Special Collections and Archives: Through the Decades with GSU Women: 1920-1929

1920

The number of female undergraduates in the U.S. doubled since 1910.

The Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor is formed to advocate for and keep statistics on women in the workforce

On August 26, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing American women the right to vote. It is signed into law in a ceremony to which the press and suffragists were not invited.

Georgia women do not get to vote in the November election because by law they can not vote until they are registered six months before an election; Georgia does not officially ratify the 19th Amendment until 1970.

Carrie Chapman Catt founds the League of Women Voters to educate the newly enfranchised voters about the issues. The League of Women Voters of Georgia is organized on April 3rd in Atlanta, Ga.

When black women try to register to vote in most southern states they face property tax requirements, literacy tests and other obstacles.

1921

The American Association of University Women is formed. The National League of Women Voters holds their regional conference in Atlanta.

1922

A woman from Cartersville, Georgia, Rebecca Lattimer Felton becomes the first female U.S. Senator although she serves only a one-day term.

1923

Elizabeth Baker, a teacher at Commercial High School, receives a B.S. degree in Commerce from the Evening School and becomes GSU's second woman graduate.

Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party succeed in having a constitutional amendment introduced in Congress which says: "Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction." In 1943 the wording is revised to what we know today as the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).

1924

The National Association of College Women is formed by black women, to parallel the AAUW. Nellie Taylor Ross of Wyoming becomes the first woman elected governor of a state.

1926

In Seattle, Bertha Knight Landes is the first woman elected mayor of a sizable U.S. city.

1928

The Berkshire Conference on the History of Women is organized by women as women's history is ignored by the American Historical Association.

1929

The U.S. stock market crashes.