Page 18 - IAV Digital Magazine #552

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Why is August 26 known as Women’s Equality Day?
The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote nationally on August 18, 1920, so why is Women’s Equality Day on August 26th each year?
The simple answer is that even when a constitutional amendment has been ratified it’s not official until it has been certified by the correct gov- ernment official. In 1920, that official was U.S. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby. On August 26, 1920, Colby signed a proclamation behind closed doors at 8 a.m. at his own house in Washington, D.C, ending a struggle for the vote that started a century earlier.
The New York Times ran the story about the document’s signing on its front page and noted the lack of fanfare for the historic event.
Colby had been asked by women’s suffrage leaders Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt to allow groups in Colby’s office for the document’s signing and to film the event. Instead, Colby told reporters that “effectuat- ing suffrage through procla- mation of its ratification by the necessary thirty-six States
was more important than feeding the movie cameras.”
The Times explained that Colby was concerned about the rivalry between Paul and Catt and wanted to avoid a public scene at the signing.
“Inasmuch as I am not inter- ested in the aftermath of any of the friction or collisions which may have been devel- oped in the long struggle for the ratification of the amend- ment, I have contented myself with the performance in the simplest manner of the duty devolving upon me under the law,” Colby said.
A package of documents from the state of Tennessee had arrived by train in Washington around 4 a.m. It included the official ratification document from the state legislature.
How Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amend- ment on August 18, 1920, was a story in itself. Congress had passed the proposed amendment a year earlier, and it was supported by President Woodrow Wilson.
By the middle of 1920, 35 states had voted to ratify the amendment, but four other
states—Connecticut, Vermont, North Carolina and Florida—refused to consider the resolution for various reasons, while the remaining states had rejected the amendment altogether.
So, Tennessee became the battleground to obtain the three-fourths of states needed to ratify the amendment. Harry T. Burn, a 24-year-old legislator, was set to vote against the amendment,
but switched his vote on the Tennessee state house
floor at the urging of his moth- er, assuring the 19th amend- ment’s ratification.
Yet, even after Burn’s deciding vote, anti-suffrage legislators tried desperately to nullify the previous vote.
In 1971, Representative Bella Abzug championed a bill in the U.S. Congress to desig- nate August 26 as “Women’s Equality Day.” The bill says that “the President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation annually in commemoration of that day in 1920, on which the women of America were first given the right to vote.”
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