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Time Lines 23
Former Governor of NewYork Alfred E. Smith, welcomes Carrie Chapman Catt, women’s suffrage leader,
on her triumphal return fromTennessee, last state to ratify the 19th Amendment giving women the right
to vote, in NewYork, Aug. 27, 1920. Miss Catt carries a bouquet of blue and yellow flowers, colors of the
National American Woman’s Suffrage Association. (AP Photo)
This wood engraving shows women at the Chey-
enne polls casting their ballots in a local election
in Wyoming in 1869. Though the 19th Amendment,
giving women the right to vote, did not pass un-
til 1920, the territory of Wyoming granted women
equal voting rights on Dec. 10, 1869. (AP Photo)
Tennessee who changed his vote in 1920 to support rati-
fication and broke a tie in the House of Representatives,
thus making history.
Minutes after ratification, Burn, wearing a red rose
pinned to his lapel, fled to the attic of the state capitol
and camped out there until the maddening crowds down-
stairs dispersed, according to an article published on
History.com. Some say he crept onto a third-floor ledge
to escape an angry mob of anti-suffragist lawmakers
threatening to rough him up.
The 24-year-old representative from East Tennessee
had two years earlier become the youngest member of
the state legislature. The red rose signified his opposition
to the proposed amendment
By the summer of 1920, 35 states had ratified the
measure, bringing it one vote short of the required 36.