First-wave feminism

First-wave feminism was a movement prominent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that campaigned chiefly for women’s legal and political rights, including suffrage.

Mary Wollstonecraft: An English writer whose 1792 book argued that women deserved education and equal moral and civic standing. Her arguments supplied an influential earlier case for women’s equality.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton: A U.S. women’s rights organizer and writer who helped convene the Seneca Falls Convention. She framed demands for legal equality and suffrage in the U.S. movement.
Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution: The 1920 U.S. constitutional amendment prohibiting denial of voting rights on the basis of sex. Its ratification secured a formal constitutional guarantee but did not end racial barriers to voting.
Women's suffrage: The campaign for women’s right to vote in political elections. Its broad coalition could conceal disagreement over whose voting rights came first.
Seneca Falls Convention: An 1848 women’s rights convention in New York that issued the Declaration of Sentiments. It helped launch organized women’s rights activism in the United States.
Susan B. Anthony: A U.S. reformer who campaigned for women’s suffrage and helped lead national organizing efforts. Her organizing made women’s voting rights a sustained political campaign.
Representation of the People Act 1928: A British law that extended equal voting rights to women aged 21 and older. It removed the age and qualification inequalities left by the 1918 settlement.
Women's Social and Political Union: A British women’s suffrage organization founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. Its militant approach contrasted with suffragists’ constitutional campaigning.
Declaration of Sentiments: A statement adopted at Seneca Falls in 1848 that demanded equal rights and listed grievances against women’s subordination. Its demands established an early platform for the movement’s legal and political campaigns.
Sojourner Truth: A formerly enslaved Black abolitionist and women’s rights speaker in the United States. Her activism exposed how race and gender shaped claims to rights.

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