06/24/2026
June 24, 1919, Pennsylvania became the seventh state to ratify the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.
The early woman’s rights movement was closely tied to the abolition movement, with Quakers taking a leading role in the Philadelphia region. In 1852, Quaker women organized Pennsylvania’s first woman’s rights convention, at Horticultural Hall in West Chester, presided over by abolitionists Lucretia Mott and Mary Ann White Johnson.
Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, countless Pennsylvania women worked tirelessly to spread the suffrage movement across the state, many putting their lives and liberty on the line. Philadelphia’s Carrie Burnham was arrested for attempting to vote, then unsuccessfully argued her case before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Erie resident Augusta Fleming organized the state’s first suffrage march in Perry in 1913. In Pittsburgh, Daisy Lampkin hosted meetings and gave street-corner speeches to promote the cause and organize participation by African-American women.
