Women's suffrage map

[°Leprechaun]

These were the states (Alaska was a territory) which allowed women to vote before the US Constitution allowed it in all 50* states.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women%27s_suffrage

* correction 48 states

[Thank you for being a friend...]

They probably didn't have a lot of opinion polls back then but I'd be curious to see what the polls looked like in the states during the 10s and then the 20s.  Of course the opinion polls might have been just voters (men in the states where women couldn't vote) too instead of including all of the state's potential voters if the amendment were to pass.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Always impressed by how strong the East-West divide was. I'm guessing the self-reliant Frontier ethos had something to do with it, but that seems reductive as an explanation.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Always impressed by how strong the East-West divide was. I'm guessing the self-reliant Frontier ethos had something to do with it, but that seems reductive as an explanation.

Before NY got it, it was literally the westernmost 9 states plus one of the 2 that tied for 10th.

[Skill and Chance]

There's even more going on here.  In order to enter the full suffrage category (what you have colored blue), it had to be passed by the legislature and then by (all-male) statewide referendum.  In this time, the legislatures were generally more supportive of giving women the vote than the male general public.  This article has a map of where (all-male) women's suffrage referendum votes were held and the result:

https://ballotpedia.org/State_women%27s_suffrage_ballot_measures

As you can see, 30 of the 48 legislatures voted to extend the vote to women, but it passed the all-male referendum only half the time.  In almost the entire Northeast, it was supported by the legislatures but failed the referendum.

However, there were intermediate steps the legislatures could take on their own without amending the state constitution, and many did.  Based on a version of the independent state legislature doctrine, state legislatures could unilaterally give women the vote in presidential elections, regardless of what the state constitution said.  And many did, starting with Illinois in 1916.  In Texas and Arkansas, the legislature gave women the right to vote in primary elections, which were considered more important than the general election by many in the South at the time.  Primary election rules could be altered by regular state laws without amending the state constitution. 

Here is a map that includes the intermediate steps.  Interestingly, it also skews very East/West:

[Skill and Chance]

They probably didn't have a lot of opinion polls back then but I'd be curious to see what the polls looked like in the states during the 10s and then the 20s.  Of course the opinion polls might have been just voters (men in the states where women couldn't vote) too instead of including all of the state's potential voters if the amendment were to pass.

There were a significant number of all-male referendum votes.  In general, it went from about 70% opposed in the 1880's to about evenly divided and narrowly passing in a bunch of places circa 1910.  This seems roughly equivalent to the pace of movement on gay rights issues from circa 1980 to circa 2010.

[Agonized-Statism]

Always impressed by how strong the East-West divide was. I'm guessing the self-reliant Frontier ethos had something to do with it, but that seems reductive as an explanation.

An interesting theory I've heard is that they wanted to encourage women to come out there to address the woman shortage. I could see some cowboy doing the math.

[Skill and Chance]

Always impressed by how strong the East-West divide was. I'm guessing the self-reliant Frontier ethos had something to do with it, but that seems reductive as an explanation.

An interesting theory I've heard is that they wanted to encourage women to come out there to address the woman shortage. I could see some cowboy doing the math.

At least for the first few states that passed it in the 19th century, "this will make it easier for you to find a wife" actually was part of the campaign argument for the referendum.