Connecting Voters.
Continuing the Work.
Susan B. Anthony Didn't Do It Alone.
WOMEN AND THE VOTE NEW YORK STATE provides a growing suffragist directory and gravesite map to help you explore New York's rich and influential suffragist history. You'll find famous individuals and those you've never heard of whose grassroots efforts resulted in passage of milestone legislation including the 19th Amendment (1920), the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)—proposed in 1923—remains one state shy of ratification to this day.
On Election Day, we hope you’ll cast your vote and then visit suffragists gravesites in your community wearing your “I Voted” sticker to show your gratitude for their tireless work. Our filmmakers will be at many cemeteries asking visitors how the past and the fragility of suffrage inspires them to honor Susan B. Anthony's call to continue the work for a just and equitable society for all.
Inspired by the Indigenous way of life.
Long before Europeans set foot in what is now New York state, the Haudenosaunee considered women sacred. They created space for women to walk alongside men and share equally the burdens and the blessings of carrying forth a community.
For EuroAmerican women who legally had no voice, no rights, and belonged to their fathers or husbands, this Indigenous model of democracy inspired dreams of freedom and equality.
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Some early suffragists in Upstate New York, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Lucretia Mott, befriended their Haudenosaunee neighbors. Witnessing democracy based on equity, not power over another, shaped the women's thinking and inspired their writings throughout the suffrage movement.