On Aug. 26, 1920, eight days after it had been ratified, the 19th Amendment was declared in effect by Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby, giving female citizens the right to vote in all American elections.

The New York Times reported, “The half-century struggle for woman suffrage in the United States reached its climax at 8 o’clock this morning, when Bainbridge Colby, as secretary of state, issued his proclamation announcing that the 19th Amendment had become a part of the Constitution of the United States.”

The 19th Amendment was the culmination of the women’s suffrage movement, which dated to the mid-19th century. The movement had slowly won voting rights in individual states beginning with Wyoming in 1890. By 1919, 15 of the 48 states — primarily in the West — had full suffrage, while most others had limited suffrage, like only allowing women to vote in presidential elections.

The 19th Amendment, mandating full suffrage in all states, was first introduced to Congress in 1878. Forty-one years later, it was passed by both houses of Congress on June 4, 1919, and sent to the states for ratification.

Tennessee was the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment, giving it a two-thirds majority it needed to become law.

How Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on August 18, 1920, was a story in itself. Congress had passed the proposed amendment a year earlier, and it was supported by President Woodrow Wilson.

By the middle of 1920, 35 states had voted to ratify the amendment, but four other states—Connecticut, Vermont, North Carolina and Florida—refused to consider the resolution for various reasons, while the remaining states had rejected the amendment altogether.

So, Tennessee became the battleground to obtain the three-fourths of states needed to ratify the amendment. Harry T. Burn, a 24-year-old legislator, was set to vote against the amendment, but switched his vote on the Tennessee state house floor at the urging of his mother, assuring the 19th amendment’s ratification.

Yet, even after Burn’s deciding vote, anti-suffrage legislators tried desperately to nullify the previous vote.

America’s woman suffrage movement was founded in the mid 19th century by women who had become politically active through their work in the abolitionist and temperance movements. In July 1848, 200 woman suffragists, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, met in Seneca Falls, New York, to discuss women’s rights. After approving measures asserting the right of women to educational and employment opportunities, they passed a resolution that declared “it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.” For proclaiming a women’s right to vote, the Seneca Falls Convention was subjected to public ridicule, and some backers of women’s rights withdrew their support. However, the resolution marked the beginning of the woman suffrage movement in America.