Timeline of women's suffrage

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Suffrage parade, New York City, May 6, 1912.
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Women's suffrage - the right of women to vote - has been achieved at various times in countries throughout the world. In many nations women's suffrage was granted before universal suffrage, so women and men from certain classes or races were still unable to vote. Some countries granted it to both sexes at the same time.

This timeline lists years when women's suffrage was enacted. Some countries are listed more than once as the right was extended to more women according to age, land ownership, etc. In many cases the first voting took place in a subsequent year.

New Zealand in 1893 is often said to be the first country in the world to give women the right to vote. A contestant for being the first nation to grant women the right to vote would be Sweden, where conditional woman suffrage was granted during the age of liberty between 1718 and 1771 to taxpaying women listed in their guilds as professionals.[1]

For other women's rights, see Timeline of women's rights (other than voting).

18th century[edit]

  • 1718
    • Sweden Female taxpaying members of city guilds are allowed to vote in local elections (rescinded in 1758) and national elections (rescinded in the new constitution of 1771).[1]
  • 1755
  • 1756–1778
  • 1776
    • New Jersey propertied widows (rescinded in 1807)
  • 1795
    • Poland prior to the Partition of Poland in 1795, tax-paying females were allowed to take part in political life

19th century[edit]

  • 1838
    • Pitcairn Islands
  • 1861
    • South Australia (Only property-owning women for local elections universal franchise in 1894)
  • 1862
    • Sweden (only in local elections, votes graded after taxation, universal franchise in 1919, which went into effect at the 1921 elections)[3]
  • 1863
    • The Grand Principality of Finland was part of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917 and enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 1863, taxpaying women were granted municipal suffrage in the country side, and in 1872, the same reform was given to the cities[3]
  • 1864
Statue of Esther Hobart Morris in front of the Wyoming State Capitol
    • Women in Victoria, Australia were unintentionally enfranchised by the Electoral Act (1863), and proceeded to vote in the following year's elections. The Act was amended in 1865 to correct the error.[4]
    • In the former Kingdom of Bohemia, taxpaying women and women in "learned professions" were allowed to vote by proxy and made eligible to the legislative body in 1864.[3]
  • 1869
    • United Kingdom (only in local elections, universal franchise in 1928)
  • 1869–1920
    • States and territories of the USA, progressively, starting with the Wyoming Territory in 1869 and the Utah Territory in 1870, though the latter was repealed by the Edmunds-Tucker Act in 1887. Wyoming acquired statehood in 1890 (Utah in 1896), allowing women to cast votes in federal elections. The United States as a whole acquired women's suffrage in 1920 (see below) through the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution; voting qualifications in the U.S., even in federal elections, are set by the states, and this amendment prohibited states from discriminating on the basis of sex.
  • 1870
  • 1872
  • 1881
    • Isle of Man (only property-owners until 1913, universal franchise in 1919.)
  • 1884
    • Canada Widows and spinsters granted the right to vote within municipalities in Ontario (later to other provinces).[5]
  • 1889
    • Franceville grants universal suffrage.[6] Loses self-rule within months.
  • 1893
Tribute to the Suffragettes, Christchurch, New Zealand
    • Colorado
    • New Zealand (including Maori women; although women were barred from standing for election until 1919) [7]
    • Cook Islands
  • 1894
    • South Australia grants universal suffrage, extending the franchise to all women (property-owners could vote in local elections from 1861), the first in Australia to do so. Women are also granted the right to stand for parliament, making South Australia the first in the world to do so.
    • United Kingdom extends right to vote in local elections to married women.
  • 1896
    • Idaho
  • 1899
    • Western Australia

20th century[edit]

1900s[edit]

First Female Parliamentarians in the world were elected in Finland in 1907.
  • 1906
    • The Grand Principality of Finland was the first country to have universal suffrage. First country to give the right to vote and right to stand for elections to everyone of age regardless of wealth, race or social class.[8]
    • New Hebrides Perhaps inspired by the Franceville experiment, the Anglo-French Condominium of the New Hebrides granted women the right to vote in municipal elections and to serve on elected municipal councils. (These rights applied only to British, French, and other colonists, not to indigenous islanders.)[9]
The argument over women's rights in Victoria was lampooned in this Melbourne Punch cartoon of 1887
  • 1908
    • Denmark (only in local elections, with Iceland and the Faroe Islands)
    • Victoria

1910s[edit]

  • 1910
    • Washington
  • 1911
    • California
    • Argentina (A doctor, Julieta Lanteri, sued and won the right to vote)
  • 1912
    • Oregon
    • Kansas
    • Arizona
  • 1913
    • Alaska
    • Norway
  • 1914
    • Montana
    • Nevada
  • 1915
    • Denmark (full voting rights, with Iceland)
  • 1916
    • Manitoba
    • Saskatchewan
    • Alberta
  • 1917
  • 1918
    • Michigan
    • South Dakota
    • Oklahoma
    • Austria
    • Canada (for women over 21, and "not alien-born", and meeting provincially-determined property qualifications)
    • Nova Scotia
    •  Germany
    • Moldavian SSR
    • United Kingdom (see Representation of the People Act 1918: women above the age of 30, compared to 21 for men and 19 for those who had fought in World War One. Various property qualifications remained.)
  • 1919
    • Belgium (only at municipal level)
    • Georgia
    • Hungary (full suffrage granted in 1945)
    • Luxembourg
    • Netherlands (right to stand in election granted in 1917)
    • New Zealand (along with voting rights, women now allowed to stand for election into parliament)
    • New Brunswick (women could not stand for office in New Brunswick until 1934)
    • Minnesota
    • Southern Rhodesia (women now allowed to vote and stand for election into parliament)

1920s[edit]

  • 1920
    • Albania
    • Czechoslovakia
    • United States (all remaining states by amendment to federal Constitution)
  • 1921
    • Sweden
  • 1922
    • Irish Free State—now known as the Republic of Ireland—(equal suffrage granted upon independence from UK. Partial suffrage granted as part of UK in 1869 and 1918)
    • Prince Edward Island
    • Burma
    • Yucatán, Mexico (regional and congress elections only)
  • 1924
    • Ecuador (A doctor, Matilde Hidalgo de Prócel, sued and won the right to vote)
    • Spain (Vote for single women and widows in local elections. First women mayors)
    • Mongolia (No electoral system in place prior to this year)
    • Saint Lucia
    • Kazakh SSR
    • Tajik SSR
  • 1925
  • 1927
    • Turkmen SSR
    • Uruguay (Women's suffrage was broadcast for the first time in 1927, in the plebiscite of Cerro Chato)
  • 1928
    • United Kingdom (franchise equal to that for men)
  • 1929
    • Romania (local elections only, with restrictions)[10]
    • Puerto Rico (to vote)
    • Ecuador (The right of women to vote was written into the Constitution)

1930s[edit]

  • 1930
    • South Africa (Women's Enfranchisement Act, 1930; only granted to white women on the same basis as white men)
    • Turkey In Turkey women won the right to vote in municipal elections on March 20, 1930. Turkey holds first election that allows women to vote.[11] Turkish women who participated for the parliament elections as a first time on February 8, 1935 obtained 18 seats.
  • 1931
    • Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
    • Chile (only at municipal level for female owners of real estate; Legislative Decree No. 320)
    • Portugal (with restrictions following level of education)
    • Spain (universal suffrage)
  • 1932
  • 1934
    • Chile (only at municipal level; Law No. 5,357)
    • Cuba
    • Portugal expands suffrage
    • Tabasco, Mexico (regional and congress elections only)
  • 1935
    • British Raj (same year as men) (Retained by India and Pakistan after independence in 1947).
    • Burma [7]
  • 1937
  • 1938
    • Bolivia
    • Bulgaria (mothers only)
    • Uzbek SSR
  • 1939
    • El Salvador [7]

1940s[edit]

  • 1940
    • Quebec
  • 1941
  • 1942
    • Dominican Republic
  • 1944
    • Bermuda (property-holding women only)[12]
    • Bulgaria(full rights)
    • Jamaica
  • 1945
  • 1946
    • Cameroon
    • Djibouti (French Somaliland)
    • Guatemala
    • Kenya
    • North Korea[14]
    • Liberia (Americo women only; indigenous men and women were not enfranchised until 1951)
    • British Mandate for Palestine
    • Portugal expands suffrage
    • Romania (with restrictions)[citation needed]
    • Venezuela
    • Vietnam
  • 1947
    • Argentina[15]
    • Republic of China (includes Taiwan) (with restrictions)
    • Malta
    • Mexico (only at municipal level)
    • Nepal
    • Pakistan (Pakistan declared independence on the 14th of August 1947)
    • Singapore
  • 1948
    • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN includes Article 21: The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures. [16]
    • Belgium
    • Israel (Upon its establishment)
    • South Korea
    • Niger
    • Surinam
  • 1949
    • Chile (right expanded to all elections on January 8 by Law No. 9,292)
    • People's Republic of China
    • Costa Rica
    • Syria

1950s[edit]

  • 1950
    • Barbados
    • Haiti
    • India (Same year as men)
  • 1951
    • Antigua and Barbuda
    • Dominica
    • Grenada
    • Nepal
    • Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla
    • Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
  • 1952
    • United Nations enacts Convention on the Political Rights of Women
    • Bolivia
    • Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
    • Greece
    • Lebanon
  • 1953
    • Bhutan
    • British Guiana (now Guyana)
    • Mexico (extended to all women and for national elections)
  • 1954
    • British Honduras (now Belize)
    • Colombia
    • Gold Coast (now Ghana)
  • 1955
    • Cambodia
    • Ethiopia (and Eritrea, as then a part of Ethiopia)
    • Honduras
    • Nicaragua
    • Peru
  • 1956
  • 1957
  • 1958
    • Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso)
    • Chad
    • Guinea
    • Laos
    • Nigeria -South-
  • 1959

1960s[edit]

  • 1960
    • Cyprus (upon its establishment)
    • Gambia
    • Geneva
    • Tonga
  • 1961
    • Burundi
    • Mauritania
    • Malawi
    • Paraguay
    • Rwanda
    • Sierra Leone
  • 1962
    • Algeria
    • Australia: franchise extended to Aboriginal men and women.
    • Brunei Revoked (including men)
    • Monaco
    • Uganda
    • Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia)
  • 1963
  • 1964
  • 1965
  • 1966
  • 1967
  • 1968
    • Basel-Landschaft
    • Bermuda (universal)
    • Nauru
    • Portugal claims to have established "equality of political rights for men and women", although a few electoral rights were reserved for men
    • Swaziland

1970s[edit]

  • 1970
  • 1971
    • Switzerland (on the federal level; introduced on the Cantonal level from 1958–1990)
  • 1972
    • Bangladesh (upon its establishment)
  • 1973
    • Bahrain[20] (Bahrain did not hold elections until 2002)[21]
  • 1974
  • 1975
    • Angola
    • Cape Verde
    • Mozambique
    • São Tomé and Príncipe
    • Vanuatu (New Hebrides)
  • 1976
  • 1977
    • Guinea-Bissau
  • 1978
    • Marshall Islands
    • Federated States of Micronesia
    • Nigeria-North-
    • Palau

1980s[edit]

1990s[edit]

21st century[edit]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Suffragettes.
  1. ^ a b Karlsson-Sjögren, Åsa. Männen, kvinnorna och rösträtten : medborgarskap och representation 1723–1866 [Men, women and the vote: citizenship and representation 1723–1866] (in Swedish). 
  2. ^ Lydia Chapin Taft Biography Womens Suffrage by Frances Stanford | Humanities 360
  3. ^ a b c d P. Orman Ray: Woman Suffrage in Foreign Countries. The American Political Science Review. Vol. 12, No. 3 (Aug., 1918), pp. 469-474
  4. ^ "Women in Parliament - Parliament of Victoria". Parliament.vic.gov.au. Retrieved 2013-05-06. 
  5. ^ "Canada-WomensVote-WomenSuffrage". Faculty.marianopolis.edu. 1916-01-27. Retrieved 2013-05-06. 
  6. ^ "Wee, Small Republics: A Few Examples of Popular Government," Hawaiian Gazette, Nov 1, 1895, p 1
  7. ^ a b c d Women's Suffrage
  8. ^ http://www.aanioikeus.fi/en/articles/strike.htm
  9. ^ Bourdiol, Julien (1908), Condition internationale des Nouvelles-Hebrides, p 106
  10. ^ Popescu, Camelia. "Lupta pentru dreptul de vot feminin în România interbelică". Historia.ro. Adevărul Holding. Retrieved 4 January 2014. 
  11. ^ "This Day in World History: February 6, 1935 - Turkey Holds First Election That Allows Women to Vote". OUP Blog. 
  12. ^ "The Evolution of Bermuda's Franchise". Parliamentary Registry Bermuda. 
  13. ^ (Italian) Extension to the women of the right to vote
  14. ^ "Women's Suffrage". Ipu.org. 1997-05-23. Retrieved 2013-05-06. 
  15. ^ Gregory Hammond, The Women's Suffrage Movement and Feminism in Argentina From Roca to Peron (U of New Mexico Press; 2011)
  16. ^ The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  17. ^ "Pakistan Ministers". Guide2womenleaders.com. Retrieved 2013-05-06. 
  18. ^ "Woman Suffrage Timeline International - Winning the Vote Around the World". Womenshistory.about.com. 1908-04-25. Retrieved 2013-05-06. 
  19. ^ "El Voto Feminino en Ecuador, published 6 April 1991, accessed 1 November 2010". Hoy.com.ec. 2011-10-14. Retrieved 2013-05-06. 
  20. ^ a b Women's Suffrage
  21. ^ Darwish, Adel (October 25, 2002). "Bahrain's women vote for first time". The Daily Telegraph (London). Retrieved May 25, 2010. 
  22. ^ "Kuwait grants women right to vote". CNN. May 16, 2005. Retrieved 13 April 2014. 
  23. ^ "Women in Saudi Arabia 'to vote and run in elections'". BBC News (London). September 25, 2011. Retrieved September 25, 2011. 

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