The 19th Amendment Was Certified Into Law
On this day · 26 August 1920
After a 70-year fight, a single signature one quiet morning made women's suffrage part of the US Constitution.
On August 26, 1920, Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby signed the proclamation certifying the 19th Amendment, formally adding it to the US Constitution. The amendment barred states from denying the vote on account of sex, enfranchising tens of millions of American women.
The final hurdle had cleared eight days earlier, when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify on August 18, 1920, meeting the three-fourths threshold. The certified record traveled by train to Washington, arriving in the early hours of August 26. Colby signed it at roughly 8 a.m. at his home, without ceremony.
No suffrage leaders were present, and no cameras recorded the moment that ended a 70-year campaign.
The quiet act capped decades of marches, petitions, and protests led by figures like Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt. Though the amendment’s promise was unevenly realized, it remains a landmark expansion of American democracy.
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