSTOR.
• Harper, Ida Husted (1922). The History of Woman Suffrage. New York: J.J. Little & Ives Company.