Originally, the U.S. Constitution did not specifically deny women the right to vote; instead it deferred to individual state suffrage laws, allowing each state to determine who could and could not vote. Many states, including Arkansas, defined eligible voters as “male.”
In July 1848 at a convention in Seneca Falls, New York, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony issued the Declaration of Sentiments, calling for equal rights for women. It declared, “That it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.”
This declaration would be the beginning of a seventy-year struggle culminating in the 19th Amendment. To see the entire declaration, and learn more about women's suffrage in Arkansas, visit ARvotesforwomen.com.