August 13

The women of Georgia finally got the right to vote on this day in 1921 when Governor Thomas Hardwick signed the act that made it official.

The suffrage movement had been slow to gain ground in the South. Many women joined men in arguing that there was no more important job than wife and mother, and that the dirty work of the political arena should be left to men alone. Others countered that there could be no real reform of child labor, education, or health care until women could participate in the process.

On the national level, when the women suffrage amendment was submitted to the states for ratification, Georgia was the first state to reject it. But when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify it in August 1920, it became the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Still, Georgia kept registration barriers in place that prevented women from voting in the 1920 presidential election.

Women didn’t vote in Georgia until 1922. With the governor’s signature, the long battle for equal suffrage finally ended in victory for Georgia women on August 13, 1921, Today in Georgia History.