1. Background information for teachers:

While the Constitutional Convention of 1901 debated how best to restrict suffrage among adult males, a group of Alabama women in the Huntsville area petitioned the delegates to grant adult females the right to vote. Although largely a national movement, a state women's suffrage club had been increasingly active since its 1892 formation. Supported by literature and a petition from Elizabeth Cady Stanton's and Susan B. Anthony's National American Woman Suffrage Association, the president of the Alabama auxiliary was allowed to address the 1901 Convention.

A subsequent vote on including a women's suffrage provision failed passage by a four-to-one margin. The fact that four states in the U.S. allowed women equal voting rights as men swayed few delegates, most of whom accepted the prevailing notion about politics being unsuited for women. Not a few probably agreed with the sentiments of delegate (and future U.S. Senator) Tom Heflin that the whole idea was the work of "a few cranks strolling over the state."

With the defeat of their suffrage proposal in 1901, the women's suffrage club died. It would be reborn in 1910, but with little success over the next decade. Alabama women gained the right to vote only in 1920 when the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified by the requisite three-fourths of the states (not including Alabama).

2. Learning Objectives: