Women's Voting Rights: The 5 Most Interesting Published Works

The push to grant voting rights to American women began in earnest in 1848 with the Womens' Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Women didn't receive voting rights until the 19th Amendment was passed in 1919 but, in the interim, advocates of women's suffrage published several works supporting their position.

The following five works best illustrate the beliefs and principles held by those who supported granting voting rights to women in the United States.

1. "Observations on the Real Rights of Women" by Hannah Mather Crocker (1818)
The University of Nebraska Press noted that this book is widely considered the first explanation on the position of American women as written by an American woman. In it, Hannah Mather Crocker argues that it was not possible to judge women's minds against those of men because men and women did not have equal access to education.

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2. "Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and the Condition of Woman" Sarah Grimke (1838)
Sarah Grimke started out as an abolitionist, later moving into women's rights, according to Teach US History. She wrote this book in response to Catherine Beecher's argument that women should be subordinate to men. Grimke asserted that God had made both sexes equal and that men had forced women into a subordinate role. She further stated that women should be allowed to participate equally in the same spheres as men, including politics.

3. "The Declaration of Sentiments" by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1848)
Modeled after the Declaration of Independence, this document was created for and read at the Seneca Falls convention, according to History.com. In it, Elizabeth Cady Stanton outlined the injustices women had faced in the U.S. and called for women to stand up for their rights. Notable quotes include "woman is man's equal – was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such." According to the National Women's History Museum, this document had a major impact on the direction of the women's rights movement.

4. "History of Woman Suffrage" (1881)
This six-volume tome traced the origins and evolutions of the women's voting rights movement. Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage launched the effort, and other prominent suffragists, such as Lucy Stone and Ida Husted Harper contributed. It took 40 years to complete, according to Encyclopaedia Brittanica.

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5. "The Woman's Bible" by Stanton (1895)
Stanton's book merged religion and women's rights. Referring to the Bible, she wrote "I know no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman." The book caused so much controversy that National American Woman Suffrage Association feared it would hurt the women's suffrage movement because of its then-radical views, according to the National Women's History Museum.

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