How the suffrage movement unfolded in Greenville

Furman Distinguished University Public Historian and Scholar Courtney Tollison ’99 writes an opinion piece for The Greenville News. She chronicles South Carolina’s role in the women’s suffrage movement, for which Greenville’s contributions began in 1890, when a small group of women and at least one man held a women’s rights convention. A. Viola Neblett, Mary P. Gridley, and George and Sarah Sirrine of Greenville, and Virginia Durant Young of Fairfax, established the South Carolina Equal Rights Association, which later aligned with the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).

The South Carolina General Assembly voted the 19 Amendment down. Tennessee, the 36th state to pass it, effectively ratified the amendment on Aug. 18, 1920, and on Aug. 26, the 19th Amendment was formally adopted into the United States Constitution.

Learn more about celebrations and programs marking the passage of the 19th Amendment in the full article.