“The American women suffrage movement was an arduous battle, beginning prior to the Civil War and lasting until the adoption of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution after the Great War. Most of the women who began this earnest fight did not live long enough to finally place a ballot, and those that joined the initial fight as youths were old and feeble when women were finally enfranchised. They fought an unjust society dominated by white men for three quarters of a century in efforts to entitle women with the vote. The foremost fighters, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Victoria Woodhull, to name a few, were women before their time. The women’s reform movement was founded on basic principles of female equality. They wanted better pay and working conditions for women, increased rights in divorce and marriage, the opportunity to legally obtain property, and the recognition of women under the law. Most importantly, At the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 Stanton resolved ?that it is the duty of the women of this country to secure themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise. From this movement grew the American Equal Rights Association (AERA), committed to the abolition of slavery, the betterment of urban industrial conditions, and general moral reform in society, combined with the duty of securing female suffrage.”