Instituted by Rep. Bella Abzug and first established in 1971, Women's Equality Day commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment, the Woman Suffrage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gave U.S. women full voting rights in 1920.

19th Amendment

The 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote was certified as part of the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920. It was the culmination of a 72-year-long civil rights movement that originated at the world's first women's rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. Several generations of women's suffrage supporters wrote, lectured, marched, and lobbied to achieve what many Americans considered a radical change to the Constitution. Few early supporters lived to see victory in 1920.