PBS: The Final Battle for the 19th Amendment (1916-1920)

Mar 24, 2026 #WomensHistory #History #Voting

One hundred years after the passage of the 19th Amendment, THE VOTE tells the dramatic culmination story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote, a transformative cultural and political movement that resulted in the largest expansion of voting rights in U.S. history. Focusing primarily on the movement’s final decade, the film charts American women’s determined march to the ballot box, and illuminates the myriad social, political and cultural obstacles that stood in their path. THE VOTE delves into the controversies that divided the nation in the early 20th century — gender, race, state's rights, and political power — and reveals the fractious dynamics of social change.

PART TWO (1916-1920) examines the mounting dispute over strategy and tactics, and reveals how the pervasive racism of the time, particularly in the South, impacted women's fight for the vote. Stung by a string of bitter state-level defeats in the fall of 1915, the suffragists decided to concentrate their energies on the passage of a federal amendment.