NINETEENTH AMENDMENT

This week was the 93rd anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the amendment that guaranteed women citizens of this country the right to vote.

Several of our posts over the last few years have focused on Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the role they played in getting this important privilege for women. (Please see our posts of August 27, 2009, March 4, 2010, and March 3, 2013, in which we thank these women for their support of women's suffrage and for drafting the text of the amendment.)

However,  there is another person we haven't thanked--Harry Burn, a 24-year-old Tennessee assembly member who cast the deciding vote, making Tennessee the 36th state needed to ratify the amendment. According to a report on public radio this week, Burn had originally planned to vote against the 19th amendment and changed his mind when he received a note from his mother encouraging him to be a "good boy" and vote for suffrage.

So, in honor of the 93rd anniversary of the 19th Amendment, we again say "thank you" to Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton--and "thank you" for the first time to Harry Burn.

(Hmmm...this would have made a good Mother's Day post. Oh, well.)