Nevada Ratifies the 19th Amendment, February 7, 1920

In the 1864 Nevada state constitution the right to vote was specifically for men. In 1869, a women’s suffrage bill was introduced and passed by both houses of the legislature, but it failed to pass again at the next legislative session two years later (as required by the state constitution). The women’s suffrage movement did not gain new momentum until the 1900s. In 1911 women organized the Nevada Equal Franchise Society and under the leadership of Jeanne Elizabeth Weir, Anne Martin, and Bird Wilson women again pushed for the right to vote. The state legislature passed an amendment to allow women’s suffrage in 1911 and again in 1913, allowing the issue to go to a general vote. The Nevada suffrage movement faced a fierce anti-suffrage movement that included prominent women and business leaders. Several businessmen threatened to pull their businesses out of the state if women’s suffrage was approved. Because much of the opposition was concentrated in urban areas, the Nevada Equal Franchise Society focused their campaigning on rural areas where voters would not face the same economic pressure. As a result, when the issue of women’s suffrage went to a general vote in 1914, the suffrage amendment was approved by a vote of 10,936 to 7,258. When Congress passed the 19^th Amendment, Nevada ratified it on February 7, 1920.

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