Grinnell Rotary met Tuesday, February 25, 2020, for a meal, meeting, and program.
The speakers for the evening were Sara Hegg-Dunne and Karen Phillips, and their topic for the evening was the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women in the United States the right to vote. Hegg-Dunne and Phillips were representing the Grinnell League of Women Voters. This year, 2020, marks the 100 year anniversary of the passage of the Amendment. The Iowa League of Women Voters has coined the phrase “Hard Won, Not Done” to commemorate the centennial. Amendment XIX notes that the rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. At first, the constitution placed the question of the right to vote into the hands of the individual legislatures, and this led to chaos around this basic right. The Seneca Falls convention of 1848 is often described as the birthplace of the suffragist movement. During the Civil War, the suffragist movement went quiet, probably because the abolitionist movement and suffragist movement attracted many of the same people, and the people’s attention was on the war. Meanwhile, in 1850, Carrie Clinton Lane Chapman Catt was born in Wisconsin, and she later moved with her family to Charles City, Iowa. She later became an important figure in the Iowa movement. After the Civil War, three important Amendments to the U.S. Constitution were passed. In 1865, the 13th amendment which abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude; in 1867, the 14th amendment which grants citizenship for freed slaves and equal protection under the law; and in 1869, the 15th amendment which grants African American men the right to vote, however, none of these amendments addressed the question of women’s rights. In the 1870’s, Iowa suffragist groups petitioned the legislature for a suffrage amendment. Later in that decade, the Women’s Suffrage Amendment was presented to the Congress. The House of Representatives approved the 19th Amendment, but the Senate later rejected it. It wasn’t until a year later, in 1920, that Congress finally passed the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. Iowa actually ratified the amendment in June 1919, the 10th state to do so. The last state to ratify the 19th amendment was Mississippi in 1984. Carrie Chapman Catt went on to found the League of Women Voters. There is a center in her name at Iowa State University, where she was the only woman in her class, and the valedictorian.
Rotary meets every Tuesday at West Side Family Restaurant.
Dennis Conway
